This was my first cruise, over the years many people had told me how wonderful Cruising is and following some reading and advise from our travel agent we chose Princess Cruises. Having just returned from this cruise the lingering memory is that this is that I would imagine being locked up in the local RSL for 2 weeks would be like.

There were some things I really enjoyed; the service we received from our allocated crew was excellent, in particular the guys in the restaurant where we dinned most evenings. The operational crew was also very good ship handlers, I’ve spent a little time at sea in merchant vessels and know what it takes to maneuver a large ship in close quarters and these guys did an excellent job.

We chose a mixture of self guided and ship managed shore excursions; I know it takes a lot of organization to manage 2000 people off and onto anything, but these guys do it week in and week out and on several occasions it was very poorly handled, in particular the Christchurch bus. It took 90 minutes to get off the ship, another 30 minutes to get to shore and out bus, then another 90 minutes drive to the city; that’s right 3 ½ hours. When we got to the city drop off there were about 5 different versions of the pickup arrangements, the bus driver clarified the situation, but this is an example of poor communication with passengers that was a consistence problem; we were guaranteed 4 hours in the city, we got 3 ½ followed by another 2 ½ hours getting back to the ship. While on bus tours, every bus driver we traveled with took the opportunity to bag out cyclists, it must be a national sport, I’m a cyclist and did not appreciate this continuous ridicule. Read more