Disapointment

Floor plan of ship mad it a little hard to get around sometimes depending on where you had to go.

My wife and I booked this cruise and for the first time we decided to spend the extra money for a balcony. We were told that the only balcony left when we booked was a partially obstructed view. I tried to do as much research as I could on what that meant and wasn't able to find much info but the consensus seemed to be that there was probably a post or something in my view. Unfortunately when we got to our stateroom we found that it was what we would call a completely obstructed view. There was a tender boat directly in front of our balcony. If you sat on the bed and looked out the only thing that you could see was the tender boat and nothing else. The only way to see anything but that was to go on the balcony and look up and see the sky. You couldn't see the water or anything below or to the sides. In St. Thomas I stood on top of the table on the balcony and still couldn't get a picture of the port without the tender in the picture. Before the ship even left we went to the front desk to complain and see if we could be moved and we were told that they wouldn't know for a couple of days. From there we called our travel agent and she talked to them to no avail. We were told at the front desk that they had no partially obstructed staterooms on the Royal Princess and showed us in there info where that was stated. What we were told there was in direct conflict with what was stated on both their website and in our booking papers. We went back the next day as we hadn't heard anything from the desk and were told we couldn't be moved. In the process of our day we met several others who had the same problem and had been told the same thing about their rooms being partially obstructed. Finally we had a meeting with a ship staff person who gave us a letter stating that she had forwarded our complaint to the Princess main office. She blamed our travel agent for the problem and we were led to believe that someone from Princess would be in touch when we got home. After being home from the trip for over a month and receiving no contact I began to call my travel agent who contacted her contacts at Princess which also took some time. I had sent pictures of the tender and the situation to the agent as well as pictures of one of their employees looking into our cabin from the tender boat one day when my wife was changing clothes. Not knowing someone would be in the tender boat she had failed to close the curtain completely. There were people in the tender boats daily so there was no privacy on the balcony and unless the curtains were closed no privacy in our stateroom either. Our completely obstructed view balcony was virtually unusable. Not only couldn't you see anything but there were people right up against your glass balcony railing daily on and off all day. The customer service person who called me told me that she couldn't do anything for us. I told her that I would like to be refunded the $1200 extra that we had paid for the balcony over an interior cabin price and she said that she could possibly get us $600 but not any more. I think the only reason she would do that was that she received the pics of the guy looking right into our stateroom from the tender. When I didn't agree to that she said that she was the final authority and there was no one else I could talk to. I finally wrote to the CEO of the line and got a call from the first customer service person's supervisor who was apologetic but still said that he couldn't do any more for me other than to offer the $600 toward another cruise and only the "possibility of an upgrade" to a balcony on another cruise depending on what cruise that we chose. I asked to have that put in writing and was told that I would be sent an email from the original agent. When I got the email It stated that I had to book another cruise with them and that there was a deadline on when it could be booked or we would lose the "goodwill" offer. Her letter said nothing about the upgrade that we discussed. Her supervisor and I had had no discussion about the offer being closed ended and when I questioned that I was told that that was the way it was and that I could call in three months and have it extended but only once. By the way, I just checked and the same room is still listed as "Partially Obstructed" on the Princess website if your read the whole text. Our cabin steward was the highlight of our cabin experience as he was excellent. We just felt misled by our contacts with Princess management.