We have just back from a wonderful cruise on the Crown Princess.
Cabin C242 on Caribe deck.
Lovely big balcony and comfortable spotlessly clean cabin.
We enjoyed all of the Caribbean destinations we went to which were St Kitts, Barbados, Antigua, St Thomas, Grand Turk and Martinique.
it was raining in Martinique so we did not explore this island much but would suggest that you book a trip if going to this island as there is not much around the port area.
All the other islands (which we have visited frequently) you can easily explore independently as there are taxis and tour vendors at each port.
Taxi transfers to the beach are around $6 each person.
Each way.
Trips from $15-20 per person.
The Crown Princess is a nice ship, and well maintained.
She is the sister ship of the Ruby, Caribbean, and Emerald Princess ships as well as P&O Azura and Ventura.
There is great entertainment day and evening, the Princess Theatre company put on excellent shoes and the guest entertainers are some of the best we have seen on board cruise ships.
Food was good, not outstanding and perfectly adequate, desserts from the ‘chocolate journey’ menu are amazing if like me you love chocolate.
I would advise freedom dining as the dining times have changed to 5.30 early sitting and 7.15 late sitting and can conflict with entertainment and events occurring around the ship, plus on later port departures you will miss the sailaways.
Dress codes for the following day are printed in your ‘Princess Patter’ paper that is delivered to your cabin every evening.
The dress codes are smart casual ( suggestion being to wear what you would wear to a nice restaurant at home) or formal (men suits, tuxedos or military uniforms, ladies suggested attire is elegant evening wear including evening gowns, cocktail dresses or trousers / tops/ skirts / jumpsuits etc) Only two formal nights on our 10 night cruise.
The formal nights were not as well subscribed to on this cruise, I would estimate that 60% were wearing formal attire, in comparison to 80% on the Regal Princess last year.
Some people were still wearing their beach attire in the evenings even on formal nights.
For those that did follow the formal dress code including us, it was lovely to see everyone that made the effort looking very nice and embracing the formal nightAmbience on board.
Lots of ladies wearing long evening dresses.
The main restaurants do have a dress code that no shorts or tee shirts for men are allowed in the evenings in the dining rooms, however we saw the head waiter having heated discussions with some male passengers who would not adhere to the dress codes and were asked to return to the restaurant appropriately dressed.
The buffet restaurant has no evening dress code so there are options for those who do not want to dress up.
