U.S. - Pacific, Northwest Cruise Reviews

Great ship, and staff. Being from Florida really enjoyed the itinerary

Holland America (HAL) provides a very enjoyable cruise experience.  I would rate both their service and food as being very good.  

However, after sailing HAL eight times since 2003, we have observed that their level and quality of food and service has continued to decline during our last three voyages over the last several years.  Up to a few years ago, it was consistently excellent.  HAL is owned by Carnival, and I would like to think that the overall decline we have observed is just an aberration and has nothing to do with parent Carnival applying cutbacks on the prestigious HAL.     

The attitude of the crewmembers is superb and they always do their best to make your cruise a memorable experience.  However, while the crewmembers always have a good attitude, their capability to meet your expectations is sometimes lacking perhaps due to their empowerment, support or training.  This lacking in meeting your expectations has become more and more present over the last several years.  Still, overall, we did find our expectations fulfilled.   

The condition of the ship was fair to good.  When we were last on this same ship, the Zaandam, in February of 2012 for an 14 Day Hong Kong to Hong Kong cruise, we commented to the ship management that we felt the ship was showing it’s age.  They assured us that the Zaandam was going to dry dock to be refurbished.  We were looking forward to being on the Zaandam again, in part, to see how well it was refurbished. In fact, we had the very same cabin this time, the Pinnacle Suite, Cabin 7001,  as we had the last time so it was easy to see the improvements if any.  For some reason, they changed he name of the suite from the Penthouse Suite to the Pinnacle Suite.   While we did see some improvements, we were still disappointed in areas that were not improved or the use of lower grade replacements such as cheaper carpets.  Plus over the years we have noticed little things such as they use to have beautiful towels with the Holland America color logos and now they have just plain old white towels without logos.  They use to have glasses that would fit into the glass holders in the bathroom so they would not slip off during rough seas and now they just plain glasses that do fit into the holders and they slip off the counter.  The glass shower door that broke while we were on this ship in February of 2012 has been replaced with an ugly curtain that does not even fit the opening.  All of these are small details, but they add up and it is the little details that sometimes can tell the whole story.  All of this seems to confirm a possible sad pattern that perhaps parent Carnival is simply making too many cutback on what was once a great cruise line.  Holland America is still a very good line and I am sure that to any passenger who is new to Holland America, that all they would see is a very good cruise line, as they would not know how Holland America used to be even better.  I do hope that either Holland America gets back to the greatness that they once were or that our experiences are just aberrations. 

This was my first cruise on the Crown Princess , a beautiful ship  , the weather was nice and sunny in every port . Good food on board and I like the way Princess has breakfest early in the morning , I am a early riser .

My wife & I took our first cruise on a Celebrity ship on 4/26 and had a wonderful time. Prior to boarding, we read a number of reviews, so we had a pretty good idea of what the ship was like and they were fairly accurate. This is the oldest ship in Celebrity's fleet, and it does appear so, especially on the top two decks. 

 

However, the service and attention to detail by the crew was exemplary. The housekeeping staff were very responsive to all our requests, the wait staff at meals were all very attentive and the onboard programs we attended were all very informative. 

 

The food was also superb. There were a couple of mis-steps, such as the burgers on the main deck which were not very good, but other than that I enjoyed or absolutely loved all of the meals prepared for me. Our sommalier deserves special praise as he was very knowledgeable and a lot of fun to talk with during dinner.

 

If I had to pick one area of improvement, it would be on the excursions. One reason we chose this trip was for an excursion to Sonoma to visit certain wineries. On the first day of the cruise, we were told that trip had been cancelled due to not enough interest. I recognize that these trips can be cancelled without notice, but it would have been good customer service to let us know that some trips are more likely than others to be cancelled (this one, in particular we were told by the staff is often cancelled) and to post that information online. Stating that an excursion needs a specific number of participants to happen, and showing the progress towards that goal (such as this trip needs 25 regsistrants and there are currently 10 people registered) would help calibrate expectations.

 

Another idea might be to develop an app to use onboard where you could check the daily schedule, any planned activities for the day and possibly directions on how to get to that activity.

 

We did very much enjoy our trip on Celebrity and look forward to cruising on their line again in the future

Everything was great but when I go on a cruise I plan to gain about 10 pounds.  Yes I love to eat but the food was horrible.  I had a cheese cake that had to had gone bad.  They ran out of cream on the second day and adding milk to weak coffee is not right!  I need coffee to start my day.  Breakfast was fine but lunch and dinner at the buffet was bad and the sit down dinner was worst.  I refused to try the $25 per person resturant because 1. I would had went crazy if it was bad and 2. We're they making the food bad so I would pay the additional fee?   This was my first time with princess I'm a royal Caribbean cruiser.  I have tried carnival a few times and both had excellent food if anything else.  

