Nickeled and dimed to the very end...
Majestic Princess Cruise Review to Alaska - Inside Passage
Contributor Level:
Purser
Cruises: 4-6 cruises
Review: 1
Helpful Votes: 13
7 Night Alaska Inside Passage (Seattle Roundtrip)
Sail date: September 01, 2024
Ship: Majestic Princess
Cabin type: Suite
Cabin number: L217
Traveled as: Couple
Reviewed: 3 months ago
Review summary
Go back in time on the Boomer Express! We chose this ship for it's indoor pool and lack of children, but that's where the amenities stopped. We were nickel and dimed out of thousands more than we had planned due to feeling like we required the Premier Package to get priority seating and an all-inclusive worry free trip. I feel ripped off and will be fighting the charges. The WiFi and their required app were atrocious and cost hundreds of dollars for something that barely worked. They promised reserved seating for shows but that's not true and you are not guaranteed to get a seat for paying extra, nor even a good seating location! You will have to arrive at least 45 minutes PRIOR to ANY show for a good seat, let alone a seat at all. There were still food and drinks that cost us extra money, and in the case of the food, it was overpriced bar food, at best. I've paid less for a sandwich in Vail! We were only placated incessantly and it felt like gaslighting. So much so that we had to disconnect the phone in our room and throw it away; literally. No problems reported were solved. Nothing had been updated on the boat. The food made us very sick twice. They never vacuumed our room and we had mud everywhere from an excursion. They would sneak into your room MULTIPLE times per day unless you were forceful about saying no or remembering to click a button on a wall-mounted touch screen that was unreliable. They track you and your every movement using their "Medallions"... think Apple Airtags but for HUMANS. While it has some understandable advantages, the invasion of privacy was simply creepy at times. We played Bingo once. Not because I wanted to, but my younger girlfriend didn't even know what it was! Half the things we did on the boat were due to their comical nature; reminiscent of a time long lost where people once played shuffleboard, dined with the captain at 5pm... (yes, 5 freaking pm! and close at 9 or 10 pm), did the hokey-pokey, took down a whole pack of cigs while gambling away their life savings, and ravaged their bodies with alcohol and buffet fodder to forget stressed out lives for just one sad week. I your childhood entertainment was monochrome and you love to burn money, preferring a placation over a vacation, this ship is for you! Boom-out to Disco night, dinners at 5, soaking in stranger sweat, and being overwhelmingly upsold at every occasion. And, don't worry about shopping on your trip either because we own all the stores on the boat AND in the struggling little towns! And, of course, don't forget about our amazing technology on the ship. While we are cruising at 50 knots you can be surfing the Internet at a blazing 19.2kbs! That right folks, practically never ending bandwidth for you and everyone on the ship to share at once. SO, are you ready to get YOUR Boom On?Embarkation
Quick to embark but their app constantly crashed and even the crew members couldn't stop commenting at how awful it was. If you are going to rely on technology for customer relations and logistics, it better be phenomenal!
Ship experiences
Food and Dining
We, and just about everyone around us, got very sick at the Chinese restaurant. Then, again after eating at the buffet apparently a bit later than the typical rush time and the food was gross and made me ill. The Steak restaurant was a shining star. Rudy's Seafood would have been great had it not been positioned in the center of the ship with no walls and obnoxious Hokey Pokey music playing from down below while a DJ screams as you try to have a romantic dinner. And, while everything was served in dishes that looked like a crab, there was no crab on the menu. I thought I had purchased the ultime Premier package to ensure everything would be covered without worry... it was absolutely not. I had to pay $18 out of pocket for a Lobster roll that was sub-par, at best.
Onboard Activities
Like most things Princess, it was marketing shenanigans on and off this ship. There is NO putt-putt golf course... only a putting green with a few holes at the top-most of the ship where it moves the most. The hot tubs were always deplorable, filled with people constantly, raining rust from the sides, and black mold was apparent all over the water reclamation grates. The spa was nice, but also sub-par and lacking a lot of amenities and personalized attention typical to a vacation destination spa. The Hollywood area with a covered pool was why we chose this boat in particular, and it did not disappoint, other than the hot tubs. It was perfect for Alaska weather and people like us who can't stay in direct sunlight for long. And, with the extreme lack of modern amenities, it kept the little kids largely off this boat, as planned.
