Crown Princess-Nov 21-28

[BosoxI]

I have never been on a ship as poorly managed as this one. It wasn't enough to spoil an otherwise nice cruise, but can't someone on the Crown slip over to the Emerald and learn proper disembarkation procedures? What occurred this morning was a disgrace: Express Walk Off people lining up in hallways on deck 5, blocking the approach of others trying to get to the assigned meeting place, and cutting in front of those of us who were trying to follow the printed instructions. No one was in charge and at one point a ship's officer glanced at the situation and promptly walked away without saying a word. No advice or direction was given, there was no crowd control. Then as the herd of sheep started to move to exit the ship, word was passed to move up to the 6th deck to disembark. No official of the ship gave any direction at any time, and many older people had to manhandle their bags up a flight of stairs. Last month we exited very smoothly from the Emerald. It's a shame the Crown can't do as well. And while I'm at it, the Michelangelo Dining Room was a farce on Champagne Waterfall Night. The young hostess was incapable of keeping track of her waiting list, and DW and I along with many others were kept waiting for more than an hour while people apparently waltzed by us and into the room. Princess should make it absolute company policy that cruise cards be shown at the dining room door to prevent set time diners from using the anytime dining halls. And then there was the problem in the Explorer Lounge ... :eek:

[Colo Cruiser]

I have never been on a ship as poorly managed as this one. It wasn't enough to spoil an otherwise nice cruise, but can't someone on the Crown slip over to the Emerald and learn proper disembarkation procedures? What occurred this morning was a disgrace: Express Walk Off people lining up in hallways on deck 5, blocking the approach of others trying to get to the assigned meeting place, and cutting in front of those of us who were trying to follow the printed instructions. No one was in charge and at one point a ship's officer glanced at the situation and promptly walked away without saying a word. No advice or direction was given, there was no crowd control. Then as the herd of sheep started to move to exit the ship, word was passed to move up to the 6th deck to disembark. No official of the ship gave any direction at any time, and many older people had to manhandle their bags up a flight of stairs. Last month we exited very smoothly from the Emerald. It's a shame the Crown can't do as well. And while I'm at it, the Michelangelo Dining Room was a farce on Champagne Waterfall Night. The young hostess was incapable of keeping track of her waiting list, and DW and I along with many others were kept waiting for more than an hour while people apparently waltzed by us and into the room. Princess should make it absolute company policy that cruise cards be shown at the dining room door to prevent set time diners from using the anytime dining halls. And then there was the problem in the Explorer Lounge ... :eek:

 

Welcome back? :eek:

[justluv2cruisewithhubby]

What happened in the Explorer's Lounge? Did you find out why they changed from Level 5 to Level 6 to disembark?

[Pia1913]

Welcome back? :eek:

 

What is really interesting is that this poster is saying the Emerald is great and the Crown is bad. Another thread is complaining about the Emerald being awful. :confused:

 

I'll be on the Crown in January and the Emerald in June, so will judge for myself.

[lizzy911]

I was also on this cruise and agree disembarkation was quite poor compared to my trip on the Sapphire in January. However, compared to entering a foreign country on an air-based trip, it was just mediocre. My time to disembark was listed as 9:15. I did not leave the lounge until 9:45 and did not get to the taxis until 10:30.

 

As for the Explorers Lounge, maybe the original poster is referring to the shows being very crowded? This was definitely true although I think it was worse for people with early seating (I had late).

[sunsetme]

what time was self disembark?

[BosoxI]

What is really interesting is that this poster is saying the Emerald is great and the Crown is bad. Another thread is complaining about the Emerald being awful. :confused:

 

I'll be on the Crown in January and the Emerald in June, so will judge for myself.

 

Just to clarify, I said what happened this AM was not enough to spoil a nice cruise. We enjoyed ourselves on the Crown, but there are some issues that needed to be addressed and weren't. You'll have a good time on both ships, I'm sure.

[BosoxI]

What happened in the Explorer's Lounge? Did you find out why they changed from Level 5 to Level 6 to disembark?

 

A bunch of selfish 20 somethings blocked the view of many people seated in the rear. One genteman made repeated attempts to get the staff to clear the area, but nothing was done. Several people, maybe more, left in disgust. I've seen fights break out for less. Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed, but it shouldn't have been allowed to happen. No word was ever given, to my knowledge, as to the change in decks. It was simply a mess which, again, could have been avoided easily by some announcements and just a bit of crowd control. Cruisers usually are fairly well mannered people, though this ship was pretty full of snippy young adults and young kids. The young kids were fine, as were most of the young adults. The express walk off started to leave the ship at around 7:30. For all the mess, we still made in to FLL easily by 8:05 to catch an early flight.