We had a very nice experience and the food was delicous. The service was great and we reccommend it for people of all ages. Every thing was smooth and organized. The rooms were clean and the balcony view was very refreshing. The swimming pool was really fun and a good exercise. Our table was 220 and the waiter, Mr. Virtudazo, and the assistant waiter, Mr. Torres, were both very professional and nice. 

Of the more than the 80 passengers who were stricken by their latest outbreak of Norovirus, I unfortunatly was one of them. Granted, Princess Cruse Line did not have anything to do with bringing this plauge on ship, but how tthey handled themselves afterward was. You would think that they would be bending over backwards to make those passengers stricken by this virus, as happy as possible. Nothing could be further from the truth. Their main conceren was to stop the spread to other passengers and that was all.The SLOP they fed me while I was in quarenteen was deplorable. My wife and I will never return to this ship or any of their other ships as well.. The Crew did all they could to keep things in check.   They did what they were told to do, and that's was fine. But the Ships policy of "Soory about that" is not good enough for me. The one evening program in the we were able to attend at their show room was horrible. The one formal dinner we were able to attendwas just as bad. We along with over dozens of other people stood in line for over an hour and half to be admitted and served a less than memorible meal. We volunterly left the ship in San Diego, since our trip[ had turned into a total bust. Any sort of apology has not been forthcoming as yet, and I doubt if it will. Oh! they also lost our luggage for aproximately thirty minutes before we were able to get off this ship. Never, Ever again will I return to this cruse line.

Well-maintained

I would like to preface this review by saying that my husband and I are avid travelers and cruisers and we are not the complaining type. If you look at my reviews on this site and other sites, I tend to never leave bad reviews. Our experience has to be pretty bad in order for us to even think about leaving a bad review and this experience fits the criteria.

 

  My husband and I had a terrible experience on our recent Pacific Coast cruise on the Celebrity Century Ship. The first issue had to do with our luggage. We boarded the ship and while all of the other passengers received their luggage, we were informed that ours could not be found. The concierge explained that perhaps it had been delivered to another room on our floor or it might be on a completely different floor entirely. My medication and all of my valuables were in my suitcase, and we would have had to leave the cruise at our next port if they didn’t locate it. After 2 hours of complete panic, we were notified that our bag was found.     On the same night we notified the front desk that our television wasn’t working. They said that they would have someone come up to the room right away to fix it and the man explained that it was too big of an issue to fix that evening so he would send someone by the next morning to switch out the TV. Unfortunately, by the third day the issue still hadn’t been addressed.     Initially when we booked our cruise, we selected our time and seating for the main dining room on the ship. We selected a table for 4 people, for my husband and I and our two friends. When we arrived for our dinner, my husband and I were escorted to a table for 6 with 4 people we didn’t know already sitting down. We explained the situation to the host and he brought us to the dining manager and we sat with him for 20 minutes so that he could rectify the situation. Once they handled our seating arrangements, the 4 of us were seated at a 10-person table because they didn’t have any smaller tables available. My husband and I, along with our 2 friends were less than impressed with the food. We each ordered different appetizers, entrees, and deserts and we all agreed that the food was pretty terrible.     The ship itself is extremely outdated and has its own old moldy distinct smell. You really couldn’t escape it and I understand that the ship is old, but if you’re going to keep an old ship in operation, I think it’s worth taking better care of it. In addition to the smell, many areas of the ship looked dirty and neglected.     The food on the ship in the main dining room, in the buffet and in their specialty restaurant, Murano, was awful. In the main dining room, everything looked and tasted like a TV dinner. In the specialty restaurant Murano, the food was so loaded with salt and cream that my husband felt sick and we ended up leaving before they could even bring out our entrees. The buffet was probably the best food that the ship had to offer and that’s really not saying much. It seemed to be the safest in terms of taste and appearance.      On the third night the water was extremely choppy and my husband was vomiting in the bathroom for the majority of the night. While I was walking around the ship that evening, it was a ghost town and the people that were out and about were complaining about how rocky the boat was and staff members even put barf bags in each of the elevators in case the passengers couldn’t make it to their bathroom.      Considering how sick my husband was feeling and how bad the cruise was going, we figured we had to get off the boat and just be done with the cruise. We decided to pack our things and exit in San Francisco. When we spoke with the front desk staff, we were told to speak with Aelred Almeid (the ship’s documentation officer). We told him about our situation and he explained that we would  each have to pay a $300 fine if we wanted to exit the ship. I was in complete shock and Aelred said that he would talk with Cameron Robertson (the guest relations manager) and explain the situation to him and call us back in our room. Aelred called about an hour later and told us to come and speak with Cameron Robertson. When we explained our situation to him, I started to break down in tears because I was just so upset about everything we had been through up to this point. Cameron was extremely cold and told my husband and I that it was too bad and there wasn’t anything he could do. He didn’t offer us any alternatives, any compensation, but most of all any compassion.      Even if there wasn’t anything Cameron could do about the penalty fees, he could have at least shown my husband and I some compassion. He looked at me and said in a cold rude tone, “well your husband looks fine now.” When I told him he was being very cold and rude to us he said, “well if you want to leave, just leave.”     If this is how Celebrity Cruises treats their passengers, I want nothing to do with them. My husband and I love every cruise line we’ve ever been on…Norwegian, Princess, and Holland America. Our Celebrity Cruise on the Century was the cruise from hell. To put someone in charge of guest relations that could care less about an experience as bad as ours was a HUGE mistake. I wouldn’t recommend this cruise line to anyone and due to this experience, I will never cruise with them in the future.      

