My wife and I chose a Princess cruise to the British Isles to celebrate our 50th wedding anniversary. This was our 19th cruise overall and our 14th cruise on Princess. We have chosen Princess in the past primarily due to the itineraries they offer. We have noticed a steady decline in the overall quality of Princess cruises, especially on this cruise which was scheduled to depart Southampton on June 7, 2012. Our first cruise with Princess was in 1993 on the old Crown Princess.

We were scheduled to leave Southampton at 5:00 PM on June 7; however the ship was detained in port by the Coast Guard due to a bilge pump problem. The captain never told us the exact nature of the "technical issue". Announcement were made every few hours that the "issue" was taking longer than expected he would update us later. He never mentioned a bilge pump problem, only a "technical issue." We left port exactly one day late which resulted in our being a day late for our first three ports - Guernsey, Cobh and Dublin. The fourth stop, Liverpool, was cancelled entirely. Later in our cruise, our scheduled stop at Edinburgh was cancelled due to rough seas which did not permit safe tendering to shore.

Therefore, on a cruise advertised to include nine port stops and two days at sea. So we ended up with three days at sea and one cold, rainy day stuck in port at Southampton. Not quite the cruise we expected!! We had scheduled tours at each of the nine ports and three of these tours were cancelled. The tour at Guernsey was cancelled because we were a day late and all the buses were already being used by other tours. Of course the tours at Liverpool and Edinburgh were cancelled since we did not stop at either. Read more