Open letter to Princess President John Padgett

[memoak]

1 hour ago, JimmyVWine said:

I guess I have been lucky. I haven’t experienced any of the hiccups that others have. Granted, I don’t stream Netflix movies or post “Live From” threads filled with photos. But I have found the Wi-Fi and Medallion app to be functional and a nice enhancement. 

Asking as the WiFi lrr we ta me check news, sports and wordle I am happy

[rsato]

I'm not the biggest Princess fan, but if you feel the portion size is too small just order two. On several dinners I ordered more than one entree. I asked our waiter what was the record for lobster tail consumption and he told me he got one particularly hungry diner 10 lobsters. Small portion size only makes sense and I for one, like being able to sample things without wasting a large serving of food.

[Guest ldtr]

4 hours ago, memoak said:

What I don’t get is if the changes make you miserable than why do you continue to cruise with the line and/or post to this board ?  I for one love the lights to show me the way to the bathroom

Something about cruising where people that decide that they no longer want to cruise on a given  cruise line will spend hours going back to repeat over and over again how bad the line is and why they left it.

 

Closest thing I can compare to is when a member of one religion gets converted to another, and they feel a need to preach to the unconverted.

 

Maybe Apple vs Microsoft in the old days or Apple vs Android today might come close.

[txjim09]

On 1/20/2023 at 8:17 AM, DCThunder said:

As the young'ins would say:  TL;DR.

 

First rule of emails:  If you're tired, hungry, or angry, don't press SEND on an email you've written for at least an hour.

I've saved my job countless times following this advice!

[txjim09]

On 1/20/2023 at 5:40 PM, DHP1 said:

My only complete is “lack of Customer Service”.  We have a PVP whom doesn’t return phone calls and never replies to any of our e-mails.  

Prior to Covid, this was not an issue with Princess.  Something happen during and after Covid. What gets me it’s so simple to fix. Hire more trained people. 

The other problems people are facing are “liveable to us”. There not perfect, but what is. 

I started a thread with this complaint a while back and received a thrashing from the cheerleaders

[Ombud]

23 hours ago, ORB said:

I'd be interested in knowing how you managed to get that permanent table assignment!

I ask the Head Waiter and get one. Problem is it either needs to be by 5:30 or after 8. And it has to be in MDR Deck 5. For some weird reason it's always been there. (1st time I started to walk out bc it was too noisy, next 6 times I asked if the HW wanted to take my order the day before or let me have the same table each night. They preferred same table / staff)

 

Omit black / white pepper from all dishes

 

 

Edited January 23, 2023 by Ombud

[MissP22]

13 hours ago, rsato said:

Small portion size only makes sense and I for one, like being able to sample things without wasting a large serving of food.

That's why the buffet is a good choice for many. 

[MissP22]

11 hours ago, Ombud said:

I ask the Head Waiter and get one. Problem is it either needs to be by 5:30 or after 8. And it has to be in MDR Deck 5. For some weird reason it's always been there. (1st time I started to walk out bc it was too noisy, next 6 times I asked if the HW wanted to take my order the day before or let me have the same table each night. They preferred same table / staff)

 

Omit black / white pepper from all dishes

 

 

Like yourself we've never had any problem getting the same table & wait staff but we eat early & it can be arranged. They're not going to hold a specific table of any size for a group arriving between 6 & 8 PM.

It simply would shut down the restaurant just to cater to the needs/wants of a few.

[DCThunder]

1 hour ago, MissP22 said:

Like yourself we've never had any problem getting the same table & wait staff but we eat early & it can be arranged. They're not going to hold a specific table of any size for a group arriving between 6 & 8 PM.

It simply would shut down the restaurant just to cater to the needs/wants of a few.

I witnessed a specific table for 10-12 being reserved every night for a group to be seated at about 7:30 p, so it does happen on occasion.

[MissP22]

26 minutes ago, DCThunder said:

I witnessed a specific table for 10-12 being reserved every night for a group to be seated at about 7:30 p, so it does happen on occasion.

I'm surprised. Reservations only slow down the seating for everyone since it is open seating. If they did that with a filled ship I think it wouldn't work very well. 

