The itinerary was the primary reason this cruise was chosen, but I expected Princess to provide a solid on-board experience. Unfortunately, too many problems that should have been very preventable will lead us to choose elsewhere in the future. I never expect cruise food to be great, but many choices were surprisingly poor, with buffet very limited and mostly low quality. And while our room steward was very nice and competent, the attitude of the crew elsewhere was surprisingly indifferent and often dismissive of very polite inquiries and requests. Our cabin choice did not disappoint, but add on multiple significant misses in other areas, often involving getting on and off the ship at ports makes it easy to choose elsewhere for future cruises.

Disembarking and embarking for ports: From discussions with other passengers, evidently the captain was new to berthing at Kirkwall, and he aborted the port completely after trying, saying it was too windy. The captain also stated that tugs that could have assisted were not in port that morning. Given that other reviewers state that this port has been missed often by Princess, it is inexcusable that they do not reserve tugs in advance as a general practice to ensure berthing success. Greatly disappointed that Kirkwall was missed as this distinguishes this cruise itinerary from some others.

The process to move passengers off at each port was clumsy, poorly organized, and often significantly late, which caused many problems. Disgruntled passengers who asked questions (for really legitimate reasons, such as why are we still being kept on board 40 minutes after the stated time in Invergordon) were typically ignored or treated indifferently. Passengers can understand that not everything is going to go smoothly, but when there are repeated problems there should be some sympathy or clear explanation from the crew about it all, and an attempt to address the issues. This indifferent attitude by the crew in general was way too common and speaks to either lack of experience, poor training or ship culture and lack of clear management expectations. Read more