Golden Princess Review

4.0 / 5.0
0 reviews

A great cruise tho not what I expected..

Review for Alaska Cruise on Golden Princess

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Sail Date: Sep 2011
Cabin: Balcony

Dont get me wrong, we had a good time on our cruise. We had waited 10 months on what was our "big birthdays" holiday so we "pushed the boat out" so to speak and had a balcony cabin, on Deck 9 which was really lovely. We felt this was a one off cruise as Alaska is not the sort of place we would normally go to as we love sunny destinations. We were so surprised at the weather, every day we were told 4-5 times "we are so lucky with the weather". only 2 days did we need our coats. We also liked the fact that we had people come on board to give talks and guide us through Glasier Bay and whale watching.

We chose Princess as this was part of our holiday package and this was the biggest ship we had been on. Unfortunately, it didnt live up to our expectations in some areas and cast a small shadow over the cruise. The best bits for us was the cabin, production shows, breakfast in horizon court, entertainment team but the place we always found ourselves in was the Piazza which was fab - there always seemed to be things going on (after a couple of lunches in the horizon court, we decided to have our lunch thereafter and with the purchase of a coffee card which was good value, we spent many a good hour eating drinking and people watching. We also loved to dress up so two formal nights was great and the highlight was the elderly Japanese ladies in full dress - lovely.

The let downs,and this is in order of importance for us was (1) the quality of the main course in the main dining rooms, (2)there didnt seem to be any atmosphere in these dining rooms, they were all decorated the same - a bit boring really and they had italian names? One would expect more colour than beige. (3) The entertainment shows (excluding production shows) were by other cruise standards abismal. I would hope that the Golden Princess were so desperate to have a band that they employed New Deal -they could certainly empty the bar. And the artist who did juggling etc, his voice was so grating on you and once youve seen him thats enough, not nearly every day - well thats what it felt like - you could hear him at the other end of the ship. Well each to their own and it was not our cup of tea at all. (4) We used the adult pool in the spa area for the first time then saw the scum around the edge and Carole wrote our names in it and we promptly reported it to the staff. I must say the next day the pool was empty and was being cleaned soit was good that Princess dealt with this straightaway although why should get in that state in the first place? The jacuzzis were fine tho. (5) My friend didnt like the fact that you couldnt physically put coins into the slot machines but that might apply to all ships nowadays - that was just her preference. (6) Being duped into taking a "welcome cocktail" from a waiter - little did we know at the time that it had a "keepsake plastic princess cruise glass" at a cost of over $10 which of course we queried and the cost reduced. We wanted to make our concerns known to the Pursers Office but couldnt get past the reception desk so we completed the appropriate comments pages and handed them in.

Cabin Review

Balcony

Cabin BE

We had B215 on deck 9. Bathroom usual . room looked slightly smaller than others we had stayed in but this may have been because of the balcony. Having the balcony was lovely especially on this type of holiday. It was our first and wont be our last. On other 7 day cruises we have not bothered with views and always had inside room. TV choice was good and they repeated the live talks from the rangers etc in the theatre. Daily "princess patter" giving low down on whats on that day. Plenty of hanging and shelves. Our hairdryer started smoking but was replaced asap. steward was great.

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