[caribill]

I'll be on the Crown in January and the Emerald in June, so will judge for myself.

 

 

We were on both this year and had an easy disembarkation both times.

 

In one city we had a Princess xfer to the train station. When our time came, it was right off the ship, found our luggage, went through immigration, and onto the bus.

 

In the other city, we went early to the elite/platinum lounge, but when we walked in were told our color tag could already leave, so we left immediately and caught a cab to the airport.

 

I suspect in most cases when there is a mess such as the OP reported and the ship is not late, the reason for the mess is that passengers do not follow the guidelines. Even those with express disembarkation are supposed to meet in a lounge somewhere, not congregate in the open areas on any deck.

 

Even when there are announcements not to wait in certain areas, many passengers just ignore them. Short of using whips and tasers, I am not sure what can convince these people to follow the guidelines for meeting and then disembarkling when their time comes and not before.

[Pia1913]

Just to clarify, I said what happened this AM was not enough to spoil a nice cruise. We enjoyed ourselves on the Crown, but there are some issues that needed to be addressed and weren't. You'll have a good time on both ships, I'm sure.

 

Sorry; didn't mean to reprimand. However, what you experienced in FLL is not unusual. There is a major problem there and it's not Princess. The immigration officers are lazy; they get paid whether they move or not. Very rarely does disembarkation go smoothly. And right in the middle of huge lines, two of them usually take a coffee/cigarette/bathroom, etc. break. I go through there very often. And yes, I will have a great cruise. I always do.

[Doug R.]

. Short of using whips and tasers, i am not sure what can convince these people to follow the guidelines for meeting and then disembarkling when their time comes and not before.

 

attention princess management i think we have a solution to the disembarkation problem!!!!!! :d

[wdblake]

What time were you supposed to be debarking and when did you get to actually get off the ship?

[brenderlou]

What time were you supposed to be debarking and when did you get to actually get off the ship?

 

I have to agree with the OP. We were on this cruise and we have NEVER seen such an unorganized disembarkation process in all of our cruises.

We were suppose to disembark at 9:00am and didn't walk off the boat until 10:30!!!!!

It was a free for all, no one directing people, no line guards (like at a bank to keep everyone in one line) so when people got off the elevator or down the stairs it would be a major crowd of people cutting in front of others who have waiting for close to an hour. Horrible, absolutely horrible.

Not a good way to end a cruise but we felt it was par for the course on this cruise. It seemed the staff was unorganized thru the 7 days. Ordering a drink took a good 10-15 minutes to get and when we asked a question about something, it seemed the crew couldn't answer us. We overheard on gentleman ask a staff member where he could get a band-aid for his daughter and was told "I don't know" and the staff member walked away....nice!!!

Food was mediocre even in the Crown Grill where we were hoping for something special and the servers just seemed to be ho-hum and not to excited to serve you.

While in line for customs, we struck up a conversation with a couple who have been on 14 Princess cruises and they said this was by far the worst they have been on.

We tried Princess, wasn't impressed and from now on stay with RCCL or Celebrity.

We are not picky cruises by any means and perhaps there was a recent cruise change or they were at the end of thier contract.

[Pam in CA]

I'm sorry you had such a poor end to your cruise. I was on the Crown this past summer and thought the food was pretty good and the service excellent. It really depends on your personal experience as two people on the same ship at the same time can have completely different experiences.

 

As to disembarkation, Princess implemented "silent disembarkation" a couple of years ago and normally, it works VERY well. No announcements are made; people are expected to go to their assigned lounge at their assigned time. This eliminates the hanging around and blocking passages. If the ship gets in late or the local Immigration people are lazy/screw up, it messes everything up, unfortunately, as people get to their assigned lounge only to find it full of people who haven't disembarked yet.

 

It sounds like there were several issues going on: the local Immigration people were holding things up and screwing up the schedule, and people were ignoring the request to go to their assigned lounges, i.e., the self-disembarkation people were ignoring these requests in their anxiety to get off the ship. IMHO, they shouldn't book early flights because disembarkation can often take longer than expected, particularly in FLL.

