Paying it forward: just back from Caribbean Princess

On Mar 25, 9:24*am, D Ball wrote:
, we were physically separated from the overall din of the
main body of the dining room, and Attila and Ashok took great care of
us and, as it turned out, several tables of nightly regulars.

Attila ??? Attila Zoltan maybe ??? A waiter we had on the Pac Princess
several years ago ... He was remarkable ... great waiter with a wry
sense of humor and looks resembling Randy Quaid ... Our most memorable
waiter ever ... Attila is not exactly a common name ... so could it
have been him ??

On Mar 25, 9:53*am, number6 wrote:
main body of the dining room, and Attila and Ashok took great care of
us and, as it turned out, several tables of nightly regulars.

Attila ??? Attila Zoltan maybe ??? A waiter we had on the Pac Princess
several years ago ... He was remarkable ... great waiter with a wry
sense of humor and looks resembling Randy Quaid ... Our most memorable
waiter ever ... Attila is not exactly a common name ... so could it
have been him ??

Hi, number6. It must've been the same Attila! We didn't get his last
name, but I think by your description (I see the Randy resemblence,
but Attila seemed younger and thinner, or at least that's how I view
just about everyone these days, LOL), and particularly your comment on
his wry sense of humor, it must be the same Attila. He was from
Hungary, a senior waiter of some status (e.g., he led the galley tour
and says he does it most cruises), and just an awesome guy generally.
We chose him for our "You Made A Difference" card (or whatever that
thing is called). And the fact that we so enjoyed being with him (and
his able assistant Ashok, a young, articulate fellow with his own dry
wit) definitely factored into our decision to eat in the dining room
every night and skip our usual trip to a specialty restaurant.

I am glad to know his full name. I wish there was a way to find out
where those star staffers go when they switch ships. I wonder if the
cruise lines appreciate how staffing might influence an experienced
client's booking decision, i.e., After you cruise a certain threshold
number of times (that number will vary person to person, of course),
the reasons you select ship A over ship B for what I'll call a
"routine Caribbean cruise" change, and I, personally, would give
serious weight to the personnel factor if I know Attila Zoltan was on
ship A. It sounds like you might do the same sort of thing, number6?

Take care, good to hear from you. Are you are cruising in Europe again
soon? European cruises sure seem to offer the best value at the
moment.

Diana

On Mar 25, 11:33*am, D Ball wrote:
I, personally, would give
serious weight to the personnel factor if I know Attila Zoltan was on
ship A. It sounds like you might do the same sort of thing, number6?

I surely would ... I'd ask for him specifically ... really made dining
enjoyable and memorable on several levels ...
Your mentioning him brought back some fond memories ...

Take care, good to hear from you. Are you are cruising in Europe again
soon? European cruises sure seem to offer the best value at the
moment.

Just got back from the Transatlantic/Iberian Peninsula/Barcelona
vacation ... Haven't had time to write a complete review yet ... but
it really was a great time all around ... Especially 6 days of pure
relaxation while on the high seas for my retail manager wife after
Christmas, post Christmas returns and inventory ... interesting
ports ... and 3 days in Barcelona ...

I'll get to the review soon ...

welcome back!!
sheree

"D Ball" wrote in message
...
Hi, all,

We just returned from a week on the Caribbean Princess, and I thought
I'd share a few impressions in case anyone is going soon and has
questions. This is my way of "paying it forward" for the generous help
I received from Lola. She and John did the Caribbean Princess over New
Year's and posted on their return. When we booked our Caribbean
Princess trip in February, I immediately emailed Lola for pointers.
Thanks, Lola, for all the great info and tips!

We cruised March 16-23 out of Ft. Lauderdale with stops in Princess
Cays, St. Maarten and St. Thomas. This was a peak Spring Break week,
as well as the week ending on Easter Sunday, so the demographics were
heavy on extended families. There were roughly 750 kids under 18
aboard, and they expected 950 during the current Easter week! Because
we were cruising with our teens and their grandmother, our party of
five fit right in, and honestly, I thought the crowd was fairly well
behaved...considering. But it wasn't a week to suit everyone's tastes.
It was loud and a bit raucous a lot of the time, there were little
ones to trip over, slow pokes to navigate around (including our own
slow poke!) and a precious few seats by the pool, in the theatre and
alongside the buffet to fight over.

