We take two cruises a year with Princess, and are members of the Elite Status in the Captains Circle, and we liked the Trans-Atlantic Cruise we took last year so we decided to take this one because it was going to Ports we never been to before. I turned out to be the wrong decision since this ship had problems from the very start. Coming out of dry dock, we expected a sparkly clean ship ready for a lot of cruises. The ship had rust over many places on the outside hull, our room wasn't clean, carpets were being replaced during the cruise in the common areas and you could smell the adhesive so we avoided those common areas, our room needed to have the carpet replaced it was stained so badly and air freshener doesn't cover old dirty smells in the room, we sent laundry of the cleaners and the clothes came back with dark spots on the clothes and the clothes smelled terrible. We like to sleep with the balcony door open at night, but the door between our balcony and a neighbor's balcony banged all night so we closed our door, but then the air conditioner with it set to the lowest level didn't cool the room down. The walls in our room creaked all night and the bathroom door did the same. The new beds were nice, but we couldn't get a good night sleep for the whole cruise. My room key had to be replaced 3 times during the cruise and the staff at the Purser's desk went from being helpful to rude for myself and other passengers who went up to get our keys redone. I stood behind one passenger that had a key problem as well as complaints about their toilet not working for the first 3 days of the cruise and they had to use public restrooms. The man wanted another room and the person at the Purser's desk told him "We can't change anyone's room just because they don't like their room". The mats in the gym were so worn out that people put pool towels on top of them to cover the worn spots. Since we cruise enough with Princess, we get to know their menu's for dining and it seems they don't change them. The menu's had the same thing each night starting with the first night to the last night that we've had for the last four years worth of cruising. Horizon Court isn't that great of an option. We feel the food there on this ship as well as other ships has gone downhill for some time. My wife even got a rancid muffin one morning in the Horizon Court! We don't go on cruises to eat hamburgers and pizza, but we choose to eat those items since at least they were consistent.

The positives were the staff from the Lotus Spa were the best group we've ever had and the water we drank was great. Those two items don't negate the other negatives from this cruise. It's sad when you have to claim drinking water as being a highlight of your cruise. We always put a deposit down for our next cuise and we didn't this time. We just feel that Princess is starting to have too many issues beginning with maintenance like their parent company Carnival.

We contacted Princess' customer service about all of the issues we had on this cruise and when the representative called me about everything he clearly didn't like hearing from someone who cruises a lot with them about all of the problems we experienced. His offer to us to make us happy was a $150.00 per person credit on our next cruise. Maybe Princess feels that is satisfactory. We felt it was insulting. I wasn't expecting a free cruise, but an offer of booking an inside cabin with a no charge upgrade to a balcony plus some dollar credit would have been acceptable. Read more