 

Yes, Princess should have done more to correct the situation (I've seen them close down disembarkation until everyone went to their assigned lounge) but the real culprits were the ones who made the poor decision and booked early flights, depending on getting off the ship quickly. I feel badly for you but I don't feel badly if these people missed their flights.

[brenderlou]

I'm not sure the problem was people not going to their assigned lounges but when your group is called there was no rganization once you got to the deck where you disembark. So some were coming down stairs/elevators towards the front of the line and just blending into the line and clogging up the area while making those toward the back wait even more. Princess should have had some sort of line queue set up so people were directed toward the end of the line instead large groups of people descending and just making themselves part of the line. One Princess crew member at the stairs/elevators to direct people would have solved a very big problem, very easily. Also what I thought was crazy was once we did make it to the front and about ready to leave the ship, there were 4 or 5 staff members just standing there and chatting.

Once we made our way off the ship, I felt the imigration process was not bad and definitly not as bad as just getting off the ship!!!! It only took us about 15-20 minutes to collect our luggage and get thru imigration. Much better than getting off the ship.

We live locally so that's why we opted for the 9:00 disembarkation time thinking there would be less people, easy disembarkation....wrongo!

[henador]

We were on this cruise (our first Princess). Our original disembark time was 9:15 but we changed it to 8:15 because we had an 11:40 flight out of FLL. It just seemed like 9:15 would be pushing it. Anyway, we went down to the Explorer Lounge at 8:15 and waited for further instruction. After a while, they announced that one of the two disembarkation points was having problems and we would be delayed. It was around 9:00 when we finally got the call to head to the exit. Instead of using the main stairs, we went to the curving stairs in the Atrium area and merged into the exit line (so I guess we might have been one of those people complained about earlier in this thread). The main wait after exiting was for Customs, where there were a bunch of fairly long lines.

 

We didn't think that disembarking the Crown was terribly bad. Our first cruise, on RCCI's Monarch of the Seas in early 1997, was far worse, with people piled up in the interior hallways. On Crown, we waited in the comfortable chairs in the Explorer Lounge and blabbed with other passengers about Tiger Woods, etc.

[brenderlou]

We were on this cruise (our first Princess). Our original disembark time was 9:15 but we changed it to 8:15 because we had an 11:40 flight out of FLL. It just seemed like 9:15 would be pushing it. Anyway, we went down to the Explorer Lounge at 8:15 and waited for further instruction. After a while, they announced that one of the two disembarkation points was having problems and we would be delayed. It was around 9:00 when we finally got the call to head to the exit. Instead of using the main stairs, we went to the curving stairs in the Atrium area and merged into the exit line (so I guess we might have been one of those people complained about earlier in this thread). The main wait after exiting was for Customs, where there were a bunch of fairly long lines.

 

We didn't think that disembarking the Crown was terribly bad. Our first cruise, on RCCI's Monarch of the Seas in early 1997, was far worse, with people piled up in the interior hallways. On Crown, we waited in the comfortable chairs in the Explorer Lounge and blabbed with other passengers about Tiger Woods, etc.

 

Yup, I guess if you "merged" into the exit line, your wait wouldn't be bad but for those of us behind you, it wasn't fun. That's why I was saying they should of had a crew member directing those towards the end of the line but that's life....

[BosoxI]

I have to agree with the OP. We were on this cruise and we have NEVER seen such an unorganized disembarkation process in all of our cruises.

We were suppose to disembark at 9:00am and didn't walk off the boat until 10:30!!!!!

It was a free for all, no one directing people, no line guards (like at a bank to keep everyone in one line) so when people got off the elevator or down the stairs it would be a major crowd of people cutting in front of others who have waiting for close to an hour. Horrible, absolutely horrible.

Not a good way to end a cruise but we felt it was par for the course on this cruise. It seemed the staff was unorganized thru the 7 days. Ordering a drink took a good 10-15 minutes to get and when we asked a question about something, it seemed the crew couldn't answer us. We overheard on gentleman ask a staff member where he could get a band-aid for his daughter and was told "I don't know" and the staff member walked away....nice!!!

Food was mediocre even in the Crown Grill where we were hoping for something special and the servers just seemed to be ho-hum and not to excited to serve you.

While in line for customs, we struck up a conversation with a couple who have been on 14 Princess cruises and they said this was by far the worst they have been on.

We tried Princess, wasn't impressed and from now on stay with RCCL or Celebrity.

