Recent Poor Reviews -Has Something Really Changed

[bladerunner6]

I personally feel that, at least in the USA these days, there are more and more complainers about things. Turn on any cable news program or read the comments of an online news article, and you can hear or read the constant complaining going on, more often without actual solutions. And there are more people who like to complain very loudly, use bad language, or make personal attacks when they know they can do so anonymously. Also, part of the problem is that people expect a premium experience for an economy price. Myself, even after one cruise, I am already more fortunate than 99.9% of the people on Earth, so I keep that in mind before I feel the urge to whine and complain about a stain on the carpet or having 2 dessert choices instead of 6. Opportunities to improve stated in the form of helpful suggestions are different than complaining, in my view, and should be made in the evaluation emailed to all passengers. Also, it is helpful to take a deep breath and examine the source of one's bad experience, because often it has a lot to do with the person who is unhappy. Just my thoughts.....

 

I so agree with so many of the things in your post,especially about being more fortunate than the overwhelming majority of people.

 

When you are on a cruise, you get fed, pampered, you don't don't have to do housework, you watch shows, play bingo, and enjoy the ambience of being at sea, among so many other things.

 

Talk about being ungrateful when people complain about some really trivial stuff.

[flamomo]

I just disembarked from the Caribbean Princess less than 2 weeks ago, after a 9 day B2B (a 5 day followed by a 4 day), and had a wonderful time, as well as the usual problems of trying which entree item to choose each night, and then the struggle to make a choice from the dessert menu each night. There is no shortage of good food available in the dining room, the Horizon Court buffet, the International Cafe, and the specialty restaurants. We dined at the Crown Grill twice, and it was excellent, both in terms of food and service.

 

The ship itself looked great, despite a little rust on the hull here and there .... but then, considering that she spends 365 days a year partially immersed in the ocean and exposed to saltwater spray, it's no great surprise!!

 

To the OP ..... go on your cruise expecting to have a great time, and you likely will!!!

[MisterMet]

We did the Eastern Caribbean on CB in June 2014. Can't think of one thing that wasn't great or left us with a negative impression. Guess it all depends on what color lenses you look at the world through!

[cdnphotogirl]

Looked at menus from the CB in February.

 

First night:

Flourless chocolate cake

Warm passion fruit souffle

Sugar-free mango cheesecake

Two ice cream flavors and one sorbet

 

Always available:

Love Boat Dream (not as good as it used to be)

New York Cheesecake (and it is very good)

French vanilla bean creme brulee

Create your own sundae

Brie & Gouda cheese with dried apricots in port wine syrup

Sweet and nutritious fruits

 

Second night:

Oreo cookie crusted peanut butter chocolate pie (yum!)

Bananas Foster flambe a la mode (not really flambe anymore)

Sugar-free semolina tart

Two ice cream flavors and one sorbet

plus the always available

 

Same type of selections the rest of the cruise

 

Sad thing is none of those deserts interest me. Although I did try the cheesecake but did not enjoy it.....the one good to come out of not liking the Princess' deserts was I lost 9 lbs on my cruise. :D I am a weird one that does not like chocolate or ice cream so that really limits options but if I really wanted desert I went up to horizon court and picked up some jello. hehe

Edited September 16, 2014 by cdnphotogirl

[PghCruiseGrrrl]

I have worked in customer service for the past 14 years and I can tell you that people have gotten much more demanding and harder to please as the years go on. As few as 5 years ago if a person was having a minor problem and you offered them an appointment for the next day, they would be perfectly happy with that. Today if someone calls in with the same problem at 9am they demand an appointment before 10am and threaten to call another company if you won't promise their problem will be completely fixed before 11am when you haven't even sent someone to diagnose what is causing their issue yet.

 

Just remember, you are on vacation. So you have to wait in a line. So what? You are on vacation. You will get there eventually. You are on a beautiful ship sailing a beautiful ocean, why let your own bad attitude ruin it for you? Strike up a conversation with the people around you also waiting. You may make a new friend. Your room steward didn't make towel animals :eek:! So what? Your room was cleaned, your towels replaced, and your bed turned down with chocolates left on your pillow. Do you really need more? Your food wasn't Michelin star quality. So what? They are feeding over 3000 people. If it was truly inedible, I promise your waiter will be more then happy to bring you something else, or go to the buffet, or the IC, or for pizza, or room service. You have choices.

