Supplement to Travel Trade
March 2005

Caribbean Princess:
The Flavor of The Islands On Board

By Marilyn Green

There’s a beautiful new “island” in the Caribbean that moves from Ft. Lauderdale through its sister islands to the sounds of steel drums, life in the sun and the fragrance of jerk chicken and guiana pepperpots.

With a permanent home in the Caribbean, Princess Cruises’ Caribbean Princess has gone to great lengths to bring the flavor of the islands on board. A piquant Caribbean buffet offers a changing selection of regional specialties, Caribbean music washes over the decks and a special Latin stage show plus an unusually strong emphasis on life outdoors gives the ship a quality that matches its cruising grounds.

Passengers on Caribbean Princess spend much of each day outdoors, gathering around the Calypso Reef and Pool area for food, dancing, sun and fun in the water. Even movies are brought into the soft Caribbean air with the new and unique “Movies Under the Stars,” which has turned into “Movies Under the Sun” as well, as the ship recently began featuring daytime movies along with the evening ones.

The huge Times Square-style 300-square foot LED screen is placed high above its poolside bar so the comings and goings of passengers enjoying the main Calypso Pool doesn’t interrupt the view. During the day there are no reservations needed and films tend to be family fare; even in the brilliant tropical sunlight the images and colors are clear and the sound is excellent. In the evenings, passengers reserve lounge chairs for the early and late shows — there is no cost, but reservations and the colorful tickets that follow keep the numbers in line. The evening experience is particularly delightful; moviegoers relax in chaise lounges, tucked in with plaid wool throws while popcorn, snacks and drinks circulate.

The Neptune Reef and Pool on the same deck is quieter, with sunbathers and swimmers enjoying the mosaics and lounge chairs, and card games and impromptu snacks popular at the tables on the side.

Indoors the Caribbean reigns as well with “Caribbean Caliente,” a new stage show designed specially for the Caribbean Princess featuring music from Cuba, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Miami, Mexico and other Latin American countries. Songs and dance numbers include hits made famous by Enrique Iglesias, Gloria Estefan, Tito Puente and Bob Marley. The Broadway-style Princess Theater has a 36-foot proscenium arch stage, ideal for the ship’s production shows. All three main show lounges, offering both theater and cabaret shows, were popular on our cruise, and passengers enjoyed the smaller ensembles playing in lounges and bars, the featured comedian and the karaoke bar.

Crooners, the ship’s 1960s-style martini bar based on the Las Vegas “Rat Pack” era, serves more than 50 kinds of martinis, and one guest told me he had tried them all. The larger Wheelhouse Bar, a Princess tradition, is decorated with memorabilia from the company’s long maritime history, with dancing and cocktails at night. The sizeable and exotic Explorers Lounge showcases cabaret, comedy and magic shows.

The cigar lounge and sports bar are combined on Caribbean Princess in the Churchill Lounge, with its collection of sports memorabilia, while the high tech Club Fusion brings together New York nightclub atmosphere and Las Vegas style.

Passengers loved the glass-enclosed moving sidewalk to Skywalkers, a fantasy nightclub suspended 150 feet above the water in the back of the ship (“Better than the Yellow Brick Road,” one commented). The observation lounge by day, the space is transformed by colorful lighting effects, video and sound at night.

The Grand Casino saw a great deal of action every evening and most afternoons, drawn by the Vegas-style casino games, including popular table games and more than 260 slot machines.

Dancing filled the ship day and night: swing dancing, disco, line dancing and Latin dances, which were taught in daytime lessons for evening pleasure. Sailaways really should have been called dance and splashaways, although many lined up at the rail to see the spectacular maneuvering out of Sint Maarten, where the captain appeared to levitate the ship out deftly among five other megaships at the dock.

Fueling the Caribbean fun on board is the Café Caribe at the aft end of the ship’s Horizon Court area. The menu on any given day showcases Grilled Caribbean Rock Lobster, Paella-Style Prawns, Whole Roast Suckling Pig, Jerk Chicken, Guiana Pepperpots or island curries in colorful Caribbean décor. The open kitchen allows guests to order their chosen dishes cooked to their specifications.

The line’s signature Personal Choice Dining offers a choice between the restaurant-style Anytime Dining and traditional fixed seating. The ship has three main dining rooms, with the Coral and Palm Dining rooms available for Anytime Dining, and the Island Dining Room catering to passengers who prefer the same time and table for dining rooms meals each evening. All three feature warm woods and colors and well chosen artwork.

There are two alternative restaurants with a fee, both of them heavily reserved for good reason. Trattoria Sabatini serves eight courses of Italian heaven; the antipasti are so good and so rich that the rest is a triumph of desire over capacity.

Patrons of the Sterling Steakhouse are awed by the famous “Sterling Silver” brand of beef, along with delicious side dishes and wines; the service is omniscient and extremely thoughtful.