We are not picky cruises by any means and perhaps there was a recent cruise change or they were at the end of thier contract.

 

We have been on many Princess cruises and never encountered such a bad disembarkation procedure. We found the crew to be very friendly and helpful, we thought the food was quite good to excellent, and all in all, we enjoyed the past week. I would hate to see you judge all of Princess on this one bad experience, though you can't be blamed for doing so. The "silent disembarkation" Pam mentions is a joke, if it exists at all. On the Emerald last December and last month in FLL and on the Grand this past April in Southampton there was no "silent disembarkation" and things went very smoothly. Members of the Cruise Director's staff were in the walk off lounge advising of the status of things, cracking jokes, and in general keeping people apprised of the situation. Lines had been set up to force people down a certain path and security staff were on hand to enforce those lines. Everything went smoothly. Such was not the case yesterday on the Crown for reasons unknown to me. I would be first in line to blame any Government worker for any problem, but immigration was not at fault yesterday; Princess Crown was. It's that simple. I've mentioned 3 incidents that occurred which Crown could have cured, had they the desire to do so. There were probably many more I'm unaware of. DW and I have been loyal customers for over 20years, so we know this was an anomaly. New customers don't have our experience and will not return. Hey, Crown Princess, wake up.

[henador]

Yup, I guess if you "merged" into the exit line, your wait wouldn't be bad but for those of us behind you, it wasn't fun. That's why I was saying they should of had a crew member directing those towards the end of the line but that's life....

I apologize for what amounts to "cutting" in the exit line. It's just that we used those stairs many times during the cruise and didn't think anything of it. We certainly weren't the only ones "merging" into the exit area, either from our location or other directions. That gets back to your suggestion for crewmembers to direct people.

[brenderlou]

We have been on many Princess cruises and never encountered such a bad disembarkation procedure. We found the crew to be very friendly and helpful, we thought the food was quite good to excellent, and all in all, we enjoyed the past week. I would hate to see you judge all of Princess on this one bad experience, though you can't be blamed for doing so. The "silent disembarkation" Pam mentions is a joke, if it exists at all. On the Emerald last December and last month in FLL and on the Grand this past April in Southampton there was no "silent disembarkation" and things went very smoothly. Members of the Cruise Director's staff were in the walk off lounge advising of the status of things, cracking jokes, and in general keeping people apprised of the situation. Lines had been set up to force people down a certain path and security staff were on hand to enforce those lines. Everything went smoothly. Such was not the case yesterday on the Crown for reasons unknown to me. I would be first in line to blame any Government worker for any problem, but immigration was not at fault yesterday; Princess Crown was. It's that simple. I've mentioned 3 incidents that occurred which Crown could have cured, had they the desire to do so. There were probably many more I'm unaware of. DW and I have been loyal customers for over 20years, so we know this was an anomaly. New customers don't have our experience and will not return. Hey, Crown Princess, wake up.

 

I agree with your post. The 1st impression is what counts for 1st time cruisers on a partilcular cruise and unforuntately for us, it wasn't what we have experienced on RCCL or Celebrity. Not saying that Princess isn't a great cruise line but our experience wasn't great.

Hey, my brother and sis-in-law swear by Princess and was astounded by some of the stories we told them. Could have been being at the wrong place at the wrong time with some of the issues we encounted but we did encounter them so we decided about 1/2 way thru the cruise we probably wouln't cruise this line again but ya never know...a great deal can change my mind :D

Disembarkation is never fun and can be a little crazy but this went way beyond that and I really felt sorry for the older people standing while some were just getting into line in front of them. No, I'm not flaming anyone since there was no staff directing people but I did make if frustrating, to say the least. Also, you can see a line and why not go to the end of it.....I don't get it!!!!

Did we let it ruin our cruise? No way baby!!!!!

One positive note is that we did have a very good room steward. He was about the only staff that was super friendly and helped us with any questions we may of had. We made sure to mention him with high regards on our passanger questionaire since we know how important that is.

[Luvsprincess]

I also was on that cruise and I heard the announcement that the 5th deck gangway was broken. What other choice did they have but to move it to deck 6 gangway? I suppose they didnt.

[UT-Volsfan]

We were on the Emerald back in May with no problems and we're sailing on the Crown this Saturday, so we'll get to do our own comparison. We plan to do the self-embarkation and catch an early flight back home. Here's hoping it doesn't hit too many snags.