This was our second cruise on the Golden Princess and not a lot had changed in 12 months. Apart from our cabin steward, who was great, most of the other staff we dealt with seemed to be suffering from the after effects of the big storm in the Tasman Sea on the way from Melbourne. We joined the ship in Auckland, boarded just after 8pm (instead of 1pm due to the bad weather) and weren't even allowed a quick meal before we were hustled away for a lifeboat drill. On the previous cruise the spa pools round the swimming pool weren't working properly. This time, I asked someone in the spa pool how it was and they still weren't working properly so I flagged that. The TV programme was terrible with no written programme so you couldn't even plan to watch something good. The worst part was feeling that because we joined the cruise in Auckland (advertised as an Auckland to Auckland cruise) we were there on sufferance. There was no welcome letter from the Captain, no information on ports or trips were given to us at the beginning of the cruise and when we reached Melbourne we got no map of the city at all. We had to ask at the desk and they printed one off for us. At every end and turn we got "Aussie, Aussie, Aussie" shouted at the audience as if there weren't over 200 Kiwis on board as well as other nationalities. We had a wedding anniversary on board and met a couple who married on the same day so we decided to have lunch together to celebrate. We had a note from the ship saying that if we told our waiter of the occasion they would provide a surprise. On exiting the dining room I asked about "the surprise". I was told we had to bring the note to get the surprise, as if the ship didn't have a record of it. In short, I would not travel on the Golden Princess again. We have travelled on the Diamond Princess and it was great and we're booked on that for our next big cruise.