Grand Princess Hawaii cruise

We did not have a memorable time on this cruise.  The Grand Princess is in dire need of repairs and replacement of furniture throughout the ship.  Our air-conditioning in the cabin did not work properly for 5 days.  Even though maintenance people came to "repair it" 3 times, it still didn't cool the room properly.  We had the temperature at the lowest setting and it was warm in the cabin.  We sat down on a loveseat in the Explorer's Lounge one night and we felt like we "fell into a hole."  It was like we were sitting on the floor it was so low.  We had a difficult time getting out of that loveseat.  The weather was stormy when we left San Francisco and the ship was "rocking & rolling" from the waves.  We returned to our cabin after a show to retire for the evening and we noticed that the door to the balcony was open.  We thought the cabin steward had left it open.  I closed it and after a minute or so, it slid open as the ship "rolled" in one direction.  I went and closed it again.  Well, a minute or so later it did it again.  This time I checked the lock and it didn't work.  We called maintenance and someone came up in a short time to look at it.  He could not fix it and called in 2 other men.  They could not fix it either and called another maintenance worker.  He came and "said" he fixed it.  This happened around 10:45 PM.   The sliding door seemed to stay closed and we went to bed.  Shortly after our breakfast was delivered to our room in the morning, the door slid open again.  We reported it to the maintenance department and the lock was replaced.  We wondered how long it had been broken and why weren't things like this checked periodically.  The food on this ship/cruise was awful.   We have been on 15 Princess cruises and this was the first time we ever had such a bad experience with the food.  The food on the dining room menu was not up to what we experienced on past Princess cruises so we ate in the buffet.  Well, the food there wasn't any better.  The selections were awful and looked like "slop" in their serving dishes.  Mac & Cheese was offered EVERY AFTERNOON AND EVENING.  I was looking for pasta with Alfredo sauce like we had on the Island Princess in Jan. when we went to the Panama Canal.  The food on that cruise WAS THE BEST EVER.  The chef on the Grand should take lessons from the chef on the Island.  Our cruise was during Lent and we do not eat meat on Friday's during Lent.  Well, apparently the chef was not aware of this and only had 1 fish selection on Fridays of this cruise.  On another week day there were 2 or 3 fish selections.  There were a lot of Asian passengers on this cruise and it seemed (to me anyway) that the menu was catered to them.  The salad bar was terrible.  There were only a choice of 6 toppings.  Some nights there were 8.  On the Island Princess there must have been 12.  The lettuce was just plain Iceberg, no Romaine at all.  There was another bowl of mixed greens.  We look forward to the wonderful meals on Princess but this cruise was the worst.  We sailed with my husband's brother and his wife and they have sailed with Princess twice as much as we have.  They were not happy with the food either.

The entertainment was very good on this cruise.  We especially liked the magic acts.

We were Elite level on this cruise and was very happy to have the mini-bar stocked and have the laundry service for FREE.  We had a thought about the mini-bar.  We know that Princess offers 4, 5, 7, and 8 day cruises.  There are also 10-day cruises and longer.  We understand that the mini-bar is only stocked once on any cruise.  This seems a bit unbalance to us.  How do passengers on a 5 day cruise get their mini-bar stocked once and a person on a 15-day cruise (like ourselves) get their mini-bar stocked once?  What do passengers on cruises for longer than 15 days do?  They only get their mini-bar stocked once?  We know that people book back to back cruises so they get their mini-bar stocked at the start of each cruise.  This just seems unbalanced.  It takes passengers many days and cruises to reach Elite status.  It would be nice to reward these passengers that sail on cruises lasting 10 days or more to have the mini-bar restocked mid way through the cruise.  I can't imagine passengers going on a world cruise and only having their mini-bar stocked once.