Royal Princess Review
Don't trust the advertising by Princess Cruise Line - Circle Mediterranean
Rating by category
Additional details
In Sep 2106 we saw the promotional material for a 2 week Mediterranean cruise from Barcelona to Athens in May 2017. We rang Princess direct to find out where the ship went after that and were told back to Barcelona - that it was a circle the Med Cruise. So we booked on for the month.
At no time did the advertising material on line, in the latest brochure we had picked up on a previous cruise or the Princess travel person ever tell us that we were booking on for 4 cruises. The effect of 4 cruises vs 1 or 2 cruises is the following:
- 4 weeks of the exact same dining menu. Correct - every Monday - the same menu as last Monday and so on.
Cabin Review
Mini-Suite with Balcony
This cabin has a big problem with a squeaking panel above the bed. Paper has been jammed into the cracks to try and reduce it (was there by a previous occupant) and i added a stack more but it didn't help that much. It is quite disturbing as it is not a regular patterned noise. After one month we did get used to it - but for the money it we paid for a suite it was not good.
Port Reviews
Barcelona
Love Barcelona and we did our own hop on hop off bus tour - and loads of museums on our own.
Cartagena (Spain)
Royal Princess arrived here on a Sunday. The excursion brochures all said a lot of things would be closed on a sunday but not to the extent that we experienced. Not worth the money - wandered around a park, peered through a crack in the door to the main church which wasn't open. Etc etc
Kotor
Three times we visited this port and while the fjord entrance is magnificent - 3 times was just too much. Why not Dubrovnik once instead of 3 times in Kotor!
Florence (Livorno)
Cancelled the excursion as by now realised that they were a waste of a lot of money.
Taormina (Messina)
Visited here twice. The first time wandered around Messina town - a very dirty place and being a sunday pretty much everything was closed. On the second visit we took the train and bus to Taormina for the experience. Is a lovely town but we didn't have enough time to see the old ruin there.