Live from the Ocean Princess - A shocking tale of Xmas Cutbacks

[Mimg Pao]

Just thought I would grab your attention by the over the top headline.... seriously though, for whatever reason Princess chose not to give passengers the usual English style Christmas crackers (you pull them apart, a noise is made and a little trinket pops out). This is our 4th holiday sailing and we have always had this.

 

I wonder if all the ships in the fleet did not get their crackers either or perhaps the shipment did not reach us in time since we are in Asia but I am sure the crackers are made in China and not Engliand.

 

Does this mean that for New Years, we wont get our silly hats and horns - stay tuned for further details.

 

The President of Princess is on our cruise but keeping a very low profile - you would think he would have internvened:D:confused:

 

Princess Elite Passenger

[Kiwi Kruzer]

for whatever reason Princess chose not to give passengers the usual English style Christmas crackers (you pull them apart, a noise is made and a little trinket pops out). This is our 4th holiday sailing and we have always had this.

 

Perhaps they were confiscated at airport security?

[pg.]

You didn't know!??

 

All the English people got tired of posts on foreign forums tip bashing them for not understanding the tip culture on cruise ships, ,, so they got to the frieghter that was going to ship the Crackers to an American port to be loaded on to cruise ships, hijacked it , and threw all the Christmas Crackers in the bay.. ( where did they get such an idea!) They absolutely refused to send any of their Christmas Crackers to the States.... so ,, no crackers for you!

 

Hope you had an Merry Christmas anyways,,

[Scrapchick]

You should be on the Golden..... Plenty of Christmas crackers over here on Christmas Eve!

[mommykim]

I just got off the Sapphire and we had crackers as well. Being Jewish I honestly had no idea what to do with them and my table mate had to explain :-)

[Cruisin' Chick]

I just got off the Sapphire and we had crackers as well. Being Jewish I honestly had no idea what to do with them and my table mate had to explain :-)

 

You didn't have them on the Island Princess four years ago (was it that long ago?:()? We had them at our table and the Canadians at our table demonstrated what to do with them.

[Tak8]

I'm on The Ruby for the Christmas cruise and we had the crackers. In fact, I would say on this ship Christmas was expanded. Not only did each child get a toy from Santa. Princess had various games like a Christmas carnival in the atrium. Fun to watch.

[Coral]

We didn't have them on the Sun Princess 7 years ago at Christmas.

 

It may have been as simple as the shipment didn't arrive on time or maybe it was up to each individual ship.

 

I have heard of these from an English friend but have never seen these.

[sunsetbeachgal]

OP,

 

How is the rest of the cruise going-service, food, etc.? Are all of the "kinks" worked out from the dry dock?

[donna5]

Just thought I would grab your attention by the over the top headline.... seriously though, for whatever reason Princess chose not to give passengers the usual English style Christmas crackers (you pull them apart, a noise is made and a little trinket pops out). This is our 4th holiday sailing and we have always had this.

 

I wonder if all the ships in the fleet did not get their crackers either or perhaps the shipment did not reach us in time since we are in Asia but I am sure the crackers are made in China and not Engliand.

 

Does this mean that for New Years, we wont get our silly hats and horns - stay tuned for further details.

 

The President of Princess is on our cruise but keeping a very low profile - you would think he would have internvened:D:confused:

 

Princess Elite Passenger

 

Is this a UK or Canadian thing? Never heard of this before.

[katiestan1]

The crackers are sold here in New England during the holidays, just fyi

[Mimg Pao]

OP,

 

How is the rest of the cruise going-service, food, etc.? Are all of the "kinks" worked out from the dry dock?

 

Unlike Al who posted live on the inaugural sail Dec. 2, we have found no major problems. Probably, we are prejudiced because we do prefer the smaller ships. So much so, that we have booked a 47 day cruise on the same ship Capetown to Bangkok.

 

We were on the Star in the spring and we find the food is impoved since then - it seems that Princess is even getting slightly adventourus and offering their sanitized versions of ethnic food.

[Crown Prince]

you didn't know!?? All the english people got tired of posts on foreign forums tip bashing them for not understanding the tip culture on cruise ships, so they got to the frieghter that was going to ship the crackers to an american port to be loaded on to cruise ships, hijacked it , and threw all the christmas crackers in the bay (where did they get such an idea!) they absolutely refused to send any of their christmas crackers to the states, so - no crackers for you! Hope you had an merry christmas anyways

 

RotF, LmAo

 

:eek::eek::eek::eek::eek:

[Joshua1]

We are absolutely fed up with them telling us off re the tipping. We only tip for good service and if we dont get it we dont tip, and we only tip what we think is fair. Perhaps the Brits should give the US lessons in tipping and pulling christmas crackers!

 

A cracker needs two people (ideally) to pull it, one at each end. When both pull it goes POP! and the person left with the most intact side of the cracker has the trinket and the hat and the wonderful joke which he can procede to read out to other guests. Now isnt that fun!

[jetwet1]

I just got off the Sapphire and we had crackers as well. Being Jewish I honestly had no idea what to do with them and my table mate had to explain :-)

 

Being Jewish has nothing to do with it, i'm English, my wife is American, our first family Christmas/Hanukkah dinner I raided to local British food store for some crackers, everyone thought they were table decorations.

 

The kids had a total blast with them, now they are part of the tradition every year.

 

As far as Princess, I am actually shocked they did this, I guess it goes back to the days of being owned by P&O.

 

We are absolutely fed up with them telling us off re the tipping. We only tip for good service and if we dont get it we dont tip, and we only tip what we think is fair. Perhaps the Brits should give the US lessons in tipping and pulling Christmas crackers!

 

!

 

Actually, the Brit's are not the worst, Canadians, people from Oklahoma and Scotty Pippen are far worse.

[Fancy_Goods]

No crackers on the Caribbean Princess either. :-(

 

Rumors of "snow" on Christmas Day did not materialize either.

[gertz]

This is a joke, right?

And we had snow on Christmas day and we still have it. You are welcome to come get it, all you want.:eek:

[ggprincess2004]

 

Rumors of "snow" on Christmas Day did not materialize either.

 

That is too bad, we had snow on the Dec 4 sailing of the Crown, and it was rather lovely. I don't think lack of it would had in any way lessened our enjoyment of the overall cruise. Hope the day was Merry, nonetheless!

[stlrod]

No crackers on the Emerald. Got small stocking with candy canes and pillow chocolates. Snowed several times.

[donna5]

This is a joke, right?

And we had snow on Christmas day and we still have it. You are welcome to come get it, all you want.:eek:

 

Even over here on the west slope "banana boat" are we are having too much and it has been coming down here for 3 hours, they can have ours too.

[Colo Cruiser]

Even over here on the west slope "banana boat" are we are having too much and it has been coming down here for 3 hours, they can have ours too.

 

 

Don't want you to go without!!

 

We have family members over there and rib them all the time. ;)

[topo]

Just came back from 21 days 3 Continents, we felt the cut downs on small details. Maybe the crisis is going strong.

[gertz]

Even over here on the west slope "banana boat" are we are having too much and it has been coming down here for 3 hours, they can have ours too.

 

I was first.

Winter started in September and we have been shoveling since.