We were on the same sailing as you and totally agree with everything you have said. It's interesting to note that while you were a large party experiencing a 2 1/2 hour MDR experience we were only 4 people and had the same lengthly dining time. For me, in addition to service issues in the dining room and medallion drink orders not arriving (which by the way more than one Princess employee admitted was not working up to par) was the ambiance of the cruise ship. It just annoyed me to no end that there was no music playing on the Lido deck. On the one beautiful sunny day we had (in Puerto Rico) they were playing A Christmas Story on the big screen at the pool. Where's the music!? There was none!! One rainy day I was sitting at a table at the pool and turned up Bob Marley on my phone. People walked past me singing, whistling, up beat! I went to the bar there and asked "why is there no music? We have had rain for the last 4 days, put on some music, it's like a morgue here!" I was told he had to ask the entertainment department. This should be a no brainer. Play the typical Caribbean music we are used to hearing on cruise ships. Get people excited to be there!!
The servers on deck wore drab brown vests or blue shirt. We are on a Caribbean cruise dress the wait staff on the pool deck in bright floral shirts!
The weather on this cruise was horrible, but that's not Princess's fault. What is their fault is not having additional activities to keep guests happy and engaged.
