Princess before and after Carnival Merger?

C

CherylB

Guest
I was reading a professional travel writer review yesterday on most of the cruise lines. She/He reviewed them in order of how they ranked them. She/He seems to think that Carnival corporation has had a negative impact on the HAL product.


Has anyone travel Princess before and after Carnival merger? If so, have you notice any decline in the Princess product? Maybe things that they charge extra for now, that they didn't charge for before? Maybe changes in the decor, service , food quality or helpfulness/atitude of the crew?

The writer ranked Princess below Celebrity, RCI, HAL, and Disney.

The review is at:
http:///www.galaxsea.com/ratings.html
 
C

Cruise cutie

Guest
I have sailed Princess before and after the merger..I was on the Coral Princess after the merger..it was heaven,the food was bliss...and I am fussy and Italian!!!To me the soft decor of Princess is so appealing..I am not into bold and brassy so all their ships seem perfect to me..The art auctions and spa solicitaions did go up..but I have seen that as universal on all the cruise lines..We are "light alcohol drinkers"..after a polite "No Thanks" to the drink stewards we were not asked after that..so to me the product on Princess was outstanding from our Panama Canal sailing..we did a ghost booking and proceeded to book our upcoming Golden Princess back to back..in Feb 2005..I have not paid extra to go to "charges " eating, we love 2nd seating fixed..Dh Mark and I love to go dancing,casinos and such..so we find the Princess product has remained in high regard, we do NOT sail with Spring break times as we go as a couple and avoid the kid crowd times..ours are grown up and moved away..Until we have a bad cruise with them we will stay primarily with them..we did book the Mariner RCCl cruise with the @ddicts and I will see how the huge #'s of pax and amenities works for us..we went for the company and not the cruiseline!!..so we'll at least compare the ships..Good luck with getting info..we =love Princess Cruise Lines..Our motto "if it ain't broke ,don't fix it..we stay with them!!!...;)..Joanne
 
N

Natalia

Guest
I have also sailed before and after the merger and agree with Joannes comments. I really noticed no changes that were not the result of other things rather than the merger.
 
L

ljeanbrown

Guest
My husband and I have sailed Princess before and after the merger also. We have not noticed any changes in anything, as far as the Carnival merger goes. It is still a great cruise line with great food and service. The decor is as it has been and from the looks of the new ships that I have seen they are really nice as well :thumb
 
B

Beryl

Guest
HAL has been under the Carnival Corporation umbrella since 1989 so any recent changes that the professional travel writer wrote about may not necessarily be a reflection of company ownership. I think rather that it is a product of the market and economy. Prices on goods and services are rising all the time but cruisers want the prices to remain at a reasonable level so there have been some cutbacks in some of the services provided. I think these cutbacks have been noticed on most lines. They seem to have come in the form of extra charges (as in ice cream, special coffee drinks etc), fewer wait staff (making for a less relaxed dining experience), not allowing passengers to carry liquor (and in some cases soft drinks) onboard.

I have sailed on Princess, both before and after the Carnival takeover, and I feel that for the price, any minor changes I have noticed are not be a problem.
 
K

kruznut

Guest
:wave We have also sailed on Princess before and after the merger. We have not noticed any changes in the quality of service, food or any other area. Princess is still our favorite line and we love the soft elegant decor of the ships. This is why i take many reviews as a grain of salt because it's for the most part and individual affair. Just my =twocents worth. :cheers to happy cruising ! =bigwave
 
J

JJhanly

Guest
We were on the Coral last may for our honeymoon cruise to Alaska. That was our first Princess cruise after 2 on Carnival so we can't compare the before & after. But we felt like the Coral was a BIG step above our Carnival cruises, although we enjoyed them as well.
We spent some time talking to a Dealer in the Casino on a slow day on the Coral & he was talking about changes from an employee's perspective. He had not seen any yet that he could directly say were due to the merger, but he did say there were some scheduling changes that he did not like that he htought MIGHT be due to the merger. In talking to him for a while it sounded like he had bounced around a lot of cruise lines, so I didn't put much into what he said. nice guy, but not exactly a spokesman for long term employment at a company.
 
P

p.g.

Guest
We have cruised Carnival and Princess. We have crusied on Princess before( 1999) and after merge( April 2004) . We have noted no difference in the Princess product. We love Princess!
 
M

mildavis

Guest
I have to differ. I don't know if the merger has anything to do with it, but I believe quality has suffered between our previous cruise on Princess and the one we got home from yesterday.

My main complaint is with food quality. On our cruise in '98 on the Sun Princess, I would rate the food in the dining room 9.5 out of 10. The service was great too. We sailed on the Golden Princess last week and the only spectacular meal we had was in Sabatini's. The food in the main dining room wasn't near as good as our previous cruise with Princess and maybe not as good as we had last year on Disney.
Furthermore, although our waiter took care of our needs, he didn't offer suggestions on what to select and couldn't describe dishes anymore than reading the menu to us.

The other area that has suffered is entertainment (shows). It was poor on the Golden last week.

Our cruise last week was a bargain as far as what we paid comparing to attempting to do other type vacations with the same money. I'd be willing to pay a little more for better quality.

Don't get me wrong, we enjoyed our cruise last week. But, it did not meet our expectations based on our previous Princess Cruise. We will definitely try a different line next time.
 
N

nimiq

Guest
Same for me cant compare the before and after but have travel on both Carnival and Princess ships and have to say that I will go back to Princess if the price is right.


Everthing was better than Carnival on Princess

sea ya
ERIC
 
E

Einstein

Guest
Like the others we have cruised many times before and a couple after and I think this comparison is a VERY difficult one as IMO so much has to do with the ship U are on. When we were on the Dawn P after the merger we thought the service was a bit stretched and but certainly NOT enough to ruin the cruise. Then on the Coaral Princess a couple months ago we had by AFR the BEst staff and service in quite awhile. My take on it is some of it has to do with teh NEWER ship (Coral P) commanding some of the BETTER staff as MANY cruiselines do with their NEWER ships. More so than that however is I believe something called Luck of the Draw and we had a VERY Good Draw in March. :thumb

.
 
L

Larry&Mari

Guest
Well, my wife and I just returned from Alaska on the Coral yesterday evening. This is our second trip to Alaska with Princess, and we've sailed the Mexican Riviera with Princess.

Unfortunately, our opinion was that the service has diminished since traveling on our previous cruises. The quality of the food in the Horizon Court was generally not good, and the wait staff in the dining room (four different waiters, since we had PC dining) was abysmal. Drink orders were forgotten on three occasions, dinners presented to the wrong party, a wrong desert brought to my wife, etc. etc.

The ship was absolutely in top notch shape, and you can't beat the location for breathtaking views, but we left less than impressed with the 'feeling' we got overall.

Larry & Mari
 
Top