Europe Cruise Reviews

My opinion of the cruise was excellent, I enjoyed the food, the kind and helpful people who worked on the cruise.  Italy was more than I expected.

I appreciated the invitation to visit the area of the ship where the food was prepared. What a tremendous job being done there.  

Thoroughly enjoyed every aspect of the cruise. The crew and staff were very friendly and attentive to our needs. The ports visited were very interesting and provided great educational and well as enjoyable excursions. Our trip was in early May. The weather was surprisingly pleasant. Sunny skies at least part of every day. Temperature for day time highs ranged from the mid 50', to low 60's. I highly recommend this tour. We have enjoyed our experiences on fifteen cruises. This one ranks among the best.

This cruise has been a long time dream, and it came true. Caribbean Princess was a great ship, as all the Princess ships I've been to. A few disappointments. We were 3 seniors in a stateroom and in it had a bunk bed. We did not realize the third bed would be a bunk. Imagine us climbing the ladder... The ladder was situated where it was in the way if we needed to use the bathroom in the middle of the night. Perhaps, Princess should pay attention to ages, if 3 or more, and advise and recommend passengers-to-be the type of stateroom/suite, especially for seniors. On first formal evening, which was second night on sea, brother in law was told by headwaiter (will not name him) he needed to wear a long sleeve. He is of Hawaiian descent and was wearing a "formal" Hawaiian shirt, short sleeve (how else in Hawaii?). Brother in law felt insulted and didn't join us and put a damper to our evening. The rest of us (in our table) had already entered the dining room and didn't know he wasn't joining us until my sister came in and told us; otherwise we wouldn't have gone in either. There was no mention of what type of "formal" it was to be on the Patter. It did on the second formal evening (on the Patter) that stated "for the enjoyment of others". Why would we or for anyone else in the dining room care for the enjoyment of others, we're there for our enjoyment.

Perhaps ship photos should not be charged so high. I noticed there were a lot of pictures left on the walls, and it may be because the price is high.

The cruise over all was a good experience. The staff needs more training on customer service. but the over all was not bad. some ports need to be replaced with more fun ones. 

my favorite part of this cruise was when it was over. There was nothing but long lines.All of the help did not know the correct answer to any question .We did not go to the Azores because they were unable to dock .When we got to France they put a 3 foot wide gang plank out for 4000 people to get off on after waiting for 3 hours we were finally at the gang plank they informed me they had no wheel chair i am handicapped  and had to walk down this rickety old gang plank .After getting to spend 3 hours in France back to the dredfull .ship  .Our next stop was England where we stood in line for 4 more hours waiting to get through customs. When we got back on we were informed that we were also not going to stop   Belgum because of a broken part. During the time on the ship my husband had to stand on line for 3 hours to purchase internet service he said you could have taken any high school student and they would have handled it better  why there was only one person there is far beyond me . Oh yes and did i mention that when we returned  from France we were locked out of our room for 3hours by the way 2 days later i did get a call from guest services to find out if i was still locked out.This cruise was to be a cruise of a lifetime I saved for a long time for it turned out to be a cruise from hell..............

This was the opening cruise for the 2017 season, so we expected a few bumps in the road. The Copenhagen Denmark facilities are great, but hard to get to. Airport to pier was about $70 US. Arriving the day before departure helps a lot and you can have time to actually see Copenhagen. First stop is Oslo, Norway. Lots to see on the way in and ashore. A sea day was next and allowed time to settle in. Next stop Germany. Pier is in Warnemunde with not much to see. Excursions or travel elsewhere (lots of trips to Berlin) are a must. Another sea day and then to Tallin, Estonia. Old town is very charming and a walk around tour is a must. St. Petersburg, Russia was down right ugly, except of course the museums. Very crowded!! Do not take a coat to the Hermitage. Stuff sack with down sweater worked for me and save about 30 minutes on coat check. Helsinki, Finland nice but a little stark. Nynashamn, Sweden is about 45 minutes from Stockholm. Take an excursion or its a wasted trip. Stockholm was great.

