South America Cruise Reviews

Dirty, always with delays, bad food, poor buffets

i some places of the ship bad odor 

i get sick the first day because food I spent 4 days with diarrea 

the entertainment was very bad 

14 day cruise with 5 ports (not counting start and stop points).  Lots of sea days, so be prepared.  Rougher seas than Caribbean cruises.  Dining room food was great, service was good.  Entertainment was for people over 60.  Happy hours were a good deal.  Buffet food was ok.  Crowds were manageable except for embarkation and disembarkation.  Internet was awful for most of the time - more slow than usual cruises.  Ports were great and reasonably priced private excursions available all over.

Free internet at most ports and very reliable.

I'll start off with the worst part, the food. The worst of any Princess ship I've been on.  Example: With 2 exceptions, the beef selections in the dining room were unacceptable. It's interesting to note that the cruisers on the prior leg who stayed on consistently stated it was like 2 different cruises lines. The deserts were flat tasting except for the chocolate specials and the sorbets. The itinerary should have included the Chilean fjords, Puerto Mont or Madryn to break up the 3 day legs. The entertainment was also a disappointment with a couple of exceptions. 

Our favorite part of the cruise was our visit to Argentina and Rio de Janeiro.

We were disappointed of the recicling of food from dinner to lunch and repeating the same menu for breakfast every single day for the 14 days of the duration of the trip.We fell that Crown Princess it's being cutting on many areas of their services to their passengers, since this was our 4th time we've travel on Crown Princess.

Four beautiful days in Antarctica--sunny, mild, lots of ice! Penguins, penguins, and more. Saw glaciers, icebergs as big as the ship, Antarctic research stations, and penguins. Outstanding lectures and commentary by an Expeditions team who had worked with the National Science Foundation in Ant.  Whales on the way. Rounded Cape Horn. Falkland islands weather great, more penguins. Tours of Chile and Argentina ports were good. High winds did stop two of the water tours to see fauna. More penguins in Puerto Madryn, Argentina. Nice visit to ranch in Buenos Aires. I would recommend this cruise to anyone interested in the southern region

South America cruise locations  were good, nightly shows good, food & service good too, Argentina is much nicer then Brazil , generally the cruise excursions are too expensive & not worth the value , NCL charge extra now for room service & lobster & upgraded meals

The entertainment for 10 days is OK

My  first four days are  disappointed because of the couch's cover is terrible, I had to deal with the guest front desk everyday to change it, that ' s why I could not enjoy my vacation until the fifth day to have another couch.

the food from the restaurant as well as the buffet is salty, therefore I did not enjoy much for lunch and dinner.The price of  excursions from the ship  are too expensive, I have to take the taxi outside, it cheaper and same destinations.

Lastly, shopping on board is not enough items to purchase.

The cruise was wonderful.  Each day you do two to three tours on zodiacs from the ship.  They are hiking, snorkeling or just a zodiac tour so something for everyone.  You should have good stability as some of the shore landings require walking on lava that has been wet and slippery and getting on and off the ship requires climbing or descending about 25 stairs to the zodiac.  The service was great and food very good.  This was our first Silversea trip so I have nothing to compare it too but many of the passengers had sailed many times with Silversea  

The service on this cruise was outstanding in every way. The Blu Restaurant service was wonderful in every way. The cabin steward was ideal. The Internet service was awful. No better that dial up, kept kicking us out. When we complained about the internet we were met with "Attitude". My husband needed the internet in order to work during the cruise. We may never cruise again if he cannot work.

I have been on 13 cruises this being a very unlucky 13. From the minute I arrived at FT Lauderdale it started going down hill rapidly. The communication lacked hugely apparently the story is anyway that the bus broke down and they were sending another bus 5 or more hours later with 1 hour outside by the curb in hot humid weather. Getting on ship was pretty easy but it was hard sales from there on. The food absolutely sucked it was the same food for 15 days straight on the buffet and when you went to the dining room on the left side of the menu are food you could buy ex. $27 for a steak WTH happened to all-inclusive? I HAVE NEVER IN MY LIFE seen prices for the regular dining room. On the right side of the menu was chicken and less appealing things. For the first time I actually paid $45 each on 3 occasions to eat at a specialty restaurant just to even feel like I am on a cruise. The service was terrible I had written a 4 page comment card by the 2nd day. My husband and I decided that we were gonna have to make our trip ourselves and thankfully we met the most amazing people and THE PEOPLE actually made the trip. The ship wasn't as clean and I thought carnival was the bottom of the barrel???? I usually travel on princess and I will NEVER steer away from them again. How celebrity got top rated I have no idea my guess is 1st time cruises that don't know the level of service that you usually get and boy will they be surprised when they find out. I gave it 1 star because there was actually 4 people that worked on the ship that were very service oriented attention to detail.

Panama Canal transit is extremely interesting.

Lectures and enrichment were very good.

Next year's planned changes look even better (2 day stay in Lima)

celebrity infinity is the one has the best of all:  goo food, helpful crews members, wonderful entertaining, I will highly recommend  to all my friends ......

