My family and I just took a cruise on Alaska's inside passage on the Golden Princess. This was our second cruise to Alaska (my wife and I went on a similar Royal Caribbean cruise about 8 years ago on the Radiance of the Seas). This provided us with a unique opportunity to compare two very similar cruise itineraries on two different cruise lines. Below, we compare and contrast our recent experience on Princess with our past experience on Royal Caribbean.
Customer Service:
Overall, I was impressed with the level of customer service provided by the Princess staff. Every princess employee we met, starting with the reps at the cruise terminal, was very warm and friendly. On the ship, all of the staff including the waiters and cabin steward, were very friendly and responsive to our needs. We could tell that Princess puts a lot of effort into training their staff on excellent customer service.
Very comfortable and well appointed cabin. We wanted to adjoining cabins for our family. No such cabins were available, but the steward unlocked and opened the divider on our balcony. So it was almost the same as having an adjoining cabin. You just had to go outside to our private balcony to go from one cabin to the other.
One negative: we were surrounded by smokers (both to the left and below us were smokers). It would be nice if they offered the option of a block of non-smoking cabins so that we could enjoy being on our balcony smoke free.