Pacific Princess Review
Obstructed View Balcony Cabin (BY)
Rating by category
Additional details
We took this cruise because it was one of only a handful of cruises that visited El Salvador. We felt El Salvador was a bit too dangerous to visit on our own, and a day excursion with a large group seemed the best/safest way to get a flavor of the country.
The stop in Aruba was pretty ordinary. Curacao would have been a more interesting destination. The stop in Santa Marta was disappointing. Not a lot to see. The canal (our third passage) was its usual best, since we had good weather for the entire day.
The stop in San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua was nice. We opted for the Grenada/Volcanos excursion, and the volcano did not disappoint! It was rare to see glowing red lava actually flowing, so that was a treat! We only had 45 minutes at the Masaya Market, which was way too short to do any real shopping -- it was basically rush through, and grab last-minute items before being herded back to the bus.
Cabin Review
Balcony (partially obstructed view)
Against the advice of our travel agent, we opted to save $600 by opting for the "guaranteed obstructed view or better", even though we did NOT want an obstructed view. We felt our Elite status would elevate us from the only 4 cabins which had obstructed views.
As luck (Princess?) would have it, we were not upgraded -- in fact, we got the WORST of the 4 cabins! There are only two BY cabins on Deck 6, and two on Deck 7. They are at the very stern of the ship, just ahead of the rear-view facing suites. As Deck 6 is lower down, it gets more of the engine/propeller vibration, and it was dreadful -- almost all of the time. The only respite was when we left Aruba, as we had short distances to go for the next two days, and the Pacific Princess cruised at 11 knots instead of the 17 knots it maintained for the rest of the cruise.
We also had an ongoing problem with the toilet, which seemed to "back fill" from adjoining toilets. After two attempts for the maintenance department to fix the problem, we were forced to flush the toilet before lifting the lid each time, to avoid a most unpleasant "surprise" . . .
Our cabin attendant, Jay was superb -- one of the best we've had, on 16 Princess cruises.
The TV was a joke. It was tiny, and you had to stand directly in front of it -- at eye level -- to get a bright image. You couldn't tilt the tv screen down, so that it was equally bright from the bed. Have you ever watched an entire NBA playoff game standing up? The ship doesn't have a public area where you can watch tv (like a sports bar, or movie room), so you are relegated to your cabin tv. Watching on your cell phone would have been preferable!