[DCThunder]

3 minutes ago, MissP22 said:

I'm surprised. Reservations only slow down the seating for everyone since it is open seating. If they did that with a filled ship I think it wouldn't work very well. 

I never asked the headwaiter what the deal with that table was, but the same people usually started to show up at around 7:20 or so and all 10-12 were there shortly after 7:30.  This was on Regal on a TA (Rome>FLL) in November.

[PTMary]

20 minutes ago, DCThunder said:

I never asked the headwaiter what the deal with that table was, but the same people usually started to show up at around 7:20 or so and all 10-12 were there shortly after 7:30.  This was on Regal on a TA (Rome>FLL) in November.

My guess is that it was easier to hold that table every night than to try to locate a table for 12 in a timely manner. I would think there are few of those available at all times. 

[ontheweb]

20 minutes ago, PTMary said:

My guess is that it was easier to hold that table every night than to try to locate a table for 12 in a timely manner. I would think there are few of those available at all times. 

That makes a lot of sense.

[voljeep]

and it's 'usually' not table availability for normal sized tables of 2-4, but wait staff and cooks shortage.

 

so no problem holding that table for 10-12

[chrysalis]

4 hours ago, MissP22 said:

Like yourself we've never had any problem getting the same table & wait staff but we eat early & it can be arranged. They're not going to hold a specific table of any size for a group arriving between 6 & 8 PM.

It simply would shut down the restaurant just to cater to the needs/wants of a few.

48 nights on the Regal in Oct/Nov/Dec....they held the same table for us each night at 6:30....Enchanted early last year, they held the same table for us for 56 days each night at 6:30....so you can't say they are not going to.

[PescadoAmarillo]

Regarding comments suggesting that people who aren’t happy with Princess 2.0 should just stay away…DONE (for now). But we do have 17 Princess cruises booked beginning in nine months. I am relying heavily on people honestly reporting their experiences between now and our first final payment to determine whether we’ll actually take 17 or none of them. Censoring comments doesn’t help me or anyone else.  That’s not the purpose of this forum. 
 

Most of us are smart enough to understand that we aren’t all looking for the same thing in our cruise experience. But comments about how you put your phone in the safe for the duration of your cruise so the WiFi is fine, or you were able to always get seated at your chosen table so DMW works great don’t reflect reality either, not when we know that on many cruises emails won’t load, and the lines outside the dining rooms stretch through the Piazza or crowd the Deck 6 aft elevator lobby. And we only know those things because people report them. Bring on the complaints!  If I don’t want to read them, I won’t. 
 

My favorite life lesson is “Just because it didn’t happen to me doesn’t mean it didn’t happen”. I guess I should add another:  “Just because it doesn’t matter to me doesn’t mean it matters to no one”. 
 

BTW:  during the great barrel chair debate, I never once pointed on that, even when we had one, I never sat in it. We managed to cruise for 150 days in a row just sitting on the bed. Me saying that would only discount the opinions of others who didn’t feel as I did. It would have added no value to the discussion. Ditto pillow chocolates and butter pats.  
 

Grace. 

[Guest ldtr]

18 hours ago, Ombud said:

I ask the Head Waiter and get one. Problem is it either needs to be by 5:30 or after 8. And it has to be in MDR Deck 5. For some weird reason it's always been there. (1st time I started to walk out bc it was too noisy, next 6 times I asked if the HW wanted to take my order the day before or let me have the same table each night. They preferred same table / staff)

 

Omit black / white pepper from all dishes

 

 

I would put it as 6 - 7:30 as being the period where it would be very difficult to get a fixed table.  6pm reservations would still be first seating. 5pm seatings should be done by 7:30.

[Guest ldtr]

1 hour ago, PescadoAmarillo said:

Regarding comments suggesting that people who aren’t happy with Princess 2.0 should just stay away…DONE (for now). But we do have 17 Princess cruises booked beginning in nine months. I am relying heavily on people honestly reporting their experiences between now and our first final payment to determine whether we’ll actually take 17 or none of them. Censoring comments doesn’t help me or anyone else.  That’s not the purpose of this forum. 
 

