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Golden Princess Cruise Review to South Pacific

bumpercarr

Contributor Level: Second Mate

Cruises: 7+ cruises

Reviews: 5

Helpful Votes: 275

Overall rating:

4 out of 5

Verified Review

28 Night Transpacific (San Francisco To Sydney)

Sail date: September 19, 2015

Ship: Golden Princess

Cabin number: A747

Traveled as: Couple

Reviewed: 9 years ago

Review summary

For the most part, the cruise went as expected. However, it seemed from the moment we arrived on the ship that there was something not quite up to par with the staff. I found the room stewards to be a surly lot, rarely smiling and it was difficult to even get a "good morning" out of them. The bar staff (there were specific individuals that were great) seemed to wander around the bar/deck/casino aimlessly, rarely stopping and asking if you needed anything. The food was mediocre in the dining room, the pizza was wonderful, the food at the buffet was barely edible most of the time.

As far as our ports went, Hawaii was very nice, Papeete was a major disappointment, Bora Bora would have been a disappointment had it not been for the wonderful tour that we booked (not Princess), Pago Pago was also a disappointment. All of our stops in New Zealand were wonderful, it was a shame that we missed Akaroa as we were really looking forward to it. The scenic cruising was beautiful, the onboard ranger very informative. Sydney is a beautiful city, clean and safe, we just did the hop on hop off bus and the Sunday market in The Rocks since we only had one day there.

Huge kudos to the public area cleaning staff. This ship was by far the cleanest ship that I've ever been on. I expected that the facilities would degrade as the passengers were onboard for so many sea days. Every day, the ship fairly sparkled.

Overall, I’d give this cruise a 3 ½....not terribly bad, but not as good as other Princess cruises that we have enjoyed.

Ship experiences

Food and Dining

1 out of 5

Not very good. The meat was generally overcooked and tough, every night there were 3 or 4 seafood/fish main courses but only one beef, maybe one chicken, and maybe one pork. Since I don't eat fish, I had a very limited selection.

Onboard Activities

3 out of 5

With all of the sea days that we had, I would have thought that we'd have more variety in our activities....after all, how many times can you play trivia per day?

Entertainment

5 out of 5

I enjoyed all of the entertainment that we saw.

Service and Staff

3 out of 5

Milica, Caren, Sachin and Leo at the Tradewinds bar were fantastic. The rest of the staff seemed to need an attitude adjustment. The dining staff was also very attentive and I was pleased with there service. The room stewards seemed to be angry about something almost every day.

Ship Quality

5 out of 5

I have to say that this is the cleanest ship I've ever been on. All of the public areas were spotless, all of the time. With so many passengers onboard all of the time, I really expected a degradation in the cleanliness of the ship...it sparkled every day. Big kudos to the public area cleaning staff.

Cabin / Stateroom

3 out of 5

Very hot in this cabin, the A/C doesn't seem to work very well. Also, the deck staff starts cleaning right above your cabin at about 530 in the morning, which is noisy if you don't have a noise maker with you to drown out the noise.