mamamusings

I specified to stay. We were in our stateroom. And they didn’t send the correct tea. Why are you so determined to make this my fault?

I’m pretty much done responding on this thread, because I’m getting tired of being told that it was our responsibility to know all of those things in advance. (FWIW, we did research in advance. We just clearly didn’t find everything we needed.) I am hopeful that things will improve. But as a user experience expert (who has done research in both tech and hospitality), I think this has been a poor experience for us as first time Princess cruisers.

We booked it ourselves, as we have on past cruises on other lines.

Clearly you feel this is our fault, and nothing I say will convince you otherwise. 🤷‍♀️ So I won’t try rebutting point by point. However, I still think that this is not a great way to welcome first time cruisers on the line.

At the cruise critic meet and greet. I have no idea who the CD is. I don’t think they were among the officers who attended.

forgot to attach event list! Here it is.

If you know all those things it advance, that’s fine. We didn’t. As first-time Princess cruisers, how were we supposed to know to go to the MDR reservations area (or even that there *was* one) to find out about “held back” times? Princess didn’t provide that information. The karaoke and trivia offerings on our first at sea day weren’t any better—one session of each. I’m attaching the events listing from that day. I think it’s a pretty short list for a full ship with almost 3000 passengers. At the meet and greet, they specifically said the Disco show was 30 minutes.

From their standpoint it might be short. But from our standpoint, it made this cruise feel like it wasn’t important to them. We’re not experts in Princess ship itineraries, but I don’t think we should need to be in order to feel like we matter to the line.

Because it wasn’t listed on the door hanger and at the time we didn’t know we could. Either way, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect hot water with my tea bags and honey in the morning regardless of whether we have the package. And, as I said, when I did order specialty tea through the app later I didn’t get what I requested. (Wong types of tea bags, along with lukewarm water in to-go cups rather in a carafe or teapot.)

There have been minimal options for trivia and karaoke—one 45-minute session of each most days. (Trivia issue was brought up in meet and greet; it was one of the times they referenced this being a “shorter” cruise.) Of the two theater shows, one is only 30 minutes long, and the other was on the second night and it’s not clear if it will be offered again. Almost no ability to sit in hot tubs at night while at sea enjoying views of the stars, since most get covered up pretty early. At the martini and liquor tastings there were so many people we couldn’t get close enough to see or hear what was being said, let alone sit down, even arriving almost an hour early. My husband was looking forward to eating at Steamers. No MDR reservations available at all if you didn’t book them weeks ahead. Overall it’s not a terrible experience, just a disappointing one. We still plan on enjoying our vacation. It’s just not what we had hoped for in terms of service and activity options. 🤷‍♀️

Yep. Seven days. And the officers referred to it multiple times as being a “short” cruise.

Okay, y’all—to clarify, I was not comparing the ships so much as I was comparing the overall experience of the trip. (And we didn’t have a lot of options for ships on this itinerary. ) What this reinforces for me is that, as seemed to be implied at the meet and greet, Princess doesn’t seem to place a priority on services and entertainment on these “short” 7-day trips. It’s still early in the trip, though, so there’s plenty of time for me to change my mind! (Thanks for the explanations on the room number thing—that makes a lot of sense!)

Actually, the pool/tub hours were not on the event sheet, which is why we asked. I even asked if they were printed or posted anywhere, and they said no. Their supervisor was standing right next to them, and also didn’t know. 🤷‍♀️

Oh, and one more nit to pick—I thought the whole point of the medallions was that staff would know who we are and that we have a the plus package. But at nearly every place we’ve gone, we’ve been asked for our room numbers!

We’re currently on the Emerald for the California Coast cruise, and so far we’re *really* not impressed with Princess. I’ve sailed several times on NCL, and my husband is a new cruiser. Neither of us are feeling like we’re likely to want to sail with Princess again. I’m hoping that our experience will improve over the next few days, but I’m not very optimistic. 1) Food frustrations: — The buffet is much too crowded and close (particularly compared to what we had on the NCL Bliss), and seems to shut down between meals for a lengthy rearranging rather than staying open continuously. — In order to have lunch together with the foods that we want, we have to go to three different places—the buffet, Slice or the Salty Dog Grill, and a bar (for sodas). And the weather isn’t exactly conducive to standing in line at the grill. It’s been frustrating and time consuming. — Both orders we’ve placed through the app today have had something missing or incorrect. First, even though I ordered tea a pizza and drinks order arrived with only the pizza, and a request to get the drinks never yielded them—I ended up walking down two decks to get to a bar where I could get the requested drinks. Then, when I ordered ginger tea with lemon wedges this afternoon, because my stomach was off, I got a selection of completely different tea bags along with lukewarm water in a to-go cup (I clearly specified the wedges and that it was to eat in). My husband ordered a club sandwich that came with the bread completely dry, so he had to go up to the buffet to get some mayo to put on it. We could have called to ask for those things, but at that point it would have taken so long it wouldn’t have been worth it. (The water for the tea would have been ice cold!) — On our breakfast door hanger for this morning, we asked for both coffee and tea. We got the coffee, and we got tea bags, and we even got honey. However, we didn’t get any hot water. 🙄 2) I also wasn’t super impressed at the meet and greet today, when the officers kept answering questions by saying that on “short cruises” like this one they just weren’t able to do some of the entertainment people like—including shows that get advertised on the screens but aren’t actually scheduled, or trivia games. I really got the impression that they felt that this cruise wasn’t a particularly important one for them. Not all of us can afford the time or the money for longer trips, and it bothered me that they seemed to see us as sort of second-class cruisers. 3) When we stopped by guest services this morning to ask what the pool and hot tub hours were (since last night a lot of them weren’t even filled), they said they didn’t know! That seems like kind of a basic question to be able to answer. 🤷‍♀️ 4) We noticed this morning that the underside of my husband’s pillow case had blood stains on it (clearly old ones). While I’m sure that the washing process removed any actual hazards, it was still pretty gross. I don’t like to think of myself as a particularly demanding traveler, but this has really been a disappointing experience thus far. Please tell me that it will get better. 😄