Diamond Princess Review

First and last cruise with Princess

Review for Asia Cruise on Diamond Princess
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dkdz
10+ Cruises • Age 40s

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Sail Date: May 2018
Cabin: Balcony

We chose this cruise for the itinerary, and the ports were everything we hoped for and more. Unfortunately, the cruise itself was the worst we've been on, for several reasons:

Princess wanted £60 pp each way for transfers between the ship and airport. Thank goodness we saw this for the rip-off it was and decided against booking these. We found our own way for a few £ each. Similarly, the shore excursions were much more expensive than usual, so we chose to make our own way despite not knowing a word of Japanese. We were glad we did as Japan is easily navigable for English speakers - all stops on public transport are written/announced in English.

On board, the dining experience is one of the highlights of cruising for us, but we were disappointed as soon as we entered the tiny dining room (1 of 5 small separate, grim ones) instead of a large, glamorous one. We soon realised it was worse than it seemed, because whenever the waiters walked past our table, our chairs moved because the floor was so spongy! The food was mediocre at best and the portions were tiny. We only managed one show in two weeks because showtimes almost always conflicted with dinner. The only time there was a film 'under the stars' actually on after dark, it was a children's film, so we never experienced what would have been a welcome diversion on the dullest cruise we've ever been on. We've never had so little to do on a cruise before! We couldn't even enjoy a quiet drink after dinner in a cosy cocktail bar because there wasn't one!

Cabin Review

Balcony

In the stateroom, our plumbing kept leaking in our bathroom and our safe kept locking us out, so we forever had to be calling someone to get something fixed.

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