Royal Princess Review

4.0 / 5.0
1,777 reviews

Not in love with this love boat

Review for the Eastern Caribbean Cruise on Royal Princess
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Ima Cruiser
10+ Cruises • Age 50s

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Sail Date: Dec 2014
Cabin: Balcony

I have to say that I was not impressed with the changes that Princess made with this ship – in fact, had I not cruised princess in the past I may not have been a repeat customer after this experience. This was my 24th cruise - 10th with Princess. This was a back to back over both Christmas and New Year’s.

The ship lay out was also disappointing. There was no dance floor in the wheelhouse, although they had space for musicians to play. They got rid of the Explorer’s lounge and replaced it with the WORST VENUE EVER – Princess Live. Going into Princess Live was horrible experience – the venue was like attending a business quarterly meeting – chairs right next to the other person, no tables – which means no place to set down your drink And the room was just plain ugly. I have attended several business meetings in my life and prefer not to be in that environment when I travel for pleasure. Club 6 was a joke, minimal dance floor and minimal wait staff. Also – why in the world would you schedule line dance lessons in the Piazza during lunch time, which has several venues and subject the passengers to line dance instructions: “STEP TOGETHER, STEP TOGETHER, KNEE AND KNEE” while trying to have a quiet lunch. The central elevator banks also had no stairs above the 7th floor which was highly inconvenient and many passengers complained about it. The Theater was also a nightmare, with cramped space between rows. It seemed like they downsized to public spaces to cram more cabins in, therefor souring the customer experience. Its like they are trying to attract first time cruisers rather than earn repeat business. Many of the experienced cruisers I spoke with felt the same way.

The cruise director’s staff was incompetent and rude to passengers. During karaoke they claimed that I turned my microphone off and it was never working from the time they handed it to me so obviously they were making excuses for incompetence. Thank you for insulting a passenger on stage, Assistant Cruise Director and Erica from Chile, rather than handling the situation professionally. She also said on our way out “That one doesn’t like me much” she was covering her butt at my expense. And she was correct, I don’t like untrained unprofessional cruise staff. We complained and the deputy cruise director gave us a bunch of excuses – which amounted to the staff being poorly trained and rude. We never received follow-up and complained again, and no response was provided. Please send these people to charm school, Princess. They are in desperate need of training.

Cabin Review

Balcony

Cabin BC

A standard balcony cabin was much smaller than in the past and there were many changes that were not pleasant. The bath linens were worse than a budget rate hotel. I use better towels when I wash my dogs – seriously. And you would think they would get a clue from the sister line, Carnival, and provide comfortable beds for the passengers, but no, same old rock hard mattresses. The acoustics were substandard as well. We had continuous noise in our original cabin M501. It was so bad you could hear the football games from the big screen on deck even with the balcony door closed. Finally on the second leg of the trip we were moved to cabin B238, which was far better but we could still hear the TV in the next cabin and anytime a door opened or closed you could hear that as well. Kudos to Monica with the Hotel staff for staying on top of this.

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