My husband and I had a very nice time on this cruise.  We booked  tours for each of the days in port, using the Princess website. We wouldn't change a thing!

This was our first time on Koningsdam but the third time with HollandAmerica Cruise Line.  Food quality - as expected.  Food service - poor.  Some of the food-servers have an attitude that they do not like to serve you more food  when asked.  Most of them have no smile on their faces. Lido Market cleanliness - poor.  We observed how the tables and chairs/seats are being cleaned:  one little green towel is being used to clean more than 10 table tops; all the food residues are swept from the table tops to the chairs/seats; the same towel is used to clean more than 20+chairs and seats; the same towel is used again to clean the bottom of the tables.  There is a big white bucket underneath the dirty dishes counter but contains very little water; however, we are not seeing the little green towel is being washed in the bucket.  The floor is vacummed while the passages are still eating.  We are forced to lift our feet so that our eating area can be vacuumed.  The coffer/tea/water bars are always wet. Dining room service - good.  Stateroom - bathroom is a plus; our housekeepers are keeping our stateroom clead and orderly; they are friendly and cheerful. 

It was nice to cruise overnight each day and be in a new port in the morning.

Transportation shuttles from ship to get out of ports was not good at all.

Coordination and directions were awful.

Tender system in Cannes was more than awful. Why should someone wait over an hour for a scheduled tender?

Most favorite part of this cruise was visiting several Greek Islands.

It was a brand new ship.  Beautiful & Impressive. Clean & Bright.

Crew on this ship were not as well trained as other Princess Ships.

Almost Princess every ship I have sailed in the past had regular

Enrichment Lectures onboard, on varied subjects. This ship had None.

The Captain's daily announcements were very clear & informative.

Very long queues for everything. No enough assistance was available

in the Computer room. Every other Princess I have been on had many Desk Top terminals. This ship had only 2. Last day's production Show - Excellent.

We were fed like gladiators: macaroni and cheese, pasta, pasta pasta, bean soups and 500 varieties of chicken. We missed two ports (it's not my fault) continuously was announcing the captain. In one port -Brest- it took three hours to disembark and then another two to embark. We had only three hours in the city. One could not get a place in the only two good speciality restaurants. Anyway, my friends and we doubt that we'll ever set foot on a NCL vessel.

The staff was amazing, loved the ports..... I really enjoyed the bands, how focused on customer service everyone was and the friendliness of the staff.

This ship is brand new and we thought that there may be a few glitches they were working out. On the contrary it was all perfect. Great mix of very attentive crew from different Princess ships so lots of interesting stories, nationalities and perspectives. Loved the outdoor movie theater. After dinner settle on a deck chair with a blanket provide and watch the latest movies. The last night they previewed a new show in the theater which was beyond spectacular. Food was outstanding no matter where you ate. Only complaint was the tendering process, they need to find a more equitable process. Those who had booked a tour through the cruise line had preference and the rest of the passengers (about 1,500 of us) had to wait for well over an hour, sometimes two, in the dining room for a tender. There were a lot of complaints so I am sure they are working on it.

My favorite stops: Kotor, the cruise out was spectacular and the city itself very unusual and interesting. Mykonos, was the all out favorite stop. Take taxi to one of the beaches for $15 and spend the day on a lounger, right on the beach as long as you buy something to eat or drink it is free. Food and drinks are very reasonable so it is a good deal.  Could have done with more beach locations and less historic towns and ruins. Most of the islands have a beach option, take that if archaeology is not your main interest.    

No matter what small hassles there may have been they pail into insignificance given the overall experience, it still get 5 stars for me.

The ship was nice and the food was some of the best we have ever had on any cruise.  Stockhom was a lot of fun and what a gem the Rostock Germany was, it was very nice.

We enjoyed every aspect of the cruise.  The rooms were great.  Lots of clothes hangers and room to hang clothes.  We enjoyed the buffet, dining room and the specialty restaurants.  The Crown Grill served an excellent ribeye dinner.  Even though it is the largest ship with the most people, we have ever sailed on, we never felt crowded.  Hope to sail with Princess again.

