We made the best of our time and made sure we had fun on this cruise despite the obvious problems we had with Princess. It is however not a Cruise line I would recommend or use again.
Embarkation
1 out of 5
Against my better judgement and after asking the attendant at the dock multiple times to please keep the 7 pieces of luggage all together and him ignoring and assuring me it will all arrive together even though he separated it, they lost half our luggage for 8 hours as I anticipated. Then when it finally arrived at our room 8 hrs later, it was damaged and broken, basically unusable. Princess offered no explanation or apology and we had to throw away and purchase replacements. We will be contacting Princess for restitution.
Ship experiences
Food and Dining
2 out of 5
Buffet was poor at best, only half the Buffet was open at a time obviously they are understaffed. The food was basically the same choices for 7 days with hardly any variations. The Coffee machines were broken as much if not more than they were working. The cold drink choices from the fountain were extremely limited, lemon aid or Ice Tea only, No juices, sodas or any other type of cold drink. We had Thanksgiving Dinner in one of the main dining rooms which you had to book ahead of time. They offered a very limited menu and the portions were limited/small at best. The Turkey dinner was a few slices with a spoon of sweet potato and and spoon of mix veg or Broccoli. Not exactly filling and as an Adult, I needed to order a second meal. The slab of Ham steak with the same limited sides was nothing spectacular either. I've eaten on other cruise ships and all in all the Food and Drink experience on Princess has been the worst in comparison.
Onboard Activities
3 out of 5
The Pools were overcrowded and noisy. The people save and retain the lounge chairs and lounge areas all day even if they are not present to use them. Staff needs to police the areas to make sure everyone that has saved areas and chairs is using them. This would allow ALL passengers ample time to enjoy this activity. The rest of my party did enjoy the Spa experience but of course that was not included in the cruise package and you have to pay a separate charge (quite hefty) for this activity. In general most onboard activities were okay but crowded.
Entertainment
3 out of 5
The entertainment offered in some of the lounges was fun especially the Princess Live lounge. I felt the theater did not offer any exceptional experiences or shows to see and we opted to do other things. The dancers were talented and we enjoyed watching them perform.
Children's Programs
We had no young children in our party.
Service and Staff
3 out of 5
This is a tough category to rate because not everyone performed their jobs at the same level. The waiters and room stewards were excellent, attentive and did their job. Assistant Director Alejandro was excellent but we found some of the other assistant directors to be snarky and lacking in their interaction with us as customers of the ship. One particular experience we had on the ship was that we won a competition early on in our cruise week and were told at that time we would receive a dinner for two at a specialty dining room. This was to be sent to out room, after 3 days and no coupon we went to guest services to no avail and then to the cruise directors assistant to see why we never received our dinner coupon as promised. Finally on the second to last day we received our coupon and went to the dining room to book the dinner, at that point the dining room they authorized us to use was fully booked and could not take us. Not exactly a great customer service experience.
Ship Quality
3 out of 5
The ship was clean overall and the layout and design was basically simple with the exception of a couple of floors that you could not fully access the forward and aft sections of the ship with out dropping down a level and coming back up, a little confusing at first.
Cabin / Stateroom
3 out of 5
The room size was OK, clean and comfortable. The shower was tiny and the refrigerator did not keep anything cold unless you left the refrigerator cabinet door open so it did not run hot. The Balcony was nice and being able to remove the center divide between our families rooms was a nice feature allowing us to have one large balcony. The lack of US type receptacles was annoying.
Ship tip
Bring receptical adapters, keep on appropriate staff members to fulfill thier obligations otherwise they will not happen.
The disembarkation process was fast and efficent but once again they desroyed another piece of my luggage (roller wheels broken completly off) by the time it came off the ship and was in the pick up area.
This is not the Sky Princess we sailed on twice we had 2 lovely cruises around the Mediterranean.
We once had a luggage case damaged on Emerald Princess and Princess paid for a replacement, the crew on the reception were brilliant and logged our complaint and had a temporary repair done to the case to get us home. We have 2 cruises booked with Princess in 2023 can't wait.
Appreciate your feedback. I’m leaving tomorrow to board this ship. Fingers crossed they got the coffee machines fixed and they don’t break our luggage.
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