Diamond Princess - Reviews

This was one our favorite cruises. We will definitely go back to Japan in the near future.

Overall the cruise was great. The Princess staff is great.

We planned for this particular cruise for over a year. In hindsight we would have inquired about what type of ship in more depth. Having our favorites missing on the Diamond made a difference. We were very disappointed we missed two ports, and also disappointed in how the ship was infested with crickets! There were many passengers who were ill on this ship. It ultimately brought my husband down with an awful cold.

Very disappointed in this cruise. The couple that went with us also disappointed.

We enjoyed the cruise due to the great weather, most exciting cruise thru the Fjords, with crystal blue sky. We liked the ship but it was not our favorite. We have been on a lot of cruises, so we know the ones we like. We still book the destinations, rather than the ships.

My favorite part of this cruise are visit Kobe city,Okinawa city of Japan,visit Kaohsiung and Taipei of Taiwan. I and my wife very happy with this trip.We will recommend this trip ( 16 night Ryukyu Islands-Kyushu and Taiwan) to my friend.

We enjoyed this cruise and would recommend it.  The ports were very interesting.

We sailed on the Diamond Princess a year ago but we felt the condition of the ship was not as good this time.  The ship was going into dry dock for a facelift a couple weeks after we sailed so we surmised that our timing was bad.

The only thing we did not like was the description of this as a 12 day cruise.  It was not.  It was a seven day cruise followed by a five day cruise.  Apparently, Princess combines shorter cruises in SE Asia to create longer cruises.  This results in a bit of confusion as other people on the ship are not doing the same cruise as you and quite a few onboard activities are repeated for the people who came on board after the first week.   Not optimal.

the different ports, the choice of restaurants on the excursions, the guides mastering the english language, not too happy with length of shopping time in all the excursions! wish there was more time allocated for shopping.

Ck before you book, specially if book a mini suite with a tub that is not proper, and Japanese toilet sear extremely uncomfortable. Also not much help on board, the ship dock in all commercial ports with nothing around, but dinning service was very good, the PIZZA was the best at sea.

Good itinerary to witness SE Asia in a short period. Crew seemed somewhat disengaged. Some activities weakly organized. This cruise lacked the attentive professionalism we have experienced in the past 7-8 cruises. Food presentation disappointing and quality of food was marginal to basically good.Wait staff could use better training to eliminate wasted motion, order errors, etc. This ship needs a comprehensive audit.

The cruise ship was excellent with more than enough facilities for all tastes. the food was very good, great choice and service. The itinerary was my main reason for booking the cruise and most ports of call were very good and enjoyable to visit. However I did not know that Bangkok was so far away from the port and we had very limited time to enjoy it. I was disappointed with a couple of things. I thought prices were high for alcohol, shop goods  and excursions. Another thing I was really disappointed in was that there was no free wi-fi, it was 79 cents per minute or a package of minutes could be bought. Because I had no mobile phone connection on the ship I needed to contact home using internet services and I was annoyed at having to pay for it. 

The cruise was OK but fell far short of expectations.  This was our first time on Princess.  (We have sailed with HAL, Celebrity and Crystal: 10+ cruises) Had heard that this line was very good.  There were no substantial enrichment events.  The Internet connection was spotty and very hard to use and more importantly costly.  We felt that the ships' shops were overpriced and  invaded us with their non-ending sales.  The artwork overall  was not enticing and the Kinkaid authorized copies were poorly replicated and were not as vivid as copies we have seen elsewhere.  The wine and spirits packages would only work for someone who is a heavy drinker. 

The food was great, better than used to be. The service was impeccable from room to dining. Overall, the ship was well maintained.

The downsides are the gym and the entertainment. The spin bicycles are locked up because you need to pay $11 to use them, so are other group exercise classes that you need to pay to attend. It seems like what you pay for the cruise is not enough. Entertainment not like used to be.

The cruise itinerary was the reason for choosing this cruise and that was an excellent choice. The ship was as expected well appointed and had all that was expected. Boarding took far too long. The downsides were the excursions which were expensive and all included visits to lacquer or silk factories where prices were expensive and detracted from what we went to see. There was obviously a benefit to the guide. I could not complete the majority of staff any higher with the exception of shore excursion, who had to be chased if you had a complaint and in my case failed to answer it after 7 days. I would have expected hosted bridge with 9 sea days.

With the exception of the Diamond Princess Players and a few 'professional' acts - too many acts were like 3rd rate AMATEUR HOUR - have seen better when I was a 12 years old in camp!  And - the Cruise Director was himself just a complete mistake!  Even the Wheelhouse singer and musician were incompetent, and the lounge singer/guitarist in both the Wheelhouse and the Pizzeria were horrible! As to our Jr. Suite - it CREAKED AND CRACKED ALL NIGHT LONG - for 6 nights - even through they could have moved us on the 5th night, but DID NOT!!!  Yeah, they tried to stop the squeaks, but could NOT.  

More time in each port, not enough time to see each country.  Missed seeing Hong Kong because of bad weather, all tours were cancelled.  Bus taken to a huge shopping mall that could be from any big city in the world, complete waste of time!

As in previous cruise (M629), there is no more relationship between passengers and crew staff. It´s Princess problem?

No more smile, good mornig greeting, etc.

It's important to start by saying that I had a great time. The staff were overall friendly and professional.

