Buyer Beware

Island Princess Cruise Review to U.S. - Pacific, Northwest

Cruises: 2-3 cruises
Review: 1
Helpful Votes: 45

Overall rating:

2.9 out of 5
Island Princess

5 Night Alaska Sampler (Vancouver Roundtrip)

Sail date: September 11, 2019

Ship: Island Princess

Cabin type: Balcony

Traveled as: Couple

Reviewed: 5 years ago

Review summary

We were beyond disappointed with our Island Princess cruise experience. We booked an Alaska Sampler vacation for our honeymoon which sailed out of Vancouver. We were supposed to visit two ports – Juneau and Ketchican. Even before we left, the cruise ship was experiencing mechanical difficulties associated with the speed it could travel. This resulted in a 10 hour delay before sailing. We were then told that the ship wouldn’t be able to sail to Juneau – the one port most of us were looking forward to (e.g. whale watching, glaciers). Instead of asking customers if they wanted a refund, they diverted us to Prince Rupert, BC which means our Alaskan cruise only had 1 port in Alaska and two in BC! To top it off, they were not able to provide many excursions in Prince Rupert, which meant most of us were forced to spend the day walking around aimlessly – the nearest attraction being the local Walmart. The “compensation” all of us received was a $100 credit and 15% towards a future vacation (as if we would sail with this company again). Beware! The sign of a good company is not how they treat you when things are going well – it’s how they handle difficult situations such as the one we experienced. While we will certainly cruise again, we will NEVER AGAIN give our business to Princess (or their parent company Carnival Cruises).

Embarkation

1 out of 5

Ship experiences

Food and Dining

4 out of 5

Onboard Activities

1 out of 5
Many onboard activities were closet sales pitches. For example, we went to a seminar on back pain expecting exercise tips and it turned out to be an hour presentation by some company selling orthotics.

Entertainment

2 out of 5

Service and Staff

5 out of 5
The only thing that made this vacation tolerable were the excellent staff.

Ship Quality

2 out of 5
This ship is a bit dated and clearly needs maintenance work.

Cabin / Stateroom

4 out of 5
Good cabin. Spacious and clean.

Ports of call

Vancouver (Canada Place), British Columbia

4 out of 5

Juneau, Alaska

1 out of 5
Port cancelled even before we left Vancouver.

Ketchikan, Alaska

2 out of 5
Experiences were good but overpriced.

Disembarkation

2 out of 5
Was this review helpful? 45

3 Comments

Gwbigdog    2 years ago

CruzeFan    5 years ago

Sorry it wasn’t what you expected. Itineraries and ports can change or be cancelled for a variety of reasons - weather, mechanical issues, medical issues, etc. Every passenger is notified and agrees to this in the cruise contract when booking. If a specific port is of importance to you, get a good travel insurance policy that will compensate you for a missed port or itinerary change.

cruisereckoning    5 years ago

So sorry to hear, we sail on the Ruby Princess for our Alaska Cruise with no complaints. A little surprised they didn’t compensate you a little better. Always to bad when it leaves a bad taste with you.

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