Crown nightmare

[Gail & Marty sailing away]

Sound like a tough break, with bad weather and the noro-outbreak, but IMO absolutely nothing you posted is Princess's fault.

 

 

Unforutately sometimes bad things happen during a cruise, weather and illness are a couple of them, so are missed ports, medical diversions, mechanical problems,and any of the other unforseen problems that come with sailing the worlds oceans. Surely as someone who's cruised 25 times you must know that these things happen, and are no way the fault of the cruiseline you happened to be on when these sorts of things go wrong.

 

So run to RCCL if you want, but I'm sure if you move over to the RCCL boards here, you'll read and hear of the exact same things as you posted there too.

 

 

 

Sorry for your bad cruise, but IMO you're pointing the finger in the wrong direction

Srpilo

Very well put ......

[Reader0108598]

I am sorry you are so upset.

I hope you still have a Merry Christmas.

 

Reader

[Astro Flyer]

totally agree. A voucher or proceed after being warned. Good post.

If you read post #23 again they were presenting the type of posts that would result if the cruise was cancelled. It was a made up reply from an unhappy passenger if Princess did what the OP suggested & to cancel the cruise.

[Hopperhop]

We were on this cruise also and I just have to say it was the most unpleasant cruise that we have ever been on. Even at that we did manage to have a great time and did not let this ruin our annual cruise. We were fortunate in that none of the members of our party became will due to the norovirus however we did get a little woozy with the rough seas.

 

I thought the staff was pleasant in the Horizon Court and all over the ship. To mee everyone seemed very cheerful as always on Princess. We did not have any experiences with rude ship personnel. Yes it was a little slow going through the buffet line since they had to had out the food but for me it is better to be safe than sorry. I am sure that the people serving us did not enjoy it any more than we did but they were just doing what they were told to do. As far as the weather being bad with rain in Aruba and some in Curacao that was not the best but we managed to have a pleasant experience at both places.

 

I look at it as something that we will be talking about for years into the future but it will not in any way keep us from cruising with Princess again. We have done 10 cruises with Princess now and if this is as bad as it gets, I will take it!!

 

Merry Christmas everyone!!:)

[Loonbeam]

When posting cruise reviews, there are really three categories of issues:

 

1> Things the crew/ship cannot control - These include weather, port changes, many malfunctions, etc. Good to know about them, but not really something to criticize.

 

2> How the crew handles issues on #1 - This is a completely valid issue to talk about (for example, one poster, I think the OP had an issue with how the captain kept the ship informed, that the warnings seemed particularly dire). Or how a code red is handled. You want to give a little leeway here as things may be beyond the pale, but its certainly fair to point out areas for improvement.

 

3> Routine operation concerns - fair game. If a crew does not provide a decent quality of service, then by all means let people know. And when someone does have a complaint and it doesn't appear their expectations are unreasonable, they deserve a fair hearing. And the only people who can offer valid rebuttals in terms of facts are PEOPLE ON THE SAME CRUISE. (One person's experience on the Emerald in 2009 does not have any bearing on the Ruby in 2011 unless the same staff is involved)

 

Which brings me to my point - Princess has about 18 ships on the water on any given day, 365 days a year. The simple law of averages says that some of those days will be bad days, maybe on the whole ship, maybe in one area, for whatever reason. Anyone who says Princess NEVER has bad days or defends the brand unswervingly is deluding themselves and doing a disservice to the CC community. Even worse are those who claim a poster is lying or exaggerating.

 

Good lord, people, its the holiday season. How about a little tolerance?

[CrusinAgain]

The Crown in my opinion is off my list of ships to sail for the time being even without all these problems I am reading. Last year on the Crown (my 2nd time) was enough for me. The staff doesn't appear to be any better than what they were.

[CaliforniaCruiser4life]

Just back from our 7 day cruise to the Caribbean on the Crown Princess. There were 10 of us in our group and had a great time. My husband and I have been on 15+ cruises, mostly on Princess but we have also cruised with other cruise lines as well. We are Platinum members and my mother is an Elite member. We had 5 inside cabins near the center of the ship so the movement at night was minimal. In fact, I kind of liked being rocked to sleep. :-) I have been reading several of the negative reviews and feel it is necessary to disagree. This is my first time posting on a message board. I am sitting at home going through our 500+ photos and videos and it is very obvious that we, as well as others from our pictures, had a great time. You would be hard pressed to see anyone or anything negative in any video or picture.

 

Food was delicious as usual. Sailing was delayed but we were grateful that they were cleaning the ship instead of boarding us. We also noticed that every morning, staff members worked hard cleaning rails and public areas. It was much appreciated.

 

None of us were sick thankfully, although we were very cautious and washed our hands thoroughly on a regular basis.

 

We are an active family and participated in many of the activities on-board including trivia, bingo, shows, events, etc. The entertainment was pretty good, except for one of the comedians. We really enjoyed Phil Tag.