 

Smile. Be friendly. Say hello. It isn't difficult. It doesn't cost you anything. Thank the person that brought you your drink, or extra towel, or insisted you sanitize your hands before going through the buffet. If you go in with the attitude you aren't going to let anything bother you, nothing will. You will have a much more enjoyable time, and you WILL get better service. People like helping happy people. I never have a problem finding a place to sit for breakfast at Horizon Court. Why? I smile and say hello to the wait staff. They practically fall over themselves to find me a seat and bring me my juice and coffee. Just my 2 cents :cool:

[dickinson]

I have worked in customer service for the past 14 years and I can tell you that people have gotten much more demanding and harder to please as the years go on. As few as 5 years ago if a person was having a minor problem and you offered them an appointment for the next day, they would be perfectly happy with that. Today if someone calls in with the same problem at 9am they demand an appointment before 10am and threaten to call another company if you won't promise their problem will be completely fixed before 11am when you haven't even sent someone to diagnose what is causing their issue yet.

 

Just remember, you are on vacation. So you have to wait in a line. So what? You are on vacation. You will get there eventually. You are on a beautiful ship sailing a beautiful ocean, why let your own bad attitude ruin it for you? Strike up a conversation with the people around you also waiting. You may make a new friend. Your room steward didn't make towel animals :eek:! So what? Your room was cleaned, your towels replaced, and your bed turned down with chocolates left on your pillow. Do you really need more? Your food wasn't Michelin star quality. So what? They are feeding over 3000 people. If it was truly inedible, I promise your waiter will be more then happy to bring you something else, or go to the buffet, or the IC, or for pizza, or room service. You have choices.

 

Smile. Be friendly. Say hello. It isn't difficult. It doesn't cost you anything. Thank the person that brought you your drink, or extra towel, or insisted you sanitize your hands before going through the buffet. If you go in with the attitude you aren't going to let anything bother you, nothing will. You will have a much more enjoyable time, and you WILL get better service. People like helping happy people. I never have a problem finding a place to sit for breakfast at Horizon Court. Why? I smile and say hello to the wait staff. They practically fall over themselves to find me a seat and bring me my juice and coffee. Just my 2 cents :cool:

 

You are so right (however, that does not mean that people don't have real issues on the ship that are not taken care of correctly). I too worked in customer service for a very long time and have seen changes in people over the years. Yes, people are more demanding these days. I think if we were on a cruise and the food was bad I would at least find something else to eat. When the cruise was over I would certainly mention it in a review but it would not make or break the cruise. I would chalk it up to that particular cruise and crew and not the whole cruise line.

[golfb4cruzing]

Forget about reviews. Ignore them and make up your own mind. Your past history tells you the truth.

 

In a lot of cases reviews are written by loonies with a lot of time on their hands with nothing better to do whose lives are so dull that they must find something to complain about. It is much like military inspections where you get the deranged senior officers walk in, lick their finger and run their finger along a ridge, ledge or something head high and out of the way, pick up a few sprinkles of dust and proclaim the inspection an almighty fail.

 

I don't read reviews and I don't post reviews. They are useless and to be perfectly honest who really is a credible person to review a ship? Even the likes of Douglas Ward the self proclaimed worlds most foremost authority on cruising publishes reviews that in my opinion a useful four letter word could describe. The Berlitz books he publishes present him as an incredible snob who frowns upon lines like Princess. Believe it or not Douglas Ward once wrote in one of his books that one of his pet peeves about cruising were "passengers who sport tattoos"

 

So just forget about the reviews and have a good time. You don't know who wrote them or what these people who write reviews are like.

 

These types of forums are only useful for information gathering. Reviews should be ignored.

 

You are SO WRONG, you are bordering on clueless. There are some folks on here that are extremely well traveled and their reviews are spot on and well balanced. I don't put any stock into the 100% pro or con reviews. But spend some time on this board are you may change your mind. There are also some excellent Live Froms that are great reads.

[dizneefreak28]

I agree that some people complain to complain! You can always find something wrong if you look hard enough. I'm so happy to be on vacation and give my brain a rest....you can also go in feeling like everything is awesome and it will be!:)

[helenb]

We were on the Caribbean Princess this past June. Was the ship showing a few dings and scuffs? Yes. Was there an occasional food item that wasn't up to expectations? Yes. But did we have a great cruise? Yes! These things are relatively minor and not a big issue for us, as they do not impact our overall experience.