Most of us are smart enough to understand that we aren’t all looking for the same thing in our cruise experience. But comments about how you put your phone in the safe for the duration of your cruise so the WiFi is fine, or you were able to always get seated at your chosen table so DMW works great don’t reflect reality either, not when we know that on many cruises emails won’t load, and the lines outside the dining rooms stretch through the Piazza or crowd the Deck 6 aft elevator lobby. And we only know those things because people report them. Bring on the complaints!  If I don’t want to read them, I won’t. 
 

My favorite life lesson is “Just because it didn’t happen to me doesn’t mean it didn’t happen”. I guess I should add another:  “Just because it doesn’t matter to me doesn’t mean it matters to no one”. 
 

BTW:  during the great barrel chair debate, I never once pointed on that, even when we had one, I never sat in it. We managed to cruise for 150 days in a row just sitting on the bed. Me saying that would only discount the opinions of others who didn’t feel as I did. It would have added no value to the discussion. Ditto pillow chocolates and butter pats.  
 

Grace. 

Keep in mind that there is a difference between total not working and not working for those that do not understand the system.  We have done 9 cruises under the DMW system.  WE have had minimal issues other than a little slow first night check in because we under stand the system, know the limitations and adjust accordingly.

 

Quite a few do not understand it, many have made no effort to understand it, some do not want to understand it.  Easier to complain about it. 

 

As more people are cruising under the system more are understanding how it works and also adjusting accordingly.

 

Some will choose to say it is horrible even when it works relatively well. Most ships seem to be improving on implementation, with the one exception we have seen is the Crown.

 

Could it be better? Certainly.  However, the solutions may be more use of the App, not less.  For example the biggest problem is the lines and speed of check in.  That could easily be eliminated if they added the check in function to the App where one can check in, and get their table assignment on the App.  That would greatly speed the process.   For those dining early the App could be populated immediately on check in.  For those dining later the table assignment could be provided as soon as their table is ready.

 

As far as the App there were problems when it first came out.  Lately it has been working pretty well.  The biggest problems I have seen or heard about from discussion with the medallion staff is due to older/cheaper phones with insufficient memory or CPU.  

 

With some people any hiccup is a crisis worthy of complaining to the world, to others it is just something to be solved and resolved.

[MissP22]

2 hours ago, chrysalis said:

48 nights on the Regal in Oct/Nov/Dec....they held the same table for us each night at 6:30....Enchanted early last year, they held the same table for us for 56 days each night at 6:30....so you can't say they are not going to.

We'll I stand corrected but I still don't think it's right to hold tables for 6:30 PM  arrivals. There's nothing they can do with that table until you arrive, meaning someone who's ready to eat will have to wait at the door.  

[voljeep]

3 minutes ago, MissP22 said:

We'll I stand corrected but I still don't think it's right to hold tables for 6:30 PM  arrivals. There's nothing they can do with that table until you arrive, meaning someone who's ready to eat will have to wait at the door.  

see post #139

[PescadoAmarillo]

2 hours ago, ldtr said:

Keep in mind that there is a difference between total not working and not working for those that do not understand the system. 

While I understand what you’re saying, I don’t think my not understanding the system is the reason my husband’s dinner reservations completely disappeared from the app….twice. I went online to double check, and yes, they were gone. Making the reservations again meant his original time and dining room choices were gone. His Hawaii cruises were well booked; it took until his third B2B cruise to get the dining of his choice that he chose to have from the beginning. 
 

The problem is not user error. I’m as technically proficient as most Princess cruisers.  The fact that we are still dealing with this 18 months after DMW was rolled out is the issue. But here’s the thing…cruising Princess should not have a learning curve. If it’s not seamless, effortless and faultless, it’s broken. Guests should not be running out to buy new phones to take a Princess cruise. They should not have to, as the form SVP of Sales callously recommended, get their grandson to check them in.  You and I know that fighting the app is ridiculous, just show up at the pier with a Booking ID, passport and any required COVID information and forget the rest.  But the average new cruiser does not know that. They are stressing. This is wrong. And the fact that it’s been wrong for more than 18 months shows me Princess either doesn’t have the resources or the desire to fix them. 
 