 

Dinner was long, but that was our fault partly because we ordered a lot of food. :-) We had traditional dining. We ate there every night, except for one night when we went to Sabatini's. I have noticed that many passengers no longer dress up for dinner. When we first started cruising, they wouldn't let you into the dining room in shorts or t-shirts. Not so anymore. It seems that passengers have become much more informal when cruising.

 

Everyone seemed to be very pleasant. The staff worked really hard to serve us throughout the cruise.

 

Anyway, we had a great time from beginning to end and are already talking about our next cruise.

[heisnuts]

While I understand the frustration the OP had during the cruise, I fail to understand why so many people react so dramatically to what I consider to be small inconveniences.

Let’s take the delayed boarding for starters. If the cruise before mine had a lot of sick people onboard, I would want the ship to be cleaned even if this meant I would not be able to board the ship until later in the afternoon. I just don't get why everyone gets upset that they are sitting in the terminal rather than on the ship when this happens. I am already on vacation and don't have to be anywhere at that time, so what's the big deal (especially in this case when this time is being used by the crew to clean the ship that just came back with sick people onboard)?

Second, I think even the OP will agree that nothing can be done to control the weather and/or sea conditions on a cruise. If this is really a big deal to you then you should be looking to a land based vacation (which even there you are not going to have control over the weather). On a ship that runs into bad seas, the problem is compounded because there are going to be people who get sea sick and this can be confused with noro since the symptoms are very similar. I don't blame the ship for quarantining anyone who is sick (I actually welcome it), and if it were me who was sick I don't think I would want to be out of my cabin even if it was allowed.

Third, I have never been able to understand why people get so upset when they feel that a crew member is not 100% happy to serve at a particular moment. The OP has already said it was a cruise from hell and that a lot of the passengers were really upset. If that was the case, I would expect the staff to share the passengers frustration and I would understand that they might not be all peaches and cream when one asks for more of something in a buffet. As a matter of fact, some might take an all peaches and cream response to be very sarcastic and then complain the staff is mocking them given the situation.

Lastly, the OP talks about the option of cancelling the cruise once it has been determined that there has been a noro outbreak on the cruise before theirs. I haven't heard anyone point out yet that this option exists with the Princess Vacation Protection Plan under the "cancel for any reason" option. Yes, I realize this means one has to purchase the plan ahead of time, but if this is really a concern, there is an option you have.

In the end, I really think it all comes down to how you choose to react to unexpected events on a vacation, whether on a cruise or a land based vacation.

[Drill2dk]

As I said the staff was so worried about passengers touching food. However this was not the case every Hanukkah service. No staff was passing out food there. They let us take whatever we want. So there I guess they did not worry about the spread of noro. And let me hear form all the princess loyalists, that this shows good procedure. just shows princess really has no idea how to deal with things. Also when we first arrived at embarkation, and did not get on the cruise until after 3 pm. Princess gave coffee or juice, however no food. One food stand with 3000 passengers to buy food with long lines. Traveling with small kids that arrived at 10 am, they could have had something for the passengers. Again lack of procedure. But this is my opinion.

[Ontario Cruiser]

Princess is not the only line that gets the norovirus. We were in lock down for 14 of our 28 days on the Veendam Amazon cruise last March, half of the the cruise on the Westerdam in November and the seas were extremely rough on this cruise. Also a few years ago on the Summit even the elevators were been sanitized and many people were getting white streaks if they leaned against the side and it also slithered along on one side from Aruba going towards the Panana. SO STUFF HAPPENS ON ALL CRUISE LINES. We will be on the Grand B2B Jan 14th so hope all will be well.

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR

Ontario Cruiser

[downwithprincess]

Good point, the latkes, jelly donuts, challah, wine glasses .....we all just rushed up and fed ourselves.

[geoherb]

it seems that two crown princess ships sailed from fl on dec. 17. I was on the one with you..and am speechless that people would imply that you are making things up....distorting them. 3,000 people were on that ship..and ones i spoke to...were on our ship.

The other crown...where the cruise was perfect..or close too it...we missed that boat.

Get real. There were too many people on the crown for this silly attacking of people who post the truth to be taken seriously by anyone....

I felt like princess threw our cruise...to have things better for the more expensive christmas and new year's cruise. We were treated like caged inmates. I bet my dh and i spend more in a year of cruising that most on those two voyages do on single or btb cruises.

I'm glad we were on the good cruise of the Crown last week. There were several minor glitches. I was quite critical in my evaluation of some of them, and I hope that Princess management reads and will change policies to effect change for the better.

 

But overall we had a great cruise. We met several wonderful people, including some of the friendliest staff members we have ever run across. Our waiters were excellent. We ate in the Botticcelli Dining Room, late seating. Our cabin steward was pretty good. He was not the best one ever, but he did keep our cabin clean, supplied us fresh towels and shampoos, etc.

 

The glitches we experienced were minor compared to the fact that the measures Princess took did prevent us from getting the norovirus. We did avoid the buffet, as we always do on cruises.

