As experienced Princess customers we looked forward to our Australian Cruise on the Sea Princess. On the positive side crewmembers were friendly, efficient and attentive to the passengers. However, The Sea Princess is a poorly designed vessel. Unlike other Princess ships the buffet dining venue is all the way forward at the topmost part of the ship making it more subject to ship motion, not the ideal situation when trying to eat. The lack of an elevator midship’s causes extensive walking to either the bow or the stern in order to get from the lower to the uppermost decks. Not the most considerate design considering the aging populace presently cruising. Again, unlike other Princess vessels, when configured for a double bed, the inside cabins are so poorly designed as to leave less than 6 inches between the bottom corner of one side of the bed and the closet which makes for tricky navigation if one wants to use the bathroom in the middle of the night without having to crawl over your bed partner.

Also, unlike other Princess vessels, the free soft serve ice cream and pizza stations normally found on the Lido deck have been replaced by an ice cream for purchase concession (no more free ice cream on demand) while the pizza by the slice station has been replaced with a sit down “Café” pizza facility midship’s. Unfortunately, it sometimes takes half an hour to get seated at this “café” and then an additional half hour to get a pizza. Although the pizza itself remains free it is presented on a menu wherein many other choices are presented for a fee. In general, we found the food on this ship quite unremarkable although there are an increasing number of “specialty” restaurants costing additional fees. In fact, they have converted half the buffet dining venue to a specialty for fee restaurant. We certainly hope that this is not a portend of things to come on Princess ships. If so it is a clear message that the cruising experience is giving way to increasing the opportunities to extract as much money from passengers as possible by reducing amenities as well as the quality of “free” dining and increasing the incessant opportunities to purchase jewelry and artwork. You probably guessed we did not enjoy this cruising experience.