Disappointed in Changing Itinerary

Cruises: 2-3 cruises

Review: 1

Helpful Votes: 18

Review summary

We were on a 3-week cruise leaving from Barcelona, however the ship also made two stops in Rome and Athens to embark and disembark passengers.  We were relatively pleased with the Royal Princess ship, mini-suite, service, and food.  The entertainment was fairly repetitious from one week to the next which I expect was because of the changeover of weekly passengers.  But the performers were good. In addition, the Princess excursions were satisfactory except that the large number of passengers from the ship made the ports and shops overly crowded.  The unfortunate downside to the cruise was that Princess made more than 7 changes to our original 17+ ports of call and replaced them with destinations that were not equivalent to ports in our original itinerary.  Aside from ports in Tunis/Carthage and Turkey, I believe most changes were for the convenience of Princess cruises.  Scheduled stops in Sicily, Naples, and Malta were cancelled with little or no reason.  Added to the 3-week cruise changes were stops in Kotor and Corfu twice each, plus Elba and Gibraltar. None of which was on the original itinerary or worth stopping at twice.  My oral and written concern to Princess Customer Service was dismissed with their stating that the Passage Contract gives them to right to make any change.  No compensation was offered or interest in customer retention considered.   Buyer beware, I would not recommend anyone make long-range plans with Princess Cruises.  Due to Princess Cruise Lines apparent indifference and lack of customer commitment we are unlikely to use them on future cruises.

Ship experiences

Food and Dining

Onboard Activities

Entertainment

Children's Programs

Service and Staff

Ship Quality

Cabin / Stateroom

Ports of call

Barcelona, Spain

Cartagena, Spain

Gibraltar (U.K.)

Marseille (Provence), France

Genoa, Italy

Livorno (Florence & Pisa), Italy

Civitavecchia (Rome), Italy