P
Princess Pat
Guest
Star Princess – Could Have Been Better
Venice to Rome--Greek Isles, April, 2004
The beautiful ship, our super stateroom steward, our wonderful dinner-mates, the delicious food, the cooperative weather, the itinerary, and most of the people aboard are what made this cruise enjoyable. However, the Princess part could have been better.
Princess Air Sucks – Going over the pond, despite arriving at check-in 3 hours early, we we’re assigned the very back seats (the ones that usually don’t recline and you get no choice of entrée by the time service gets to you). Coming back we were assigned seats (in the middle) where the configuration narrows from 4 to 3 approaching the back of the airplane. The construction here gave you leg obstacles, offset you from the monitor screens on the seatbacks ahead of you (you looked at your neighbor’s screen), and provided unclean tray tables stowed inside armrests filled with old, old crumbs. In addition, we had a 3 ½ hour layover that extended to 4 ½ hours with mechanical problems on a commuter aircraft. The trip home took 24 hours.
NOTE: At Leonardo DaVinci airport if you DID NOT lock your luggage on the ship before putting it out the night before disembarkation, a thorough search was required of each suitcase. So much for careful packing of your dress clothes. (Don’t think about fibbing because someone could have put something illegal or harmful into your luggage). Consequently, check-in (standing) took about 1 ½ hours.
Embarkation Was a Mess – We arrived before 11 AM and there was ample seating. Each of the numerous check-in stations had an “agent†in position and around 11:20 four people started a line. That was the signal for everyone to rush up into the different line designations. Platinum was nearest the entry point and immediately blocked access for all newcomers. Then, not enough agents were processing Platinum members so that line eventually stretched out of the terminal. It took over an hour of standing to get processed and I would estimate we were the 20th set in line.
Princess Gifts Fiasco -- The Bon Voyage liquor was not delivered to the cabin until the end of the 3rd day despite repeated visits to the Purser and numerous attempts by the steward. The bottle then had an accompanying note to call Room Service to arrange for it’s delivery.
Venice Water-Taxi Pre-Charge – Unexplained beforehand was that Princess would have a water taxi service available for the beginning two days in port AND EVERY PASSENGER ON THE SHIP WOULD BE PRE-CHARGED $10. If you didn’t use the service, you had to turn in the ticket you found in your cabin for a charge-back.
Here were some of the other annoyances with the Star Princess:
1) Weather information -- infrequent and exceptionally inaccurate. There’s a telephone button for weather but this information was the most unusable; you could go out on your balcony and tell the forecast wasn’t even close to existing conditions. The cruise director, when I watched his morning show, only had some gag going about, “It’s still not ‘ot.†The ship’s officer’s announcement at the time of disembarkation approval mimicked the forecast from the telephone. The best way to get an idea of how to dress for the next day was to go on the Web and look up the weather for your destination.
2) Poor activity space allocation regarding the number of attendees and the type of activity – shows were in the Princess Theater that should have been in the Vista Lounge and vice versa. Also, the Catholic priest asked for a larger space than the Wedding Chapel for Mass on the only sea day and was denied – at 8 AM? The priest had asked for a daily time change to 7:30 AM so more people could come on all the excursion days, that was denied too.
3) Poor entertainers (except for the Princess Cast) – The comic act’s (Kimika) gal even joked that the audience could leave because they were there for the run anyway. We couldn’t stay awake through Joey Van, another so-called comedian. The aging Give My Regards Production Jesus Christ Superstar segment barely got a clap. (The new Dance show had a fabulous Riverdance-type number.)
4) Rudeness – At the early seating Captain’s Circle party attendees were asked to leave 10 minutes before the dinner hour so the Lounge could be readied for the next party starting 1 ½ hours later. Neither was there an introduction of the Ship’s officers.
5) Cheapness – No Cherries Jubilee; one of the maitre d’s told our table that cherries were too expensive now.
OVERALL OBSERVATIONS: This was a multi-ethnic roster of 2,656 passengers with 150 children. No one from America was among the three winners for the most days cruising with Princess. Regular Cruisers Cough was evident but not the Norwalk virus.
