Overall, my wife and I thought that this cruise was excellent, except for the customer service staff and the declining buffet. We enjoyed ourselves immensely, and took advantage of everything that the staff had to offer. The food in the MDR is still the best that we have encountered on any cruise ship, and the activities, entertainment, and ports-of-call were all acceptable.
Embarkation
4 out of 5
The embarkation process was fine, with half of the embarking passengers in the highest tier and boarding first. This took a long time for those that weren't "elite".
Ship experiences
Food and Dining
3 out of 5
The MDRs and specialty restaurants were consistently good and compared well with the other ship restaurants in the fleet. We were very surprised how the buffet has degraded just on this ship. We have been on many ships in this fleet and this particular ship has problems with freshness, variety and service in the buffet.
Onboard Activities
4 out of 5
The activities seem to target aged passengers and are not very physical. If you like triva, movies, classes and staff driven sit down activities, then you might like this ship. Otherwise, you can use the pools, whirlpools, saunas, fitness center, and running track to burn calories.
Entertainment
3 out of 5
The production shows were good, but there were only four production shows on a seventeen day cruise. The other shows filled the remaining schedule with singers, musicians and a shadow hand puppet performer that was terrible.
Service and Staff
4 out of 5
The food and room service that we received was excellent (except in the buffet) and we had nothing to complain about. We did have major problems with the customer service staff (pursers) who were confronted with three problems that we had, that they did not solve. We spoke with the manager who defended the staff and blamed the large size of the ship.
Ship Quality
4 out of 5
For being a older ship, it's interior is kept up and clean. The atrium is the nicest part of the ship where many activities take place.
Cabin / Stateroom
4 out of 5
Typical cabin for size and shape, and smaller than my bedroom at home. We normally reserve a balcony cabin, but on this ship we like to be on deck five because this deck has the International Café, Vines and the MDR that we frequent, just a number of steps away.
Ship tip
Watch for "happy hour" at certain bars where you buy one drink and get another for one dollar. If you want to meet people, always choose "shared" tables when asked, during open seating at breakfast and lunch.
Interesting handanmaya. We were getting off of the Emerald as you were getting on (disembarked 3 Dec). Our only disappointment was with customer service reps as well. We were over charged for a bottle of wine in the MDR ($84 rather than $32). It should have been easily remedied, however it took 3 trips to GS (over 3 days) to resolve it, and I did all of the leg work (pictures of the bottle with the wrong charge sheet on it, the name of the waiter who acknowledged that $84 was wrong, etc). Everyone was polite and cheerful (including me), but it wasn’t my typical experience with a GS where I was the one to cheerlead them to help resolve the mistake... Everything else on our cruise was excellent...
We just completed our 7th cruise with Princess (this one was on the Caribbean Princess) and have to concur with your comments about the declining buffet. It used to be great but this time it was just ok.
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