Golden Princess Review
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This was our bucket list cruise to Alaska; ages 72 and 65. The ship had a few flaws that were extremely irritating. The first, elevators. We're not so good with stairs anymore and need a lift now and then. The ship is very broken up ... this elevator will take you to the floor you want, but you have to take another elevator down one floor, go to another part of the ship, and take an elevator back up to get to your destination. This was an every day ordeal. We never did figure it out! Also, the elevators were not synchronized well. They were either all gong up or all going down. This was extremely frustrating when getting off the ship for an excursion .... we missed one because we took the 'wrong' elevator after waiting for 5 minutes to get one that was not full. Then we had to wait for the elevator to go back down, then walk to another location and wait for another elevator to go back up. Thankfully we were able to join another group for the same excursion, but it was frustrating to say the least. There were problems at dinner time also, with so many people going to the same place at the same time. Every elevator that stopped on your floor was full. We took a lot of stairs, which was dangerous because neither of us have very good balance. We recently moved to a one story home because of that.
I found it strange that the floor we went to for dinner did not have a bathroom that you could get to. You had to go up to use the restroom. Now for many that would not be a problem, but one of our group was in a wheelchair, which meant waiting for those elevators again. While you're gone from the table your food is getting cold, and the others are getting on with their meal .... CRAZY! The dinners were wonderful, and the service was excellent!
The buffet was lackluster but adequate. I guess I'm comparing it to my Royal Caribbean cruise 25 years ago, and the casino buffets we like so well. We went for a sit down breakfast one morning. I ordered the 'main course' fruit plate, an English muffin and bacon. The fruit plate came first .... it was quite small. I would have liked the muffin and bacon with it, but no servers were to be found. Then they brought the muffin .... and a dinner plate mounded with bacon. I was embarrassed; I'm sure some passengers felt I ordered that plate. I shared with the table and almost all was eaten, but that was RIDICULOUS!
Cabin Review
We had a balcony room. The room was small as was the balcony, but loved being able to watch for whales and eagles (never saw them though). The room was adequate. Free room service was very nice, though we ordered breakfast twice and both days they had to come back two times before they got it right??? The ice bucket was always full. Our toilet seat did fall off. The first time our cabin steward fixed it. The second time we called for a repair .... they came right after I had undressed for a shower, even though I told them when they called to come after 5:30 as we would be at dinner. I believe it was a language problem??