Grand Princess Review
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Alarming- poor health service- no pharmacy on board (passengers should be advice to bring their own basic medication, bandages, peroxide , gaze; for disinfection the alcohol - could be used from the bar); doctor on board is available 3pm-6pm only, or emergency service /v.expensive services/; medical history forms/$92/- after that more charges for every step of medical service, charges in full/no insurance is accepted/- good luck to dispute such bills later with your insurance/especially hard for Medicare patients./
please be aware of special bacteria on the board, especially in the area of swimming pool and whirl pools; April 15, 2017 I had light fall approaching steps up to jacuzzi- small scratches on the top of right leg in a few days became seriously infected (swollen, red and hard to touch leg from the knee to the foot; both legs quickly became swollen, showing signs of edema); I'm not sure how expensive would be med service on the board, on top of all nobody in med office paid attention to me; shocking lack of interest from services on board: after I filed officially injury report on-board till the end of the cruise (nxt 12 days)nobody called me, nobody checked how I'm doing (nobody from the crew, not from front desk, not from human relations or security); shocking lack of consideration and compassion on board, we had impression that most of time the crew was spending promoting merchandise on-board, on swimming pool/Neptune side/TY huge screen was blasting since early morning (7am) with merchandise promotions by Cruise entertainment manager and his 2 helpers (cute blonde and brunette)- it was impossible to have any tranquility even on 15th floor special area "Serenity for adults."/special charges per day.
as for my injuries- it was impossible to get doctor's service on Maui, so I waited 4 days to get to Honolulu to be finally treated as USA citizen in Queen's medical center/urgent care. X-rays and antibiotics was the only treatment they were available to provide / as a result I was suffering a lot during trip till May 10- when finally I was seeing by my doctor in California.
Cabin Review
Interior
not bad cabins, small, quite, high step leads from bathroom to the entry between wardrobe
Port Reviews
Maui
port city with great malls, rather v. expensive restaurants, beautiful parks, Kaiser hospital, small urgent care clinic, free shuttles to Hilo Hotties store (v. expensive Hawaiian dresses)
Kauai
free shuttle to the side of Marriot hotel and mall- unfortunately I was advised by doctors not to swims, nor walk/earlier injury of right leg on board
very nice small mall
Hilo
hot, hot, humid, impossible to walk,one needs to book excursion to go to swimming areas
as for every night entertainment- we were lucky to have 2 great piano players/one a crooner/ who actually really entertained people till midnight.
if you are on diet- at dinner at restaurant/mostly the same menu as in big buffet, but somehow of better quality/also serving boiled potato and healthy but dry salmon every night/ unfortunately- restaurant needs to be scheduled ahead if you don't want to stand in long line
Please remember- on-board crew is 99% of different nationalities from different countries around of the world, strange dishes from the kitchen: poorly cooked beef /very chewy/, German feast meats had an unpleasant taste for some reason; be ready every morning to face white under cooked waffles and uneatable pancakes (respond from the kitchen: "the waffles are pale because they are fresh"!!); don't expect pizza to have any of our hearty souses, there was an appealing thin crust but no taste in all.
The biggest appreciation I fell for the most hard working people from room and restaurant service-very caring and attentive; it was worth to leave additional tips for them individually, even small amount is so important. I have an impression that the big cruise company is not providing with much those people who are performing basic services/the most important for passengers/ on-board; in each port they were rushing to K-Marts or Walgreen to buy basic supplies for them-selves (toothbrushes, toothpaste, soap, etc). cruising on Princess is rather boring, no bridge games, no meetings for singles (there were a few organized at 8-9am!!??
as for Gym- is less equipment that in any of american small local gym; on the cruise ship with over 1600 people- the best chances to exerciser/not much of waiting line during lunch hours- for last 15 years- the same gym, if I remember correctly: there are only 4 stationary bicycles (2 lower and 2 upper use), 5 regular treadmills, a few of uphill/ski work- out treadmills, 1 weight lift, 3 weight pulling stations, and 20+ bicycles for spin/rarely used/ not available without trainer's supervision/they must be very busy elsewhere, because I rarely saw a trainer there/.; with such a big number of elderly people one might expect there will be a trainer in gym watching over, talking to people, encouraging us or helping us- no , sadly, it is all rather very disappointing. On such a big ship - there should be stationary bicycles and treadmills on every floor and in corners in 2 big areas where small swimming pools are/a front of those huge windows, and maybe next to the bars, since anyway- many of men are actually bringing drinks in glass and leaving it on the edges of whirl pool or swimming pools. Once at noon when I tried to salvage big glass of beer from the edge of swimming pool (remember the water in swimming pool while at sea is splashing out of the pool all the time pooling everything into swimming pool) on of man (sitting in tub in black ti-shirt and gym shorts) became very angry and lashed at me. besides such a lack of basic hygienic rules for whirl tubs and swimming pools, there is no safe guards around swimming pools, no posted signs on the subjects of safety, no warnings for kids "not to run around", total lack of crew watching over slippery areas, that is when i fell down (avoiding running kids) and it went unnoticed (if it wasn't for my friend.)
from the perspective of our experience with this cruise ship we are under impression that Grand Princess is letting go of appearance, appeal and safe rules on-board because they are so sure of full booking. On the top of all the constant changes within the crew of managers(usually very young "salesmen" type people changing cruise ships during the year, so no feel of responsibility toward passengers;) as main big cruise ship with start at port of San Francisco Grand Princess always has full booking to Hawaii, Canada or Alaska;
I'm not happy to write such a severe critic, but we don't think existing conditions on Grand Princess is fair to their devoted passengers.
nowadays in health obsessed society with such fierce competition in every business field one would expect that such an old and popular Grand Princess cruise ship will forehead promoting healthy style of vacationing, special healthy food, extending and modernizing Gym, adding interesting activities and meetings for singles (mostly over 60'), etc, etc
also please to train better cooks in the kitchen, Grand Princess needs somebody who knows how to cook beef or make good eggs and real crispy waffles! it's time to change safe and health protecting policies (adding pharmacy on-board), better trained hospitality service on-board, refreshed entertainments routine; it is all about to be fair and compassionate to your passengers.