This will be my last Princess Cruise that I ever go on. To say that the ship layout, the customer service, helpfulness and willingness to assist customers, service in the food areas, lack of communication and overall staff demeanor was awful would be a compliment. I have never received such piss poor treatment and I attribute this to being purchased by Carnival Cruise Lines. As you can see from my history, I have sailed with Princess a number of times, but I will never sail with you again. It is very apparent that your business model has changed from “family friendly” to “no children” since you let the elderly dictate what occurs on the ship. I can break it down to the simplest forms as to my dissatisfaction with the latest cruise.

Ship Layout and Amenities: This is a terrible layout. You placed a sunning deck right in the middle of the ship where a pool should have gone. When we got onto the ship, there were fountains going off. We had 35 people on the ship and most are children. The kids took the opportunity to play in the fountains, but within 5 seconds a deck attendant came out to yell at the kids. I walked over and asked what the issue was and in broken English it was explained to me that it isn’t a play area. Fine. I told the kids politely and this wasn’t an issue. You can’t get to certain areas of the ship, unless you take specific elevators. If not then you have to go up, across and down. Another issues is that the room my sister and daughter stayed in had their toilet overflow and spill onto the carpeting three (3) times. The repair people were called three times and never got fixed or the carpet never dried out. The room my sons were in, the safe didn’t work. They called to have it fixed, but it wasn’t fixed the entire cruise. The air conditioning in my room didn’t work and finally got it fixed on the last day of the cruise. This doesn’t sound like a new ship and I would expect this from Carnival, but not from Princess. Boy was I wrong. The pool set up was awful as they had the television screen and live band in one pool. Some people want to listen to music and some people wanted to watch a moving (not a concert! Really Barry Manilow????)

Activities: This was apparent to us that the ship is not for children. I have three children (16, 12 and 11). The kids clubs close at 10:00 PM. So, after 10, there is nothing to do for them. Then comes New Year’s Eve. The kids are bored and want to go night swimming. The kids were just swimming around in the pool, not splashing, not jumping, not yelling and doing nothing. We had at least one parent, if not two or three standing at the side of the pool watching our kids. The deck attendant comes out and says the kids have to get out of the pool. Fine, they moved over to the hot tub. Then he proceeds to tell them they cannot sit in the hot tub, once again, no splashing, yelling, jumping and the bubbles weren’t even on. The deck attendant comes over and tells us the kids can’t be in the hot tub. We asked to speak to a supervisor. A member of security came out and explained to us that the pools and hot tubs are closed and it was announced. We asked where it was announced. Finally, he admitted that he lied, but that they left the nets off for pictures. He said it was a safety issue because parents leave their kids to swim unattended. We explained that there was parent standing by the side of the pool at all times. Then he accused us of being over intoxicated. I explained that I am 6 foot tall and a former life guard. I would find it extremely hard to believe that if someone was in distress I wouldn’t be able to rescue them? Speaking of activities, this goes back implication that you are no longer interested in servicing families. When you have a so called planned activity going on (which was 18 years and older) the staff would remove the kids from the activities (sports court, pool) for the two people who wanted to do the activities. In the past, midnight was the latest they would watch kids in the past and then if you wanted it extended, you would pay extra. No option for that. Nothing for the teenagers to do aboard. No arcade, no dance club, nothing! Read more