[Guest ldtr]

2 hours ago, PescadoAmarillo said:

While I understand what you’re saying, I don’t think my not understanding the system is the reason my husband’s dinner reservations completely disappeared from the app….twice. I went online to double check, and yes, they were gone. Making the reservations again meant his original time and dining room choices were gone. His Hawaii cruises were well booked; it took until his third B2B cruise to get the dining of his choice that he chose to have from the beginning. 
 

The problem is not user error. I’m as technically proficient as most Princess cruisers.  The fact that we are still dealing with this 18 months after DMW was rolled out is the issue. But here’s the thing…cruising Princess should not have a learning curve. If it’s not seamless, effortless and faultless, it’s broken. Guests should not be running out to buy new phones to take a Princess cruise. They should not have to, as the form SVP of Sales callously recommended, get their grandson to check them in.  You and I know that fighting the app is ridiculous, just show up at the pier with a Booking ID, passport and any required COVID information and forget the rest.  But the average new cruiser does not know that. They are stressing. This is wrong. And the fact that it’s been wrong for more than 18 months shows me Princess either doesn’t have the resources or the desire to fix them. 
 

When was the last issue of the reservations disappearing?  

 

On the other hand the only problem I have had with the App is that it does not pick up my captains circle status correctly when I am off ship.    Picks it up correctly while on ship.  But then changes back when off ship.  I suspect that back when I first registered it created another CC number in the medallion DB, same as with a bunch of other people.

 

Other then that which only impacts the 50% discount for internet, I have not had any problems.  When I book a new cruise all of my data for that cruise populations reducing the entire pre-cruise process to making a decision about if I want my medallion shipped, picking my arrival time (which most ports are not following anyway), make my reservations, etc.  A lot less work then the old system.

 

So I have not been fighting the App it works fine and has made things for me easier.  Now I am using it no android phones (Samsung 8, and Samsung 21) and make sure that all of my apps are up to date and have plenty of memory.  The App is rather resource intensive and can act rather strange on phones that are resource limited.

 

I just thought of something that might be impacting his use, based upon what I recall of your cruising style (adding or changing cruises at pretty much anytime).  With the medallion if you book back to back cruises the medallion shows them as one logical cruise, so if you book reservations it will book them across the complete B2B cruises.  In most cases that is very handy.  What I have not tried is if you have a cruise booked, have all of your reservations made, then at a later date book the next cruise adding a B2B.  I can see where that could impact the system.  We have booked our consecutive cruises all at the same time without any problems.  Have not tried adding another cruise at a later date.

Edited January 23, 2023 by ldtr

[alohasaw]

We sailed on Discovery Princess Christmas 7 night Mexico cruise.  We will wait at least another year or two to cruise again if cruising remains relaxing and not overbooked and understaffed. 

My son who has sailed many times and now an adult (younger crowd) agrees with all the differences.  A big part of cruising for us is the itinerary and the dining room experience.  We prefer the dining room vs the buffet at night.  We enjoy having our coffee in the morning, pastry or breakfast in the buffet and going to dinner in the evening.  I spoke with staff who agreed this ship needs at least another dining room,  more coffee stations and staff.  The ships are larger but not enough staff.  We found this vacation not relaxing.  

 

The differences we noticed are: 

1.  Deluxe obstructed balcony -   Smaller room (same room as on the Royal Princess).  Cannot use the refrigerator, desk, or chair when the sofa bed is open.  Desk seems a lot smaller and there is less storage shelves.  

2.  Beds -  My side (bed) was pushed down and sagging on the side.  Strange for a new ship.  The sofa bed was extremely hard.  We did ask for a topper and that helped a little.

3.  Shortage of staff - Coffee station, buffet, dining room.  You could wait for 1/2 an hour for coffee.

Line for pastry is long and while standing in line, the staff would remove the food before I reached the counter. One staff trying to make waffles and crepes with a line of passengers waiting.  Staff cuts in line to get coffee and the servers are arguing with the staff because the servers are upset limiting their tips for longer waits.  Passengers are standing waiting for the coffee.  After you finally get your coffee and breakfast, you can't find a seat in the buffet. Dining room waits are long, missing items ordered, 1/2 an hour between salads and entrees and then menus for desert brought when not even finished with meal because the meal took too long.   

