desertrat23

I wasn't aware of that, last photo I bought was $8. BITD. $49 for all sounds good, how many days cruise, is it limited?

I have a 17 day and 15 day booked and sailing soon on Pacific and Star

$49? Try $199. That's what they quoted me on the THREE-DAY I just finished. I paid the same amount for a 7-day earlier this year. The guy at Photo tried to tel me "it's still a good deal." How? I got 73 pictures for $199 in June, but the 18 pictures you took over three days are worth just as much?

Instead, they got $0 from me for photos this cruise. Do they think people are stupid?

We were on the same cruise. We have taken numerous Princess cruises (we're Elite status) but never had taken one of these short getaways so thought we'd try it particularly since it included my husband's BD. We knew it was a large ship which we ordinarily avoid, and assumed there would be many younger pax and more partying.

 

Indeed, there were more young partyers -- not a problem, just an observation -- and many families with children -- again, not a problem, and just about all the kids were nicely behaved as well as having fun, but we hadn't anticipated this either. I thought the MDR food was okay but a bit disappointing.

 

What really surprised me was the service levels, both for dining and throughout the ship. I'd characterize the service as average at its very best. We often felt we passsengers were inconveniencing the staff by our presence. We chalked it all up to huge ship, short itinerary and a splash of bad luck, but I'm eager to read the rest of these posts to see if we had an atypical experience.

 

BTW, our itinerary said "no formal nights" although I noticed that the Patter called the sea day something strange, like "surprise us". That probably explains the very ho-hum menu on the sea day. I thought it was the weakest of this short cruise, although that could easily be individual tastes.

Looks like we saw the same things. At the risk of turning this into a review I'll try to keep it to the food-related things my wife and I noticed:

1. MDR staff was overwhelmed. Our waitress had many more tables than they usually seem to have; we saw her partner so infrequently I asked one night if he was out sick. "No," the waitress responded, "we just have so many tables I have him waiting in the galley for your food or you won't get it quickly." Now, one of the best parts for us of the MDR experience is that it's not rushed; but our dinner that night was two hours and 45 minutes.

2. If I'm gonna sit through a 2:45 dinner, surf and turf should have a lobster tail. Not prawns.

3. As someone mentioned above; is there a war on? Why are we rationing butter? Leave it on the table with the rolls!

4. Club Fusion had one bartender and one waiter at all times. That's it. Bingo, trivia, live music, packed or empty -- one bartender, one waiter. Same in Explorers Lounge. On two nights our group went up to Adagio to play Cards Against Humanity in an quiet area so as not to offend anyone. We could have played football up there, as it was totally unoccupied. Except of course for the two bartenders and two waitstaff just hanging around waiting to take our order.

Again, trying to stick with food/drink issues here; I get that short cruises may have different cost models. And although we aren't Uber-frequent cruisers (Ruby level), we go enough to notice things weren't up to the usual standard. Our traveling companions had either never cruised or never been on Princess before. They weren't impressed and indicated they'd probably not go again. What a shame.

I agree with the OP -- we're just now disembarking the Crown after a weekender. We felt like the MDR food wasn't up to par; but we felt like the level of service wasn't up to usual standards all across the ship. I'll write a full review later but corners seemed cut and the staff seemed completely short-staffed.