Coastal Cruise Travel

Celebrity Century.      3/21/14. -  3/29/14

8462749

Our wait to get checked in was excessive. Our wait after check in was excessive.  My pocket knife, which is legal with DHS was not allowed and was confiscated and held until the end of the cruise. The beef roast at the carving station was of poor quality, excessive fat and membrane infusion. The waiter in the dinning room was mediocre at best.  We had to ask several times for the condiments to go with our baked potato and still didn't get butter. One member of our party got a bottle of bad wine Morning of day 2 At breakfast when getting a spoon for coffee, it was in the spoon holder but had food caked all over it.  Getting a bowl for fruit it was caked with rice all over the underside. Without an excursion, when we got tickets for the tender there was a 1 1/2 hour wait, after people had been disembarking for 3 hours.  The ice machine on deck 11 was not keeping up with the demand. Shore excursions would not book an excursion for me in the morning when the attendants the night before had told me that I could wait and book it in the morning when they opened up.   At ports where we were tendered it took hours to get to shore unless you were booked on an excursion.  There appeared to be only 4 tenders running which is not enough for a ship the size of the Century It appears as though most of the crew (dinning and hotel operations) were fairly new to their job because their grasp of the English language was limited both for understanding and communicating. Of the many cruises I have been on this is by far the worst.

I got on board the Sapphire Princess in Los Angeles , Ports of call...San Francisco , Santa Barbara , San Diego , Ensenada ...7 day cruise ...warm and sunny days. this was my first cruise on the Sapphire a beautiful ship

 

Beautiful ship especially since the upgrades 2 or so years ago.

The service of the ship was good. The stewardess of my cabin (Chanonya)was honest to return my lost iPhone. However, a bedbug was found and killed in my cabin, and I had several bites. Eventually, I had to move to another cabin.

the crew did not seem to have your concerns to be very important. food not the greatest,nor the entertainment. Just a miserable time on board the entire cruise.

Perhaps it's not fair to rate a cruise when I wore the same clothes for 6 days. The ship didn't loose my luggage. The train lost my luggage. I met Anne on the front desk and sort of asked if she could help me get my luggage from Amtrak when (if) it ever arrived. First thing, she arranged complimentary laundry service. And we are talking in at 9 back at 6 service. And it was back each day clean, folded, and ready to wear. I had stopped at Costco to get backup pants and shirt and I borrowed a dress from a friend. But I wore those same sandles every day and it all worked out. So, this is my only chance to say Thanks Anne and Thanks Norwegian for a great cruise.

I cannot even give this crews line a star..... my boyfriend booked us a cruise on the Norwegian Gem as a surprise for my birthday .... totally blew me away as this was suppose to have been my first crews experience.... We travelled all the way from the Caribbean to New York to experience this  (  I had no idea what his plans were just though we were going to experience New York ) but when we got there I did not have the visa requirement to travel to Canada .... while this was not their fault we asked if it would be possible to reschedule our trip for another time and all we got was a push around .... we were told that we should board at another port which we were trying to do but no 1 mentioned they was penalties' charges and more B.S .... Our bags were already checked  in and we were told to wait for them to take it off ... we waited more than an hour only to be told they couldn't find it and that we had to wait until the ship returns the following week to retrieve our bag with all the clothes we had ....again we were there in New York on vacation.... no way to stay and no clothes on our back and limited travel founds and no help from no 1 from the Cruise line ..... thanks for making what was suppose to be my first cruise a disaster ...... you all did nothing to help us , blatently fefused to reschedule us and your staff that were at the port were clueless and unhelpful .... WILL NEVER EVER USE NORWEGIAN CRUISE LINE AGAIN !!!!!

friendly staff, fresh & tasty food, elegant ship decor,

Previous Holland Cruises gave me promise for a favorite cruise line, this one took that away.

This one-night cruise was a great way to sample the cruise experience and see if this type of a vacation is right for you. It is not really possible to experience everything on board in such a short amount of time, but we prioritized what we wanted and made the best of it.

were not told there were two ports in Vancouver. we were not told we would not be leaving from main port where National car rental is located. $15 taxi back to seldom used port where we waited 2 and a half hours to get on ship.