Macho Piccho and the entire cruise was incredible a great time was had by all.  Taking the train ride on an orient express type train through the Andies Mountains was worth the trip in itself.  The entertainment was the best I have ever had on a cruise and the cruise director Alejandro was incredible.  He will be a major star one day!  The only thing that was horrendous is that they raised the price for the non alcoholic package which was way over priced and they tried to keep selling it to us.

cruise was little rocky...back and forth all the way...

canal locks interesting...all booked shore excursions from ship

except one was excellent...the Panama City shore excursion was very poor....

we were taken to an expensive shopping mall and left there for 3

hours....we have these malls at home...not interested in this for

a shore excursion....wanted only souvenirs but were not given the

opportunity to get any....

Infinity ship an older ship....have been on nicer ships

evening shows were the same almost every night...singing...

need something more interesting

all items on ship very expensive....tips added to every purchase....charged $3 for small bottle of water plus 40% tip....

my overall rating would be 3.5 out of 5 

Favorites:  cruise, locations visited, itinerary,  especially the Canal and Lima, Arica, evening shows were very good.  The food and the service wonderful.

Improvements:  daily activities and entertainment

The ports of call were good.  Sailing was fine. Onboard activities were limited. Food was fine. Clearly the cruising business has changed in the last year or two. Entertainment time of 45 minutes appeared shorter than on other cruises. Entertainers were good.

Holland America continues its excellent service, from room stewards to dining room staff to the wine steward. Ship is well decorated, but some of the bathrooms in the staterooms need a little more attention based on old tile and grout. We departed from Buenos Aires, visited Falkland Islands, rounded Cape Horn, and ended up in Valpairaso, Chile. Ports were great. However, both the embarkation and debarkation processes were somewhat chaotic. Once we met the HAL rep after getting our baggage in Buenos Aires, the process from then on to get luggage loaded and on the transfer bus had no plan - we finally figured out what to do ourselves. On debarkation, we had an independent tour, and there were no staff to help us figure out where to meet those reps.

We took 2 Delta Skymile shore excursions instead of HAL ones - Buenos Aires tour was disappointing in that they had no intention of returning us to the ship but never told us in the advertisement - caused a HUGE problem in getting back because there was a subway strike and traffic jams. We walked about a mile on unfamiliar streets trying to find port. The other tour, in Valparaiso, was wonderful. Took us from ship to old part of town (but tour description never said we were going to walk 3 miles up and down hills - that needs to be added because we had some elderly, disabled folks on the tour), to Vino del Mar for a nice lunch, and to a winery - and then delivery to airport - great guide.

The favorite parts of this cruise were the itinerary and the Pinnacle Grill specialty restaurant.  Outside of those two items, the rest of this experience was a total disappointment. This cruise was not representative of the Holland America that we experienced in the past. There appeared to be understaffing in all areas, poor communications by personnel, mediocre food quality, inconsistent service experienced with dining room , room service, cabin attendant, front desk and excursion staff.  This was not just our opinion but opined by other cruise customers in conversations during our wait at the airport for our return flights back to our homes. I could never recommend this particular cruise line and ship to others.

What we enjoyed most was the mix of people. It was like a United Nations gathering with passengers from around the globe -- from Hong Kong to Zimbabwe -- from Russia to Israel to Canada to Switzerland  to India -- and many places in between including someone who attended the same grammar school I did in a suburb of NYC. We also enjoyed the food very much except for one incident which almost result in food poisoning. However, nothing was done to remedy this unfortunate situation onboard. What we were unhappy with was the customer complaints (in writing as well as in person) were totally ignored, i.e., the film selection was age-inappropriate (this could easily have been remedied) and the jacuzzis were lukewarm. After many complaints we simply gave up on films and jacuzzis. We think the biggest problem was that the ship sailed full. There were too many people onboard to remedy any of these situations except for nonworking toilets.  We will never again cruise on a ship that holds 3400 passengers plus crew. It's simply overwhelming. (Also, you list Honduras as one of the ports. We never got there BTW) 

Nevertheless, my husband and I feel that cruising for us is the best (& easiest )way to travel and provides without a doubt the biggest bang for the travel buck. What we're waiting for is a really great deal on the September 17, 2017 Holland American sailing from San Diego (our home port) to Sydney.

this cruise has a little bit of everything--

1. Incredible scenery including seeing into the crater of an active volcano (Nicaragua), five glaciers in the Beagle Channel of Magellan Straits, and wonderful birds, penguins and seals;

2. Places of historical and cultural interest (my favorites were Pablo Neruda's home in Isla Negra, the historic marketplace in Buenos Aires, and the monuments in Rio);

3. Every type of terrain and weather, from the steamy tropical jungles of Costa Rica and Nicaragua, the soaring Andes, the high desert, glaciers & cold winds of Southern Chile, Uruguay and the Falklands, and the natural beauty of the jagged hills surrounding the city and bay of Rio;

4. Beautiful holiday decorations on board and wonderful cuisine that reflected the diverse countries we visited and "comfort food" for every type of nationality and age group. 

This was our first cruise with Princess and our longest cruise to date. We thoroughly enjoyed it, and appreciated all the tips from Julio on what to see and do at the port stops.