Diamond Princess
Sail date: July 31, 2010
My partner and I recently got back from the Diamond Princess Inside Passage Alaskan cruise. Compared to other cruise ships taken in the past, on both the low and high end scale, this did not meet our expectations. While the optional shore excursions that we took through Princess were exceptional, the ship itself was not. We elected anytime dining, as some of our shore excursions went well into the evening. We dined at several of the restaurants onboard where we found the food to be on par with food at a substandard restaurant. The service was poor. We would have to "flag down" a waiter literally every time we went to dinner. We would have an average of a 30 minute wait for the restaurants. Finally, we decided to just eat at the buffet to avoid having to wait. At the buffet if we went during dinner time (6-8pm) we never found a table to eat on. The ship overall was overcrowded and they did not have nearly enough staff (or tables) to accomodate so many guests. The restaurants (including the buffet) were all closed by 10pm. The room service menu was also very limited. The ship itself reminded me of a Las Vegas casino in the 1970's. Mostly a lot of older people and not many activities geared towards people under 70. We met several other guests who had the same feedback. When we departed the ship and stayed at the Captain Cook Hotel in Anchorage which a lot of Princess guests were staying at, several Cook staff members that we spoke to stated that many of the Diamond Princess guests were dissatisfied with their cruise and were complaining to Princess. Overall, Alaska was beautiful and like I stated earlier the shore excursions were amazing but definitely go with another line such as Norwegian or Holland America.