Grand Princess Review
Rating by category
Additional details
It has been six years since my last Princess Cruise but I have been on six prior to this LA-Hawaii round trip (1/09/17). I was disappointed with some aspects, pleased with others.
Bad news first:
1) An unconscionable wait for Anytime Dining. Only one dining room was set aside for Anytime Dining, the Michelangelo. After long waits on two nights, we switched to Traditional Dining to avoid waits reported to be as long as one hour. This is totally unacceptable. I have used Anytime Dining before and never waited more than five minutes. We were told that we could make reservations at 8 a.m. each morning--which totally defeats the purpose of Anytime Dining. There were vacant tables in both the Botticelli and Da Vinci dining rooms. Anytime Dining was very poorly managed; it should have been allowed in ALL of the dining rooms.
Cabin Review
Oceanview
We had wonderful brand new beds, duvets, and king size pillows. The room was tastefully decorated and clean, but showing its age. The bathroom was tiny as was closet space. Our unobstructed window looked out over the upper level of the promenade, with silvering so that passers-by could not look in. Our steward Nolyn Alago was very attentive.
This cabin in in the bow of the ship, port side. During rough seas (for numerous days) we would periodically hear a very large banging sound. It was explained that this was caused by waves striking the bow. Ear plugs solved that problem.
My brother's iPhone went missing on the second day of the cruise. He believed that it went missing from the room, but a thorough search by Security including a computer check of entries into our room showed that only we and the steward had egress. We do NOT suspect the steward. We finally concluded that my brother must have absentmindedly taken the phone out of the cabin in his pocket and lost it somewhere on the ship. The phone was "pinged" and GPS showed it to be on the ship, but its location could not be identified. It never turned up. The Purser's Office and Security were very helpful and considerate, but we spent the rest of the cruise with no phone (or camera).