Lady Arwen

Great question! Perhaps someone here has direct knowledge. The crew never seems to complain outwardly to passengers but you can tell they’re overworked and stressed.

Sorry that you didn’t enjoy your cruise on Royal. As you’re aware some of your issues were not controllable by Princess. Just part of cruising and sometimes quite disappointing. Food is very subjective, but a decrease in quality has been noted by many people. It seems to be hit and miss, depending on the ship, the itinerary and which restaurant you choose. Frustrating for sure. Service should always be top notch, but it looks like some occasional fails are being reported. Most cruiselines are having issues attracting enough crew members and this greatly impacts the quality of service. Again, very frustrating for passengers. We’ve sailed on Royal a few times pre-pandemic and thoroughly enjoyed our cruise every time. The cruise experience now does not always meet our expectations. I can assure you this is not unique to Princess. Our Celebrity cruise in the spring was just not the Celebrity that we’ve always known and loved. Thank you for taking the time to share your experience with us.

I’m thinking you may have missed my attempt at levity. I’m obviously not the funniest person in the room. Clearly, I need help with my delivery. So, to ease everyone’s mind, I don’t intend on sneaking one of those lovely desserts to a child waiting in line. That would be so very, very wrong of me. Slap my wrist for even mentioning it. For some reason, I assumed my fellow posters were a bit more lighthearted. Darn it, wrong again! Sorry if I got everyone in a knot.

Completely understand your point of view. I love a challenge, too, but not when I’m booking a cruise or trying to make changes. My CVP gets paid to do that for me and I appreciate it. Frees me up to do other important things.

We also have it booked twice for our next cruise on Enchanted. Premier is working for us.

Please get a Princess CVP! I could not put myself through that nonsense. I don’t have the time or inclination to deal with time wasting incompetence. My CVP does it all for us and we never have to talk to anyone else or sit on hold.

You are so right! Each package suits different people. What’s right for us, may not be right for someone else. Or, it may be right this time for us, but not the next time. It’s all about personal choice. If you don’t want a package or the Plus works well for you, then that’s what you should choose. Obviously, Premier is not the right choice for everyone. I would never try to talk anyone out of a Plus or Premier package or talk anyone into purchasing either one. Or try to tell people my choice is the best choice. Why do some people feel it’s necessary to judge what choices others make? Why on earth do they even care? I’m glad to hear you enjoyed the Premier package on your recent cruise. Thanks for reporting back to us, much appreciated.

So what?

Only if I want to pay. I should have included sodas with the booze, but I don’t remember saying I was walking up to the bar for anything for someone else. I was just kidding about the desserts, I promise! I would never, ever try to cheat Princess out of ice cream. Luckily they have sharp eyed folks, such as yourself, to keep us honest. Whoops, forgot those specialty coffees. Maybe I could hide one under my trench coat. lol. Smile, @memoak, it’s all in fun.

You could be assigned a deluxe balcony in a location that Princess deems to be a huge upgrade, which is dubious at best. However, you do know that your CVP can override the system and get you your choice assigned immediately. We just did this two weeks ago on our Enchanted booking. Princess holds these cabin back hoping to get bookings for three passengers, but they will release them to their own CVPs. To see which cabins are available, do a booking for your sailing entering three passengers, not two. You will now see which ones are available and you can then ask your CVP to snag it for you. Unfortunately, a regular customer service rep cannot do this. So, you will-need to get a CVP, if you don’t already.

Hmmm, I would think that would only apply to alcoholic beverages. You may be right, though, knowing Princess. I might have to get one, meet up with the lucky recipient at a preplanned meeting spot, far away from the prying eyes of the dessert police, and nonchalantly pass over the contraband after we share the secret handshake. Should work.

Oh my goodness, sounds terrible. I’m not a big dessert person, except for cheesecake, so I doubt if I’ll even bother.

Oh yeah! Bring it on! I love GG orange with tonic and 2 orange slices floating with loads of ice. Yum!

Yeah, plain gelato on occasion is fine. The rest is not for me. I am going to attend the exercise classes if they are in the early mornings since it’s unlimited with Premier package. My good Intentions, however, may not persuade me. We shall see!

I intend to ask someone else in line if they would like them. I would never eat them and if they could be enjoyed by a fellow passenger, then I’m happy to oblige.

Good luck! Keep us posted, please.

Totally understand your frustration. We have a couple Celebrity cruises and one HAL booked. The two we have booked Princess may be our last (currently using up FCC). We have a CVP, so no booking problems, but just some things about Princess that we just don’t love. I won’t go into details, but it’s to a point that we’re saying why bother, so many other options. Our next Celebrity cruise in December will give us a good idea where we’ll tend to go in the future.

Yeah, I didn’t think they’d appreciate your redistribution of furniture. lol. This is why we never, ever sail in insides, o/v or standard balconies on Princess. On the other hand, our other preferred lines, Celebrity and HAL, provide sofas in all cabin categories. Princess new builds will be a difficult story, thank goodness.

This made me smile. Our absolute favourite spot and cabin is a mini suite on Lido deck. We enjoy the enforced walk to get around the ship and we love the forward cabins for the huge balconies. We also prefer stairs to elevators, so it’s quite the workout getting back to our cabin. However, I would be upset if Princess just arbitrarily moved us to midship. I rely on our CVP to make sure it doesn’t happen.

Very helpful , thank you

I indulge in the occasional dessert, but this is not it! Not worth all the calories and probably tastes as bad as it looks. Now, cheesecake, that’s a whole different story…bring it on!

Isn’t it lovely that we can all choose what fits our needs. This is why cruising is suits us so well. Something for everyone!

🥰

Taken recently at McDonalds. Told ya we like to dress up! lol lol Thank you! As always, you are very kind. December 2019 Christmas/ New Years on CB

The sofa, actually a loveseat, in the Deluxe Balcony cabin also becomes a single bed, if required. You also get a small coffee table. In mini suites you get a full size sofa, which makes up into a good size bed, and a coffee table. Depending on length of the cruise and itinerary, we choose either one. Regular rooms just don’t work for us. I don’t like to sit on the bed to drink coffee or a glass of wine, if the weather is inclement.