4.  Room Service - Ordered coffee with milk through room service to avoid long lines at stations.  Three black coffees delivered with no milk.  Son ordered tacos and they delivered 2 hours later while he left to find food.  There really is very limited room to place a tray on the desk when ordering room service.

5.  Sabatini's - I ordered the  chicken marsala with linguine.  The sauce was not marsala (sauce was something salty) and the linguine was spaghetti.  I spoke with a manager but nothing was done.  I think they should take if off the menu if they do not have the ingredients to make a marsala sauce.  I was not offered another entrée.  We went to the specialty restaurants only because dining room service was so long.  If you had a reservation to be seated, the wait was not too bad.  We did not have a reservation one night and tried to make a reservation but the app wouldn't let us so we waited about a 1/2 hour to be seated.   

6.  Wifi - 4 devices seems to only work for the account holder's device and not the other 3 devices.  I spent two hours trying to load emails in the internet cafe.  Other passengers seemed to have the same problem.  

7.  Front desk - My booking came with one specialty dinner.  I booked the Crown Grill online and screen shot the specialty dining credit and reservation.  I was charged for the dinner and went to customer service to remove the charge.  I was told dining credits do not exists.  I showed the screen shots. I said it was included in the booking. The agent started yelling at me and finally after everyone was looking, he said he would take the money out of his pocket.

 

Some of these items are informational(room service, cabin size, wifi).  What was frustrating for us was just trying to have an enjoyable breakfast and dinner.  Until the ships are staffed, we will wait to cruise.    

[TheMichael]

8 hours ago, alohasaw said:

We sailed on Discovery Princess Christmas 7 night Mexico cruise.  We will wait at least another year or two to cruise again if cruising remains relaxing and not overbooked and understaffed. 

My son who has sailed many times and now an adult (younger crowd) agrees with all the differences.  A big part of cruising for us is the itinerary and the dining room experience.  We prefer the dining room vs the buffet at night.  We enjoy having our coffee in the morning, pastry or breakfast in the buffet and going to dinner in the evening.  I spoke with staff who agreed this ship needs at least another dining room,  more coffee stations and staff.  The ships are larger but not enough staff.  We found this vacation not relaxing.  

 

The differences we noticed are: 

1.  Deluxe obstructed balcony -   Smaller room (same room as on the Royal Princess).  Cannot use the refrigerator, desk, or chair when the sofa bed is open.  Desk seems a lot smaller and there is less storage shelves.  

2.  Beds -  My side (bed) was pushed down and sagging on the side.  Strange for a new ship.  The sofa bed was extremely hard.  We did ask for a topper and that helped a little.

3.  Shortage of staff - Coffee station, buffet, dining room.  You could wait for 1/2 an hour for coffee.

Line for pastry is long and while standing in line, the staff would remove the food before I reached the counter. One staff trying to make waffles and crepes with a line of passengers waiting.  Staff cuts in line to get coffee and the servers are arguing with the staff because the servers are upset limiting their tips for longer waits.  Passengers are standing waiting for the coffee.  After you finally get your coffee and breakfast, you can't find a seat in the buffet. Dining room waits are long, missing items ordered, 1/2 an hour between salads and entrees and then menus for desert brought when not even finished with meal because the meal took too long.   

4.  Room Service - Ordered coffee with milk through room service to avoid long lines at stations.  Three black coffees delivered with no milk.  Son ordered tacos and they delivered 2 hours later while he left to find food.  There really is very limited room to place a tray on the desk when ordering room service.

5.  Sabatini's - I ordered the  chicken marsala with linguine.  The sauce was not marsala (sauce was something salty) and the linguine was spaghetti.  I spoke with a manager but nothing was done.  I think they should take if off the menu if they do not have the ingredients to make a marsala sauce.  I was not offered another entrée.  We went to the specialty restaurants only because dining room service was so long.  If you had a reservation to be seated, the wait was not too bad.  We did not have a reservation one night and tried to make a reservation but the app wouldn't let us so we waited about a 1/2 hour to be seated.   

6.  Wifi - 4 devices seems to only work for the account holder's device and not the other 3 devices.  I spent two hours trying to load emails in the internet cafe.  Other passengers seemed to have the same problem.  

