What a fantastic experience! Flew Heathrow - Beijing on KLM, via Amsterdam - excellent service and comfortable-ish for long haul cattle class. In Beijing, stayed at the Marriott City walls, which was lovely, although the food was poor value. Princess offered us several trips, which we took, as they seemed good value (I have reviewed the trips separately on Trip Advisor if you are interested.) ...
SUMMARY
Lovely ship with nice atmosphere being well managed by Captain Roger Bilton and Cruise Director, Brett, who kept everybody informed. Food was good but not up to the standards enjoyed on previous cruises on Sea Princess. Entertainment was poor, especially in the theatre, evidently due to excessive cost cutting. Well managed port calls with minimal queues and formalities handled very ...
We have just returned from a Southeast Asia cruise on the Diamond Princess.
The cruise was very good overall, but unfortunately we did not get to see Shanghai due to bad weather. The captain only told us two hours beforehand at approximately 6am that we were unable to dock at Shanghai as the port was closed due to bad weather. We therefore remained at sea for three days and missed a very ...
We booked on the Beijing to Bangkok cruise which has some amazing ports of call. We have done several cruises but never have we seen such a serious mechanical vibration which emanated from the engine room on the port side on the Diamond Princess. This spread through all of the decks and caused plates and tableware to rattle constantly. Luckily, our cabin was slightly aft of midships and so the ...
Booking our own air and using air miles to get bulkhead and exit rows was a great idea. Being 6/4, I needed the leg room on the long 14 hour flights from NYC to Beijing and return via Tokyo. Along with the extra leg room, we also scored free passes to United lounges between flights. After flawless transfers, we spent 3 days touring Beijing and staying at the Marriott Wall with tours each day ...
EMBARKATION & DISEMBARKATION Princess deserve a gold star for the smooth embarkation and disembarkation -- we received an email when we were in Beijing before the cruise advising that embarkation had been delayed until 6pm rather than the 12 noon as planned. We were able to alter our travel arrangements (bullet train) and arrived at the port at approximately 5.45pm -- it was so easy to check in, ...
My wife and I, with two friends, had a great time on the Diamond Princess as we toured SE Asia. This was our ninth cruise, but our first with Princess. Overall, the trip was fantastic, but there are a few items I feel Princess could improve on. I will start with the few negatives and then move on to the many positives.
Over the past year, we have been on three cruises. The other two were on ...
The princess package included flights from the UK, 1 night pre and post cruise hotel in Beijing and Bangkok. The excellent ports of call and a reasonable price attracted us to this cruise. We added a further 2 nights hotel in Beijing, and wish we had done the same in Bangkok!
The Doubletree in Beijing was great. Nice room and good facilities. It was easy to get around Beijing using ...
Asia was our next destination after cruising/vacations to Europe/Mediterranean and Middle East. We chose Princess based on a successful Baltic cruise on the Crown Princess. We chose to use Princess Air, Princess Pre/Post Hotels/Tours/transfers except for and extra night on our own at the Beijing Marriott City Wall Hotel which we had to make on our own since Princess could not accommodate us ...
Asia was our next destination after cruising/vacations to Europe/Mediterranean and Middle East. We chose Princess based on a successful Baltic cruise on the Crown Princess. We chose to use Princess Air, Princess Pre/Post Hotels/Tours/transfers except for and extra night on our own at the Beijing Marriott City Wall Hotel which we had to make on our own since Princess could not accommodate us ...