Never Again

Cruises: 7+ cruises

Review: 1

Helpful Votes: 34

Review summary

Well Princess, what can we say. I write this review on the last night of our cruise, the two movies that are being shown in our stateroom are so dark on the screen that we cannot see the screen, only hear the tv. It’s been one thing after another and sad to say this is the first and last time we will cruise with Princess. I consider us to be well traveled and this is our thirteenth cruise. We have cruised on many lines, Norweigan, Carnival, Royal Carribean and Celebrity and to this point I have never researched much as far as the ship, condition, etc. as we have always had a nice time and there is always good and bad. But after this cruise I will always be sure to do my research for the specific ship we go on. For the good, the food was very good, they had a “new years eve” party last night which was good and there is a Laundromat on many floors. Our cruise was in the middle of a 3 ½ week getaway so that was helpful. George in the main dining room offered superb service. Now for the bad, first off the restaurants. Breakfast is from 7 to 9 am whether it’s a sea day or not. I’ve never heard of such a thing. Most cruises have late breakfast on sea days to cater to their guests, not princess. So, because they have such limited breakfast hours it makes everyone go to lunch in the MDR, and there are long lines. We had to line up 20 minutes every day before the dining room opened to get a table, otherwise the wait was much longer. Don’t even try to get a table with a view for two people, there are none, not even one. We were told they encourage “sharing”. That’s fine but again, we are on vacation and spent $5000 for this cruise. We don’t want to be told the way they feel it should be. If we want sit alone we would like to do so and it was upsetting to not even have a shot at a table with a view even if we show up very early. And due to the lines there are line cutters waiting to get into the restaurant, just more stress and we’re on vacation, I can understand maybe getting on/off the ship, etc. but not to go to the restaurant. We had little lights that we take on all cruises and put in our room, it’s a small set, approx 50 twinkle LED lights with the UL listing attached. We’ve taken these on a dozen cruises. We were told we had to remove them. They said we could blow out the electric – they are LED lights which take hardly any electricity. Again, it just doesn’t seem that the customer’s really matter. The biggest disappointment was not going up Tracy Fjord to see the glacier. I blame myself for not doing more research. It seems very few lines actually go to the glacier although advertise it. For anyone that is going to Alaska to see glaciers, as we and most people do, if you haven’t made your final payment and have this agenda you need to change it. Switch to glacier bay or you’ll more than likely be terribly disappointed. Also, don’t put the questionnaires for the disembarkation out on the 3rd day, what a bummer to get that on the 3rd day of a 10 day cruise. Just felt like they were ready to get us off the ship, very sad. I don’t really know what it is with the Princess line but I can tell you we won’t cruise with them again. We talked with other people on the last few days of the cruise and we did not bring up our issues as we did not want to be negative but it seemed to be the same for everyone. It just seemed we were always told one thing and then it never happened. We started to make a long standing joke, yes yes, but it really meant no no. Even if offered a great deal we would decline. I think you get to a point in life where the journey and satisfaction is more important than saving some money. We’ve already started to plan our next Alaskan cruise as we never got to the one thing that was important, cruising by a glacier. We had a made it a good time, we went on a float plane, mushed the dogs on a glacier, etc. But as for the cruise, just wasn't a good experience. Princess isn’t in the lineup for any future cruises and either is tracy fjord, we’ve learned our lesson.

Embarkation

Ship experiences

Food and Dining

Onboard Activities

Entertainment

Service and Staff

Ship Quality

Cabin / Stateroom

Ports of call

Ketchikan, Alaska

Juneau, Alaska

Skagway, Alaska

Victoria, British Columbia

Disembarkation

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