An unusual and romantic dining option is the Ultimate Balcony Dinner/Breakfast, where guests have a special meal delivered right to their own private balcony. The Ultimate Balcony Dinner is a full evening featuring a hosted cocktail party, fresh flowers, champagne and a deluxe four-course meal featuring sweet lobster tail for $50 per person.

The Ultimate Balcony Breakfast includes Cuban specialty pastries, fruit salad served in a pineapple half, chilled marinated shrimp with papaya relish, warm egg and tomato pie with cheese gratin and a half bottle of French champagne for $25 per couple.

The 24-hour Horizon Court is really outstanding, with very fresh salads and vegetable dishes and fruit selections ranging from dried apricots and figs to fresh pineapple and melon slices and huge strawberries dipped in white and dark chocolate. Pastries and breads are particularly good, and there are no buffet lines, since everything is broken up into islands.

Prego, the poolside pizzeria, and the Trident hamburger and hot dog grill seemed to be in perpetual motion, and the Scoops Ice Cream sundae bar was a direct route to guilt with concoctions like their outrageous Death by Chocolate. The pastries and coffees in the Promenade Lounge and the 24-hour room service were both used very heavily except on formal nights.

Probably these last temptations made the fitness room and spa so extremely popular. There was hardly a moment in the day when there wasn’t a substantial number of passengers using the resistance equipment, booking massages, facials and wraps and taking yoga, aerobics and Pilates classes.

The Lotus Spa aboard Caribbean Princess was the first in-house cruise ship spa, designed with sea-based treatments and services designed for both men and women, with some special services for teens, and custom staff uniforms designed by Los Angeles fashion designer Sue Wong. However, a few months in the spa was retooled for Steiner, which provides spa services for Princess’ other ships.

Facilities include 14 massage therapy rooms, a thermal relaxation suite, steam and sauna. The fitness center includes 35 cardiovascular stations, 17 weight-strength training stations, 17 personal LCD flat screens and 12 spinning cycles. The outdoor jogging track, sports court and golfing program showed heavy use, as well, generally mornings and late afternoons.
Families are a very substantial part of Caribbean Princess’ passengers, and Princess Kids has new programming on the ship, including a wonderful Kids’ Fair with 12 booths where children can enjoy toy demonstrations, face painting, hair braiding and a “tattoo” parlor. They celebrate their altered appearance in pictures with the program’s Pelican Pete and enjoy popcorn, cupcake decorating, lemonade and candy and caramel apples.

Younger children have indoor and outdoor play areas and a splash pool; teens have their own disco and an extensive schedule of activities. The video arcade was in use constantly.

Adults tend to congregate in the Grand Plaza’s three-story atrium with glass elevators moving through a grill of aquatic animals and rising bubbles. The space is dotted with passengers relaxing on sofas and using the wireless Internet access. The lobby bar is a meeting place before dinner and the shows.

The ship’s library has an excellent selection of recent books, both fiction and nonfiction, and board games were popular with younger cruisers and their families. The Princess listening chairs, blissful leather easy chairs with their own sound systems for CDs, are also in the library, as are some computer stations in addition to those in the 24-hour Internet café.

Five duty-free, tax-free boutiques sell fashion, fragrances, cosmetics, liquor, tobacco and Princess logo apparel, and the jewelry store is really spectacular, with items ranging from a few dollars to $40,000.

The ship’s Hearts and Minds Wedding Chapel is used for Princess’ wedding-at-sea program and renewal-of-vows ceremonies, with full Internet “wedding cam” capabilities.

When passengers return to their cabins aboard Caribbean Princess, a huge number come back to their private balconies, graduated so sunbathers can catch rays from each balcony’s lounge chairs. Eighty percent of the outside cabins — 881 of them — enjoy private balconies. Twenty-five of these are suites measuring 461-1,279 square feet. Private balconies are also features of the 181 324 square-foot mini-suites and 674 balcony cabins 233-285 square feet in size.

Ocean view cabins run 158-182 square feet and inside cabins 163 square feet. Standard cabins have twin/queen size bed configuration, refrigerator, safe, ample closet and drawer space and color televisions with movies, CNN, ESPN, TNT, CNBC, BBC and Discovery Channel, along with ship information. Warm honey-toned woods and soft colors are used in the staterooms.

Suites and mini-suites have separate sitting areas with sofabeds, two televisions and a walk-in closet plus bathrooms with tub and shower and whirlpool baths in the suites. Grand Suites also have separate dining areas and wet bars.

Caribbean Princess has two family suites, set up with two staterooms connecting through a living room and two bathrooms.
The ship was very popular with inexperienced cruises, and on my mid-February cruise fully two thirds of the passengers were first-timers for Princess. Caribbean Princess’ 7-day eastern Caribbean calls in St. Thomas, Sint Maarten and Princess Cays.