Menu diversity was mediocre. Each dinner in the principle dining room was repetitious. Always with an Italian slant. Not good for a ship with multiple nationalities on board and boring for a 10 night cruise.  Garden salads with main course were always the same vegs.,  with very limited salad dressing selections. Optional cheese plate was unappetizing and looked like left-overs from breakfast buffet or prior day offerings.

2. In the buffet afternoon restaurant the very same cheese selections and cold cut appeared relentlessly.

CLUE: GET A NEW COOK BOOK.

3. Upscale premium- charge restaurant had same menu as main dining room but at an extra price.

4. Premium charge - room service breakfast for premium cabins arrived cold, food was badly prepared and orders for husband and wife arrive 25 minutes apart.

5. WiFi reception throughout the ship was unreliable and often failed to work in a timely fashion.

6. Bar tenders poured soft drinks from cans or bottles (10 oz) and served them in smaller glasses (7 oz.)  so they didn't provide the full portion. I asked to have them pour my entire beverage into a larger glass and they refused. Very stingy portion control on soft drinks and worse on alcohol, despite "all-you-could-drink" high cost drink packages.

7. On board television had only 1 channel consistently in English ( sometimes MS-NBC), but 5 channels were dedicated to Costa-only channels. Many more channels were provided in French or Italian. None in German or Spanish.

8. Ship lacked any source where you could purchase  small toiletries like: mouth wash, antiperspirant, hair spray, cough drops, aspirin, antiacids, camera batteries, OTC medicine,

9. On Costa provided shuttle buses into town, drivers did not speak any English and could not tell people where they were being dropped off, so it was difficult to find the bus stop at the end of the day to return to the ship.

The crew was friendly and attentive without being nosy. They began using our names early into the cruise.

The food was delicious and prepared to our satisfaction. Lots of different selections each day.

We enjoyed our cruise very immensely and will definitely cruise with Windstar again.

+ food

+ accommodation, i.e., bed, linens, shower but not the sound from the stage

+ wait and housekeeping staff

+ ship's condition for its age (1997)

- onboard WiFi kills free, nearby, off-board WiFi 

- business processes; several errors/discrepancies in printed/webpage info

- lack of empathy from Ashore Department and Customer Service Desk

- inadequate preplanning for crowd control around elevators and level 1 exit to the gangplank

- uneven footing in the highest traffic area on the ship (can you spell Lido?)

- unbeknown surprise of booking a 21 day but receiving a 14 + 7  "Collective Cruise".....did not see that in my contract anywhere

- if the spa worked I could not figure it out and no one came to check

- there is more but it probably gets a little bit petty after the above

My friend likes to cruise, I don't.  So we compromised on a small ship cruise and couldn't have been more delighted.  The Wind Surf was lovely, our room comfortable, and the crew were fantastic.  The food was very good and there was always good variety.  And of course we met some very lovely people and had a great time.  The excursions were good, however, we hit a few glitches.  Taormina; maybe I picked the wrong excursion, but the tour with the winery lunch didn't leave enough time to stroll and shop in the town, which the description said we would have.  The winery was at such a distance that at the end of the day it felt as if we had spent most of the day on the bus.  The winery lunch seemed as if they wanted to just get us in and out ASAP.  The day scheduled for tours of Pompeii and Herculaneum was the first Sunday of the month.  All sites and museums are free to Italians on the first Sunday.  We stood on line for 2 hours at Herculaneum and later heard that of two busses only one got into Pompeii because the site closed due to the crowds.  Additional tours were scheduled for the next day but we were so tired we cancelled our tour of Pompeii and stayed on the ship all day.  Not really a bad thing, we had a very relaxing day.  All in all, we had a great time and before we disembarked we were already talking about another cruise.

Favorite part of the cruise was the special  event at the winery and the new friendships. Wish Wi-Fi was free. Maybe you could have it free for one hour a day.