We sailed on the Caribbean Princess the week of Thanksgiving, 2013. We sailed out of Houston (not Galveston). The weather was very cold for Houston and we had very strong winds all day and into the night. The winds were so strong that it was decided it was not safe to navigate the Houston Ship Channel. For this reason, our ship did not leave the dock until the next day (18 hours later) . So practically the first day of the cruise was spent tied to the dock. Our 7-day cruise is now a 6-day cruise. Because we had lost so much time, our stop at Roatan, Honduras was canceled. We headed for Costa Maya, Mexico which was substituted in Roatan's place. Costa Maya was nice but our adult children had an excursion scheduled in Roatan which of course they did not get. Our next port-of-call was Belieze City, Belieze. When we got there the winds and seas were so rough that the ship could not safely enter the Belieze ship channel. The stop at Belieze City was also cancelled. No substitute port-of-call was provided. The captain apologized and said we would have a "day at sea" instead. Our children missed their excursion in Belieze City as well. When we arrived in Cozumel, Mexico the winds were very strong and all excursions that were on the water or required transportation over the water were canceled. Our children's third excursion was canceled.

So our 7-day cruise was 6-days. We only made it to 1 of our scheduled ports-of-call. Our children did not receive any of the three excursions they had booked (they did however receive refunds). The rough seas made the first part of the cruise extremely bumpy and a number of people commented to us that this was the worst cruise (in terms of rough seas and high winds) they had experienced. Every time we missed our schedule, canceled a port-of-call or canceled excursions, the captain would apologize. However, at the end of the cruise, Princess never offered any good will gesture or any kind of compensation for a cruise that was a very big disappointment (albeit because of weather).

I left the ship feeling like Princess Cruises didn't care that the cruise was very rough, or that you didn't get the ports-of-call that you paid for or that one day was spent tied to the dock. You got a "cruise" and if it didn't meet your expectations (based on their advertisements) well...tough! Read more