Beautiful ship, service is spotty

Just returned from an 11 day Baltic Sea cruise on the Regal Princess. We have mixed feelings about the cruise and will summarize our experience.

GOOD: The ship: The ship is beautiful, well kept, clean and gleaming. A very nice ship. Our balcony cabin was an adequate size. It would have been nice to have a sofa but we made do with the two chairs that were provided. The bathroom is a bit tight but is very functional. The closet is a good size and we were provided with more hangers than we could use. We were in R438.

GOOD: The Crooners Bar: we spent several nights in the Crooners Bar. Two waiters, Chetan and Herbert, got to know us quite well and were especially accommodating. They were great servers. The bar also was where Colin Salter performed nightly. He is an excellent singer and pianist. We came to the bar to hear him sing.

GOOD: The food: It was good at both the traditional dinner and the buffet. The traditional dinner was probably tastier than the buffet but both were good. Of course, the buffet had every type of food you could imagine. The desserts at the Horizon Bistro are a bit on the dry side, however. Service was good at both types of restaurants.

BAD: Customer Service: our biggest complaint with the Regal Princess. We had Passenger Services tell us they were too busy to talk with us, we had sales people erroneously ring up purchases and then neglect to get the manager when we tried to resolve the problem, we waited 40 mins at the Wheelhouse Bar for someone to clean the table we sat down at and when they finally did come by, they did not ask if we wanted anything to drink, no one came by to ask if anyone wanted anything when outside on the pool deck. These are just some of the many examples of poor service that we experienced.

BAD: Specialty dining: we went to Sabatini's for dinner one night which was $100 for our foursome. The restaurant was inadequately staffed. There was one waiter (no busboy) for 26 people. Appetizer plates were not cleared, glasses sat empty without water or wine, my steak dinner was served 20 mins after my companions had gotten their food. My companions food was served cold and I only got my food because a dinner mate got up and told someone at the host table. No waiter noticed I was not eating. The head chef said the manager would come talk to us about the service but he never did. It was not a good experience.

BAD: Ship layout: There are no stairs in the center of the ship. If you want to avoid the long waits at the elevators, you must go forward or aft to find stairs. That was very inconvenient. We also missed the activities we found on other cruise ships like zip lining, rock wall climbing, miniature golfing, ice skating, etc.

I have been on over 10 cruises and this is the first cruise where I felt that the ship was understaffed. It certainly affected our satisfaction. There are other cruise lines that we prefer to Princess. Our next cruise will be on Celebrity. We did enjoy the itinerary and had a good time but Princess would not be our first choice. We have been spoiled by cruising on the Oasis of the Seas.