[Hunwolf]

Maybe the cruise ships will result to checking blood types before letting people onto cruise ships recently infected with the virus.

 

If you're "o" you're a "no go".

[Kamloops50]

Why should have to lose a cruise because some idiots on the previous didn't wash there hands properly and used the hand sanitizer that available all over the ship . At what percentage does a cruise line cancel a cruise

10% ,20%,30% or 80% . The average Norovirus :D on a cruise involves only about 1% ( or 200 passengers of 2000).

Who will reimburse the line for lost revue . The fare paying passenger on all cruises will enviable:mad: pay something.

[kendon]

It is not the fault of the cruiseline and they are doing their best, but I understand your frustration. After 22 cruises, our WORST was the week following a Noro outbreak...the buffet and MDR was not enjoyable at all, the rooms were stripped bare of anything that could possibly be contaminated, and much of the staff were running around in "hazmat" suits with canisters of disinfectant. To the OP, I get it, but it's unfortunate for you that it wasn't the vacation you were hoping for.

[4cruisecampers]

We were on this cruise as well. Yes, there was the delay, rough seas, and the buffet was a bit challenging. But, when cruising with 3000+ people being healthy does make some since.

 

We didn’t board until 4:00, so it was tight getting settled and to 6:00 dinner. But, we really needed to get the trip started! Our server couldn’t have been any nicer! He was so good to us! He was a true gentleman to my family.

 

This trip was a tad different than other cruises we have been on, but we just found our way to have some fun! Both our girls had a blast! We went to a beautiful island, saw dolphins swimming beside the ship, played ping pong, swam in the pool, ate ice cream (everyday), and had the best company at our dinner table! We all agreed we were lucky to have found each other for our table! We exchange addresses and emails!

 

The 3:30 Tea was amazing! My girls loved it!

 

Our room attendant did mention the ship was on ‘red alert’. The entire ship had to work longer hours and had extra duties. He has been working with Princess for 16 years and still had a smile each day when he greeted us. I felt I could only do the same!

 

The staff and crew didn’t create this virus. The Captain has to follow guidelines to insure our safety. I choose to respect that.

 

I’m already looking for our next Princess cruise!

[rollnoles2]

I wonder what kind of hand sanitizer they use at the entrance to the buffet? Not all sanitizers kill the Noro virus.

[toberman]

I wonder what kind of hand sanitizer they use at the entrance to the buffet? Not all sanitizers kill the Noro virus.

 

From what I've read no hand sanitizer kills a virus.

[blueridgemama]

From what I've read no hand sanitizer kills a virus.

 

 

According to the CDC hand sanitizers do not kill the virus and washing your hands does not kill the virus. Washing your hands well with soap and water washes the germs off your hands and they go down the drain. Apparantly the only thing that kills the virus is bleach.

[happy cruzer]

One thing I realized from reading these experiences, is that if you hit rough seas you should take your sea sickness meds (should always pack these just in case, I prefer Bonine). That way you will probably avoid seasickness that can be confused for noro.

 

I think the ships staff has to err on the side of safety and assume noro and quarantine cruisers who should have taken it upon themselves to prevent sea sickness.

 

Clorox bleach is what is used to kill noro.

[Hunwolf]

Just spray everyone down with bleach. Cruisers are a tough bunch.

[rollnoles2]

Ive read that benzethonium chloride is suppose to be effective against norovirus (although the cynic in me thinks that is just the manufacturers claim-not sure if it's been empirically tested). I might give it a try on our cruise next week-it can't hurt! But I am also going to bring my Dramamine (which I always bring on a cruise-the first day out of a Florida port is often a little rough).

[zacc]

As I said the staff was so worried about passengers touching food. However this was not the case every Hanukkah service. No staff was passing out food there. They let us take whatever we want. So there I guess they did not worry about the spread of noro. And let me hear form all the princess loyalists, that this shows good procedure. just shows princess really has no idea how to deal with things. Also when we first arrived at embarkation, and did not get on the cruise until after 3 pm. Princess gave coffee or juice, however no food. One food stand with 3000 passengers to buy food with long lines. Traveling with small kids that arrived at 10 am, they could have had something for the passengers. Again lack of procedure. But this is my opinion.

 

I am certainly not going to dispute your claims because I wasn't there to form my own opinions. However I must say that to me, and this is just my opinion, you allowed what you saw as major problems to ruin your vacation. Instead of letting any of the problems go you keep(and are still) dwelling on each of them. And it is evident by your most recent post(forgot one thing) that you are still searching for issues to complain about. I have had the pleasure of doing alot of traveling and have never had a vacation where everything was 100% great. However I have never had a vacation that wasn't great. Why....because you handle the problems and then let them go.....

[rollnoles2]

Just spray everyone down with bleach. Cruisers are a tough bunch.

 

It's time to touch-up my highlights anyway!:)

[toberman]

It's time to touch-up my highlights anyway!:)

 

You spray those 'highlights' with bleach, and you'll become a "HighWhite" !! ;)