 

However I have to admit that the previous comment about the souffles is spot on. I recall sailing the (current) Pacific Princess for 16 days in 2004 (10 years ago) and there was a different souffle on the dessert menu almost every night. The only one I didn't try was the one that was coffee flavored, since I don't like coffee. The others were all very good, even the day-glo orange souffle with day-glo green pistachio sauce! I recall that one for the bright colors and being a bit put off, but the taste was excellent! Our very favorite was the chocolate hazelnut souffle that was served with warm vanilla sauce on the first formal night - I recall having that on a number of cruises. But on our recent 7 day CB cruise, there was only one souffle on the formal night. And we have been on other (longer) cruises with very few souffles. I really miss all of the wonderful souffles they used to serve, and wish they would bring them back. However I suspect that's just a pipe dream; they probably got rid of them because they were too expensive.

[PghCruiseGrrrl]

But on our recent 7 day CB cruise, there was only one souffle on the formal night. And we have been on other (longer) cruises with very few souffles. I really miss all of the wonderful souffles they used to serve, and wish they would bring them back. However I suspect that's just a pipe dream; they probably got rid of them because they were too expensive.

 

A proper soufflé is very difficult to do properly. The batter must be fresh and airy, the ramekin filled just so, the oven temperature perfect, the timing precise. Then for full effect it should be from oven to table in under a minute so it doesn't fall. Pretty hard to do consistently. I can understand why they have eliminated them just for the mental health of their chefs!

[helenb]

A proper soufflé is very difficult to do properly. The batter must be fresh and airy, the ramekin filled just so, the oven temperature perfect, the timing precise. Then for full effect it should be from oven to table in under a minute so it doesn't fall. Pretty hard to do consistently. I can understand why they have eliminated them just for the mental health of their chefs!

 

I recall doing a galley tour and seeing the special oven they used for the souffles. And yes, they were always fresh and hot when we received them. Just heavenly! It is one thing I truly miss.

 

Of course, I also miss the 'pasta course' at dinner, where the waiter prepared it fresh tableside, and I don't expect that to come back anytime soon either... ;)

[Loucat]

We sailed on CB August 1, 2014. I almost cancelled having read the reviews.

Glad we did not.

The ship is in fine form. I do not even bother with "dings". I have a few myself. Based on reviews, I was expecting alot more. I did keep looking hoping to verify what I had read!

The ship is clean; elevators except one working. Bed was great as was our stateroom.

I love the ship. The crew was great and as many said, it is in the eye of the person. We had the best stateroom attendent.

The MDR food was not of interest some nights but we worked around that. We are foodies.

After all of our cruises, I would jump onboard CB this week if I could.

I am sorry she is moving out of Florida as I would love another sailing on CB.

[shredie]

We sailed on CB August 1, 2014. I almost cancelled having read the reviews.

 

If everyone believed the reviews, there would be no one cruising on any ship.

[AKman2495]

We were on the CB for 11 days back in November and on the Crown for 2 weeks in jan/feb. As for us, people complain about the quality of food. We've been cruising since 2012 and find the food generally good to great. I can't imagine how it must have been before 2012. Obviously, there was probably a bigger selection. However, I have never had a night when there was nothing to eat. There are many things that personally don't like (like heavy cheeses) but I am willing to try new things. On the CB for formal night, for a change, I tried the pheasant. I found it to be excellent and had it on the Crown as well.

 

As for dessert, I notice the people who claim there is only one dessert I have never found that to be true. While I like the Creme brûlée, I find that there is such a selection that I have not had to fall back on that "standby", which is really good.

 

I have also had some of the sugar free desserts and find them to be wonderful. You do not have to be diabetic to eat a sugar free dessert.

 

As for the ship, I found the CB is a great ship. No ship, as no hotel, building no house you are going to vista is in perfect condition (not even a brand new whatever). There is always going to be nicks, dents and scratches. If you want to concentrate on the scratches, fine, you can no doubt find a lot of them if you look hard enough. Me, I prefer to enjoy myself and concentrate on the good things. The see, the warm breezes, the pools the venues the meals etc.

 

I have no problem recommending the CB to you. Enjoy the cruise....