I live in NYC and have sailed many times on NCL. Two years ago I did a three-month voyage aboard the Holland America Rotterdam. I've also sailed twice with Oceania. I was attracted to this trip by its itinerary, which would include Alaska and many Asian ports. It was my first Princess cruise and I booked a mini-suite. I was stunned by the mediocrity. As many others have already noted, we missed ports, the food was bland and repetitive, the ship ran out of basic items (lettuce!) for days. There was a leak in my cabin, I had to stay on top of the staff to make sure it was taken care of [they wanted to put me in another (lesser) cabin overnight], I insisted that they fix it so I would not have to move. With the exception of Chris Impey, a noted astronomer and author from the University of Arizona, the lecturers were laughable. Princess apparently doesn't vet the lecturers at all. Inaccuracies abounded.

We never saw the Captain; all decisions were attributed to "corporate"; no one took responsibility. I had three different cabin stewards; they changed without warning. Often my cabin was not made up until the afternoon. The excursions were, more often than not, bus transportation to sites and the "guide" functioned more like a chaperone than a guide. (Notable exceptions in Alaska, Taiwan, and South Korea were very good.) The noon announcements, about the ship's progress, weather conditions, etc., were sometimes done by a crew member whose accent was so strong the information was incomprehensible. The tours listed online were often unavailable. So far as I could tell, the ship excursion staff waited until enough demand was shown to actually provide a trip. Many of the excursions I'd seen on the website when I was planning the cruise turned out to be unavailable. Bait-and-switch.

The "library" was a room with cabinets empty of books, with the exception of some reference volumes and, unaccountably, a couple of shelves of volumes in languages other than English. Read more