While it was upsetting that we had to remove a port from the itinerary due to Typhoon Malakas, I do not expect the crew to be able to control the weather. We were compensated fairly for the change, and the changed itinerary successfully accomplished its goal of avoiding most of the harsh weather.

However not a day went by that I did not discover some minor annoyance that could easily be avoided. This list is not comprehensive but will serve as examples:

- I was given several gift cards for Princess the day before leaving on my vacation; there was no way to apply these to my shipboard account online and the process of applying them in person was arduous. Eventually I had to entrust the cards to guest services to be processed by some other party and be notified later that it had gone through.

- It is widely advertised that one can access the Princess Patter and other information online through the Wi-Fi, however it is both incomplete and dreadfully slow rendering it all but useless. The site lacks simple information such as a Deck Plan or a complete list of Bar, Restaurant, and Club hours. In fact even the printed version of the Patter only contains a partial list.

- At least one of the beverages in the menu (namely, Monster Energy Drink) was not actually available. On the second day of the cruise I asked around every bar and apparently got the very last can on the entire ship! I inquired again after each port, but it had not been restocked.

- The nightly show times are such that they conflict with dinner times, so that if one wants to eat dinner at their assigned time they only have one showtime to choose from. Additionally (at my showtime at least) the theater was not large enough to accommodate all the people who wished to see the show, leaving several dozen people standing along the back and side walls and many more turning around and leaving after seeing the crowd.

- During one free-seating night we arrived right when the restaurant opened and waited an hour before receiving the first course of our meal. We rushed to make it right when they opened so that we could hurry on to other attractions; I feel like the effort and that hour of waiting were wasted.

- I purchased a ship-to-airport transfer that indicated that my boarding pass would be delivered to my room and my luggage would be checked through to the airline. Neither happened, instead I was required to collect my luggage and load it on a bus, then check my own bags and check-in and collect my own boarding pass. I apparently paid $48 per person for a bus ride; I could have gotten a taxi for cheaper...

- The elevators in the main atrium were divided into two unlinked banks. People would constantly summon both sets resulting in a second elevator unnecessarily stopping at the deck after the people got in the first one.

- The TV in the room had several HDMI ports, but no way to switch the input. I brought a laptop to play movies on, but was forced to watch them on the small laptop screen and waste the big HDTV in the room (I had already seen all the movies that interested me on the in-room entertainment system).

- Outlets in the stateroom were all far away from the bed, so I couldn't easily charge the laptop while watching a movie on it in bed.

Obviously these are mostly minor complaints, but they add up and most of them are very easy to fix. A bit of effort tackling at least the low-hanging fruit (e.g. useless web portal, no gift card option on Cruise Personalizer, accurate bar menu) would easily improve customer satisfaction.

None of previous Princess Cruises were so poor than this. The most of the crews seem unhappy beeing there. Almost no one smiles, no "good morning", etc. Some attendents were really unpleasant to serve you.

Entertainment repeated. No fun at all.

Also repeated menu in Horizon restaurant.

This was the worst cruise ever did in the last 23 years.

Those comments also apply  to M631 (Sept 25th departure).

The itinerary, excursions and all services provided on board Diamond Princess was excellent but the on-line reservation of Internet time did not register by Diamond Princess to honor the 60 minute bonus that was supposed to come with the reservation.  When Kia, Supervisor of Customer Service was contacted.  He understood the problem after reviewing a copy of my reservation of thee 400 minutes that is supposed to come with 60 minutes bonus.  On the bottom of that page which I printed a copy to show Kia, there were no "SUBMIT" buttom for the customer to make the payment.  This is the same as the excursions as customers could choose to pay at the time of making the reservation or when the customer goes on board Diamond Princess.  There was no way to prepay even if I wanted to which is the fault of Diamond Princess' website.  I thought the first time I go on the Internet on the Diamond Princess, I would find that I have the 60 minute bonus.  However, I did not know how to locate that, so I went ahead and paid for the 400 minutes.  I then went to the Internet Cafe Supervisor and then to Kia, the Supervisor of Customer Service on the Diamond Princess who contacted Princess headquarters.  All three of them came back with the same response, "we found no record that the customer pre-paid for the Internet"  I already knew that fact before I even went to the Internet Cafe Supervisor. Kia and the Headquarters.  It was Princess Cruise Company's responsibility to fix their website so that the customer knew to pre-pay which is not consistent with the way Princess handles their excursion.  This confuses customers when inconsistent methods of payment is established by Princess.  After the cruise, we met another couple from San Diego who had similar problem with pre-ordering 4 cases of bottled water which was never registered or delivered to the stateroom until they straightened it out with the Princess Cuises.  

      My position is that Princess owes me credit of 60 minutes x 49 cents = U.S.$294.00.  Since Diamond Princess refused to authenticate my pre-order, I had to purchase another 400 minutes and left about U.S. $10 worth of minutes not used at the end of the cruise.  I am looking for an amicable resolution of this matter.  I was more than willing to pre-pay the 400 minutes plus 60 minutes bonus, but Princess website did not provide any avenue for me to make that payment.  Why would I prepaid tens and thousands of dollars and not willing to prepay the approximately $190 for the 400 minutes in order to get 60 minutes credit.  Does that sound logically to any of you at Princess?  Princess Cruises need to review their website and correct the problems it poses for all you past and future customers.  I am waiting for Princess to resolve this issue with me.