Pat
Venice to Rome--Greek Isles, April, 2004
The beautiful ship, our super stateroom steward, our wonderful dinner-mates, the delicious food, the cooperative weather, the itinerary, and most of the people aboard are what made this cruise enjoyable. However, the Princess part could have been better.
Princess Air Sucks – Going over the pond, despite arriving at check-in 3 hours early, we we’re assigned the very back seats (the ones that usually don’t recline and you get no choice of entrée by the time service gets to you). Coming back we were assigned seats (in the middle) where the configuration narrows from 4 to 3 approaching the back of the airplane. The construction here gave you leg obstacles, offset you from the monitor screens on the seatbacks ahead of you (you looked at your neighbor’s screen), and provided unclean tray tables stowed inside armrests filled with old, old crumbs. In addition, we had a 3 ½ hour layover that extended to 4 ½ hours with mechanical problems on a commuter aircraft. The trip home took 24 hours.
NOTE: At Leonardo DaVinci airport if you DID NOT lock your luggage on the ship before putting it out the night before disembarkation, a thorough search was required of each suitcase. So much for careful packing of your dress clothes. (Don’t think about fibbing because someone could have put something illegal or harmful into your luggage). Consequently, check-in (standing) took about 1 ½ hours.
Embarkation Was a Mess – We arrived before 11 AM and there was ample seating. Each of the numerous check-in stations had an “agent†in position and around 11:20 four people started a line. That was the signal for everyone to rush up into the different line designations. Platinum was nearest the entry point and immediately blocked access for all newcomers. Then, not enough agents were processing Platinum members so that line eventually stretched out of the terminal. It took over an hour of standing to get processed and I would estimate we were the 20th set in line.
Princess Gifts Fiasco -- The Bon Voyage liquor was not delivered to the cabin until the end of the 3rd day despite repeated visits to the Purser and numerous attempts by the steward. The bottle then had an accompanying note to call Room Service to arrange for it’s delivery.
Venice Water-Taxi Pre-Charge – Unexplained beforehand was that Princess would have a water taxi service available for the beginning two days in port AND EVERY PASSENGER ON THE SHIP WOULD BE PRE-CHARGED $10. If you didn’t use the service, you had to turn in the ticket you found in your cabin for a charge-back.
Here were some of the other annoyances with the Star Princess:
1) Weather information -- infrequent and exceptionally inaccurate. There’s a telephone button for weather but this information was the most unusable; you could go out on your balcony and tell the forecast wasn’t even close to existing conditions. The cruise director, when I watched his morning show, only had some gag going about, “It’s still not ‘ot.†The ship’s officer’s announcement at the time of disembarkation approval mimicked the forecast from the telephone. The best way to get an idea of how to dress for the next day was to go on the Web and look up the weather for your destination.
2) Poor activity space allocation regarding the number of attendees and the type of activity – shows were in the Princess Theater that should have been in the Vista Lounge and vice versa. Also, the Catholic priest asked for a larger space than the Wedding Chapel for Mass on the only sea day and was denied – at 8 AM? The priest had asked for a daily time change to 7:30 AM so more people could come on all the excursion days, that was denied too.
3) Poor entertainers (except for the Princess Cast) – The comic act’s (Kimika) gal even joked that the audience could leave because they were there for the run anyway. We couldn’t stay awake through Joey Van, another so-called comedian. The aging Give My Regards Production Jesus Christ Superstar segment barely got a clap. (The new Dance show had a fabulous Riverdance-type number.)
4) Rudeness – At the early seating Captain’s Circle party attendees were asked to leave 10 minutes before the dinner hour so the Lounge could be readied for the next party starting 1 ½ hours later. Neither was there an introduction of the Ship’s officers.
5) Cheapness – No Cherries Jubilee; one of the maitre d’s told our table that cherries were too expensive now.
OVERALL OBSERVATIONS: This was a multi-ethnic roster of 2,656 passengers with 150 children. No one from America was among the three winners for the most days cruising with Princess. Regular Cruisers Cough was evident but not the Norwalk virus.
Pat
