Most horrible return trip ever
Emerald Princess Cruise Review to Europe - Mediterranean
Contributor Level:
Purser
Cruises: 2-3 cruises
Review: 1
Helpful Votes: 36
14 Night Western Mediterranean & Adriatic Medley (Athens To Rome)
Sail date: June 22, 2019
Ship: Emerald Princess
Cabin type: Inside
Traveled as: Singles/Friends
Reviewed: 5 years ago
Review summary
My family booked our cruise and all travel arrangements through princess cruise lines. There was a total of four couples on the trip coming from various places in the United States. My wife and I were coming from Des Moines Iowa we chose to fly out of Omaha Nebraska. My sister and her husband were coming from Dallas Texas. We had two couples coming from Austin Texas. All of our flights were supposed to join up in New York City to fly to Athens Greece. This did not work out because of the airline has nothing to do with princess cruise lines. Our flights on leaving Barcelona you would think that all eight of us would travel to New York and then separate from there. This was not the case our flight went from Barcelona to Zürich Switzerland where we had a 14 hour layover and had to sleep on a bench in the airport and then to Newark New Jersey and then on to Omaha Nebraska. The couple that were from Dallas flew from Barcelona to Germany to Dallas and the couples that came from Austin Texas flew to London to New York to Austin Texas. My wife and eyes flight in Switzerland was delayed and we would not be able to make our connection at the next stop so they rerouted us to Germany. From Germany we flew to Chicago with only one hour to make it through customs and onto the next flight. Emotionally my wife was not able to handle and had a breakdown in customs. If it was not for a couple of TSA agents we would’ve not made our flight the lines were at least three hours long with less than one hour to make our flight. I do not understand why for couples wanting to travel together and princess cruise lines setting up all the travel rangement‘s could have done this to my family. I feel that there was no regard to trying to keep us together after the cruise. Just made our trip on a trip that we will never forget and that’s not in a good way. It took my wife and I almost 40 hours to get back from Barcelona Spain to Omaha Nebraska because of the arrangements that princess cruise lines arrange for us. We had a decent cruise except for a couple hiccups but because of the travel arrangements a princess cruise lines arranged for us we will not be using them ever again .Embarkation
Ship experiences
Food and Dining
Onboard Activities
Entertainment
Service and Staff
Ship Quality
Cabin / Stateroom
The room was a good size and our cabin steward was very attentive
Ports of call
My wife and I paid $69 a person for the hop on, hop off bus in Messina. When the shuttle took us to Cathedral Square there was a line of people waiting for the bus. The first poster showed up could fit approximately 20 people and there was at least 100 people waiting to board buses. We got on the next bus that came in it was the type of bus with low ceilings so only the person at the windows could see out I was in the middle and could not see anything going on. My wife and I decided to do a little shopping and got off the bus. After about an hour and a half for shopping we went back to the bus stop and waited for a half an hour for another bus to come by. There was no buses that came by and we ended up having to walk back to the Cathedral Square. In the link the time dad took us to walk plus the half hour that we waited at the bus stop we never saw a single hop on hop off bus. When we got back to Cathedral Square my wife asked for the shuttle back to the ship and the girl working pointed towards the Port and said you can just walk. We waited at Cathedral Square for another 20 minutes then they put us on a bus back to the ship. When we got back to the ship we complain to the excursion desk about our experience with the excursion. The person that was talking to us said he had to check on a few things and he would contact us back later. Later that evening we got notice that the cruise was going to credit us 25% off of one of the tickets which was $17.25. This means that my wife and I paid $120.75 to take a bus from the ship to Cathedral Square and then to one One stop and then had to walk back to Cathedral Square to take a shuttle back to the shop. This is totally unacceptable for anybody to have to pay that kind of money for one stop when the service is broke down princess cruise lines are still not willing to help us out with One stop and then had to walk back to Cathedral Square to take a shuttle back to the shop. This is totally unacceptable for anybody to have to pay that kind of money for one stop when the service is broke down. We feel that the Princess Cruise line should be reimbursing us for the full amount of those tickets due to the fact that we had to walk back to catch the shuttle when there was supposed to be buses running until late in the evening .
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