7.  Front desk - My booking came with one specialty dinner.  I booked the Crown Grill online and screen shot the specialty dining credit and reservation.  I was charged for the dinner and went to customer service to remove the charge.  I was told dining credits do not exists.  I showed the screen shots. I said it was included in the booking. The agent started yelling at me and finally after everyone was looking, he said he would take the money out of his pocket.

 

Some of these items are informational(room service, cabin size, wifi).  What was frustrating for us was just trying to have an enjoyable breakfast and dinner.  Until the ships are staffed, we will wait to cruise.    

 

This is the thing that I think some people are trying to get at: people can have wildly different experiences, even on the same cruise. I was just on that same Discovery cruise (two weeks later), and my dining experience could not have gone better, with the sole exception of one Salty Dog dinner that wasn't the food or service, but the overly loud sounds of "Radio Sunshine" immediately adjacent in the Piazza.

 

I'm a coffee addict, and I quickly discovered that the Princess Live bar was the place to go if I wanted to avoid a long line for espresso. Espresso lines at the Cafe and Buffet will never get solved, no matter how many staff they have - even Starbucks themselves haven't been able to crack that. Espresso machines work only so quickly. Instead, look for the road less traveled. The buffet's self-serve coffee urns were also a salvation when any joe would do.

 

Ate at the MDR, Sur Le Mer, and Crown Grill, and all were fantastic. The one tip I'd give is if you love filet mignon, get it at Sur Le Mer rather than Crown Grill. As others have mentioned, when the MDR gets packed, service slows, but again, planning can help with that, and I never expect a speedy MDR meal, which is why we planned in advance to eat elsewhere most of the time.

 

All entrees were as expected; service was by and large impeccable, certainly better than most of our local restaurants at that level of dining. The one time my gf had to send something back (doneness issue), they had no problem making it right (although I'd expect that if it was an issue with the sauce, they'd have to have offered a different entree). We had one room-service breakfast, ordered in advance and delivered at the requested time. Heck, one of the bartenders attempted to make the gf a frozen drink that they'd never made before (it wasn't quite right, but what she was used to was the specialty of a particular restaurant).

 

I was expecting the understaffing that's so prevalent at our local restaurants and shops to be a big issue on the ship, but for us it was a great experience almost from top to bottom, with minor glitches that were more amusing than maddening.

 

Not to diminish anyone's personal experience, but personal experience is often a combination of factors that can include "wrong time/wrong place" and not being in the right frame of mind to adapt when necessary.

Edited January 24, 2023 by TheMichael

[cruising.mark.uk]

18 hours ago, PescadoAmarillo said:

Regarding comments suggesting that people who aren’t happy with Princess 2.0 should just stay away…DONE (for now). But we do have 17 Princess cruises booked beginning in nine months. I am relying heavily on people honestly reporting their experiences between now and our first final payment to determine whether we’ll actually take 17 or none of them. Censoring comments doesn’t help me or anyone else.  That’s not the purpose of this forum. 
 

Most of us are smart enough to understand that we aren’t all looking for the same thing in our cruise experience. But comments about how you put your phone in the safe for the duration of your cruise so the WiFi is fine, or you were able to always get seated at your chosen table so DMW works great don’t reflect reality either, not when we know that on many cruises emails won’t load, and the lines outside the dining rooms stretch through the Piazza or crowd the Deck 6 aft elevator lobby. And we only know those things because people report them. Bring on the complaints!  If I don’t want to read them, I won’t. 

So, if I understand this correctly:

- You are going to base a decision on whether or not to continue to sail on Princess on what you read on here (thanks, by the way, for telling posters what the purpose of this forum is or isn't).

- You only want to hear complaints, nothing good or neutral.

- You will decide whether you read the complaints or not.

- You know before you start that DMW doesn't work and neither does the wifi.  You know that because you've read it on here and you've discounted any reports to the contrary.

 

Given the positive approach you've adopted and the empirical, even-handed, unbiased and scientific methodology you are taking, I think most people could tell you right now what conclusion you're going to reach.  

 

I hope whatever line you jump ship to disappoints you less.  However,  I fear you'll discover (assuming you adopt the same glass half full outlook and rigorous methodology for researching them as you are towards Princess) that they all disappoint you equally, if not more.