I just returned from my 5 night cruise on the Emerald Princess. My wife and I have been on almost every cruise line with destinations all over the world and were very disappointed with Princess and their inexcusable decision to allow this ship to sail with all the problems that they had on board. This was not our first cruise with Princess so we decided to book this vacation because of their itinerary of two days at sea and their private island with a stop at the Grand Turk. All we wanted to do is rest and enjoy the ship and all it's services.

I will start with what we liked about the ship. The crew was very friendly and accommodating. The entertainment was excellent. There was an amazing amount of activities all over the ship and the staff was amazing. Now for the downside.The food was just average including the Crown Grill with it's up charge of $25 per person. If you are used to eating out at fine steak or seafood restaurants please do not expect the same service or food quality. Room service was a joke. They told me 20 minutes to deliver two cokes and a bottle of water. After an hour we just cancelled the order and went to the bar. Next, they did not staff their passenger services desk with enough people. They must have had 8 computer terminals with only 3 people at one time. I did not even bother to call on the phone anymore because when I went there in person, the phones were ringing off the hook with those passengers who kept trying to call.

Forget the shore excursion desk because they could not even answer basic questions about the Grand Turk port and just referred me to a brochure. Believe it or not this was the minor complaints that we had. Our cabin, in addition to probably 100 other cabins did not have working showers, sink faucets with cold water, adequate air conditioning ( it was warm in our balcony cabin on the Aloha Deck ). The captain actually apologized over the loud speaker on the first day and told us it would all be fixed. Not so. Some cabins actually had their waste water from their toilet over flow. We were lucky, our toilet actually worked. They told us to take our showers in their Spa which was ridiculous because of the lines, zero privacy and no additional towels. We just decided to take cold showers in our cabin and was happy that we did not have only scalding hot water like some of the other guests. Read more