Entertainment
Sorry magician guy, but your act was weak. I mean, the ol' rope trick with neodymium magnets!? Really, dude? We sat front row and could easily see the rope sections due to overuse and staining. The singers and dancers were generally very good and the firey red-head that ran the bingo games was phemomenal.
Service and Staff
IT Staff non-existent and it showed. Their app and WiFi were often unusable and running at dial-up speeds most of the time. The "Service Desk" was renamed "Playcation Station" by day two. Nobody resolved anything, and just treated everyone like fools. I paid for the Premier Package that included tips but I really wish I had not done that. Only the bartenders deserved tips.
Ship Quality
It's clean, but designed for my parent's generation, and I'm 50. Nobody cares about half the crap you pawn off onboard like overpriced synthetic gem jewelry, art with "art"ificially inflated values, hokey-pokey, disco night, and disgusting smokers allowed in the casino like it's 1995! It's one thing that the ship itself is X years old and has some wear and tear, but it's another thing to keep playing the same old playbook like we're all dying Boomers.
You want my money and everyone younger than me? We want tattoo parlors onboard, night clubs, arcades, adventure sports, VR and gaming, truly all-inclusive with no gimmicks, no smoking tobacco and yes to smoking cannabis (especially when travelling from Seattle, Canada, and Alaska where it is ALL LEGAL NOW!). I mean, c'mon and get with the times folks! You've read the stats... we want to pay more for experiences than things now... adapt or sink.
Cabin / Stateroom
We found a great room on the Lido deck, right outside of a lot of food locations and the pools. That worked out well. The rooms had custom TV's that don't allow external connections and we wanted to play a video game in our room on a big screen. A couple of hours later I had hacked it, but that's what I do for a living and almost nobody else could have pulled it off. But, why? Again, this ship was so 90's and even the items they have updated, like TV's, were restricted junk.
Ship tip
Lower Your Expectations.... a lot!
Thumbs up
0
Ports of call
Pretty place with nothing but bad attitudes. It was a bit of a culture shock. I mean, there is east coast anger, but at least it's direct and you get the feeling it's sorta not personal. This west coast anger was more like, "I do not like me and you can't make me like you!". Maybe that's what you get with too much rain. Colorado seems cozy in comparison.
Great small town with adventurous excursions and less of the town was owned by the cruise lines. Yes, you read that right, they collectively own 30% to over 50% of the town's stores (tourist traps)! Check out this neat town but take an adventure outside of it.
CRUISE ENDICOTT ARM & DAWES GLACIER
I was here 20 years ago and it was like the Discovery channel; whales, ice breaking off a massive glacier less than 200 yards from the boat. Now, it's melted back more than a couple of miles and you can barely see it when the boat stops and turns... it was TRULY SAD.
Take the Tram to the top of the mountain. Don't even try to shop... I think more than half the town here is jewelry stores owned by the cruise lines. It's really not nice what they do to the native entrepreneurs... no chance, no care.
This was one of the best places to take a tour, excursion, anything to get you into the forests out there. I beautiful place and "seemingly" less owned by the cruise lines... but not by much.
It's a beautiful city that we walked a few miles around, but this trip put us there near dark and I would have rather had more time in this town.
Disembarkation
Thankfully, they made getting off this junker a painless experience. We got off quickly and back to cellular networks that even at their worst congestion are 100 times faster that the WiFi we paid HUNDREDS of dollars to have access to during our trip.
11 Comments
MelAndChris 3 months ago
Wow! I do agree about the smoking in the casino, but as for the rest none of that has been my experience on all the Princess cruises I have taken. Your TA should have explained the package, Princess Plus or Princess Premier, to you better so you could have set your expectations at the proper level.