My husband and I took a 15-day cruise to Hawaii. The activities were sparse. When there were activities there were major scheduling conflicts. Princess schedules activities when other activities are already scheduled to take place or during dinnertime. For example, scheduling multiple activities around 2pm and then having a gap until dinnertime, which then caused passengers to have to choose between their traditional dinning and an activity. In our case we had the 8pm dinning time and there were numerous nights when trivia was during that time. We would miss trivia and go to the 8pm slot for dinner or risk heading to the buffet style eating option (Horizon Court), which had terrible service, where almost always we would not get service. Occasionally, my husband would speak with the staff and it would get better for that sitting as we had been pointed out, but without fail our service returned to subpar during our next visit. Additionally, the food left a lot to be desired, and seemed leftover or repeated on many occasions. We heard the food was good in the specialty dinning, but that was for a premium when you’ve already paid for the cruise.

We went to one of the events with the shopping host, who was awful. He went on and on repeating the same thing for the better part of an hour when the same information was in a packet that was handed out at the beginning of the event that you could read in minutes. As a promotion, passengers would get a free gift when attending the event. If I were you, now that I know, I wouldn’t bother going to the event, and the free gift is not worth it. The shopping host tried to give me changing color nail polish to which I declined. I would not wear that nor gift it.

We went to all of the production shows, which were the high points for the cruise. However, I will say that many of the passengers commented on the shows being repeats and having seen all of them on previous cruises. While, as a first time cruiser the production shows are all Princess had to offer. The best performance was by far the guest performers who were a part of the “Walk Like A Man” show. However, many of the guest performances were not enjoyable, so much so that my husband and I walked out along with numerous other passengers. Read more