The surprise disappointment was we experienced "March in like a lion"
weather, with many gray, cool and windy days. The seas were moderate,
which caused some tender delays at Princess Cays, late docking at St.
Maarten and cancellation of a number of excursions. It was too rough
to snorkel anywhere, and the surf was so wicked at Coki Beach on St.
Thomas, we had to pull our lounge chairs way up on the beach to stay
dry!

Speaking of port stops, we discovered one of our favorite excursions
ever: the America's Cup sailing race in St. Maarten. No experience
required, quite thrilling! www.12metre.com The $25 beach cabana
shading 2 loungers was well worth the money on Princess Cays (Tom K.
said he found shade, but then he visited Princess Cays with the hoity
toity QM2 group, LOL--there wasn't a lick of shaded beach to be found
when we arrived with the masses). Note, at the newer Crown Bay cruise
dock in St. Thomas (a 15-20 minute walk from downtown Charlotte
Amalie), the going rate for a taxi to Magens Bay is $9 per person and
to Coki Beach is $10 per person. Those are one way charges. Coki
doesn't charge admission, but a beach lounger is $5.

High points about our Caribbean Princess experience: Consistently
excellent dining room food, including a nice variety of vegetarian
offerings on every menu (I'm hitting the cooking sites next in search
of a recipe for goat cheese souffle with garlic sabayon sauce...it was
to die for); super evening wait staff; thoughtful cabin service;
complimentary steam and sauna (some ships assess a fee); and terrific
selection of movies shown in the theatre, on the big screen by the
pool (Movies Under The Stars, complete with blankets and popcorn) and
in your stateroom (yes, we did a lot of vegging this cruise). Oh yeah,
we won some of the best plastic cruise line stuff yet at trivia, and
the piano bar crooner dedicated a song to my MIL each night, which was
sweet.

Low points: Entertainment was lousy; inadequate seating for the large
number of people this big ship carries; purser's staff never got our
key cards straightened out; and persistent sewage smell on Aloha deck,
port side, to the aft...right by our cabins, of course!

Curiosity: For those of you who have cruised with Princess, doesn't it
drive you nuts that they don't publish the dining locations/hours in
the daily Patter? There is a card reviewing dining options stuck in
the front of the big guest services binder on the desk...if you find it,
are you supposed to carry it? memorize it? consult it each morning and
plan ahead?

That pretty much covers everything notable about our Caribbean
Princess cruise. We lost some money in the casino, took some decent
family photos both formal nights and never fired up the computer (but
got voice and data service from Sprint and ATT in St. Thomas, and
unless I'm reading the online account summary incorrectly, it appears
we didn't incur any additional charges for that service). All in all,
we enjoyed a much-needed, low key week being pampered by Princess...life
doesn't get much better than that.

If anyone has questions, I will be happy to try to answer them.

Diana Ball
Austin, TX

(D*Ball) wrote:

Hi, Jeff, nice to hear from you,

Same back at you.

Honestly, I don't recall having the same
theatre over-crowding problem on other
Princess ships (we've been on two Sun-class
ships and two Grand-class ships, including the
Star Princess). But if you found that to be the
case on the Star in the Baltics, then perhaps
Princess does need to pay more attention to
theatre capacity in its new builds. I had quickly
read a few reviews of the Caribbean Princess
before we left to see if I could pick up on any t
rends in the comments, and the theatre
crowding was mentioned often, with the tip to
go as early as possible before show time to
get a seat.

We definitely had that problem on the Star Princess. My wife traced the
start of her migraine to the time we had to stand in the back of the
theater.

I have read some Princess reviews that also mentioned theater crowding,
and again they were probably reviews of the Star Princess.

As for Royal Caribbean, we've been on the
Liberty in the Freedom class, two of the
Explorer-class chips and a Vision-class ship,
and I don't recall theatre over-crowding being
an issue, but I stand to be corrected. For our
family's tastes and interests, Royal Caribbean
offers the best entertainment on the seas, so
we can be found in the theatre almost any
given night of a Royal Caribbean cruise.

