We are regular cruisers, and this was our fifteenth cruise. We love cruising and have had some great cruises, some average ones, and then there was this Princess cruise. We sailed this summer on the Sea Princess because we wanted to go to Iceland and the itinerary on this sailing was the most interesting we could find. It went not only to Iceland, but also to Norway, the Shetland Islands, the Faroes and to Ireland. The shore excursions were really wonderful and worth every penny. We got to see things that we just would not have been able to see any other way. Just a great itinerary, but that is where the greatness ended.
The ship was tired and dated. We had a stateroom with a balcony that was not only small but the paint was peeling and there was lots of rust. Forget about the ship shinning, it was barely clean. There was lots and lots of hand disinfectant, but this might have been due to the fact that (as was whispered amongst the guests) the ship had had an outbreak of Norwalk virus. I don't know if this is true, but they had us cleaning our hands with the disinfectant to the point that my skin cracked.
The food was passable at best. As a vegetarian I struggled to find food to eat for lunch and dinner and this is the first cruise where I actually lost two pounds. My husband told me that the beef (e.g. steaks) was often over cooked and/or tough.The lunches were the same day after day, and the breakfasts were equally poor and boring. Another big problem was that we took open seating, and the table that one got was dependent upon the mood of the maitre'd at the door when you come into the restaurant. The usual man was often very surly, and a couple that we met, who had done back-to-back sailing on the ship said that he thought of the dining room as his little kingdom so we should be very nice to him or we'd end up waiting an hour for a table. One time when I refused to be seated in front of the swinging doors our wait for another table was forty-five minutes.