We've been on the Enchantment of the Seas and Splendour of the Seas.
Those are vision class, I believe. We did not experience any theater
overcrowding problems on either of them. I wonder if traditional dining
with 2 shows pegged to work with the dining times is at least part of
the reason there is no problem.

Are you cruising this year, Jeff?

Nothing planned now. We were considering a quickie 2 day NCL cruise from
NY next month, but it ran into Passover. And we discovered that they did
NOTHING. I did not need a real seder, just some accommodation.

My wife has said no major cruises this year. I wish I had forced on on
her during President's week. Instead she took a walk, slipped on ice and
fractured her right elbow. She is slowly recovering from the surgery.

Maybe if we get another last minute offer (like we did in December) for
that short NCL cruise and she continues to recover, we'll book it to
celebrate.

Maybe in the future, we'll be looking at the Greek isles. My wife also
wants Florence either on a cruise or a longer land vacation.

Been on several princess ships,do they all have a wheelhouse bar? We
really liked the 2 bands they had there on several of our cruises.Made
for good dance music,something hard to find on a lot of ships.
surfer e2468


cruise lover

"D Ball" wrote in message
...

So, thanks for reading my review. Where are you going next, Boomer?

Diana

We don't cruise from late spring to early Oct after the hurricane season.
Our next two are the Panama canal (Island Princess) in Late Oct & the
Emerald Princess in Dec. (Caribbean). I would book another for the future
but we have some airline travel miles we have to use & I think we'll take a
trip to southern Texas. I've never had the chance to visit lots of neat
places I've only read about or seen on TV.

"D Ball" wrote in message
...
On Mar 25, 6:09 am, "Boomer" wrote:


No, we were the only ship that called on Princess Cays that day. You
are right, it was confusing the way I wrote it. Sorry. I was just
teasing Tom K, who recently visited Princess Cays while on a Queen
Mary 2 cruise. Because he and I are both fair and require lots of sun
protection, I asked him about the cabanas...that's where I got the
lore on "plenty of shade" to be found, which wasn't my experience!

Did you walk left once you got off the tenders? The opposite side from
where the Cabanas are? That's where we found the shade.

--Tom

On Mar 25, 2:12*pm, "sheree" wrote:
welcome back!!
sheree

Hi, Sheree! I haven't been on much this spring, so totally missed the
reports of your "free" NCL cruise over President's Week, I think it
was. Did you have a good time?

I do see in another thread you are gearing up for the Baltics this
summer. Or is it a Northern European itinerary? I'm confused between
London (wasn't that supposed to be a separate trip??!) and Amsterdam,
LOL. Anyway, always love watching you work to get ready, you make it
look so easy!

Take care,

Diana

PS-I think Marty would love the sailing regatta, so don't forget that
one for the next time you hit St. Maarten! Lizzy surprised us all by
loving it so much, she wants to haul out our little sail boat and take
lessons. Go figure...you never know with these kids!

On Mar 25, 3:25*pm, (Jeff Gersten) wrote:
My wife has said no major cruises this year. I wish I had forced on on
her during President's week. Instead she took a walk, slipped on ice and
fractured her right elbow. She is slowly recovering from the surgery.

Maybe if we get another last minute offer (like we did in December) for
that short NCL cruise and she continues to recover, we'll book it to
celebrate.

Maybe in the future, we'll be looking at the Greek isles. My wife also
wants Florence either on a cruise or a longer land vacation.

Jeff, what a bummer for your wife to have fractured her elbow and
required surgery. That'll teach her to ignore your cruise offers! But
I love your future wanderings ideas. I have searched several times for
just the right Greek Isles cruise, without success, but it seems there
are more offerings now than the last time I investigated. After our
wonderful trip on a small boat in the Med off the southern coast of
Turkey last year, I am more interested than ever in cruising the Greek
Isles. And you can never go wrong with a land trip to Italy. I am sure
I have mentioned it before, so forgive me for repeating, but I love
Italy so much, I try to squeeze it into any itinerary--and my husband
keeps saying, if you keep going back to Italy, you'll never see the
rest of the world!

Hope that serendipitous cruise comes along for you just like the
Caribbean Princess did for us....

Diana