Beware of Princess Fairbanks Riverview Lodge

[Amberwoodsplace]

The cruise portion of this cruise (my 10th to Alaska on Princess) was great. The first portion of the land tour was good. However, the Princess Riverview Lodge was the worst vacation experience I have ever had. Our land tour started in Anchorage. We enjoyed our stay there. The Princess Lodge in McKinley was great as was our stay at the Princess Lodge in Denali. We thoroughly enjoyed the tours we were booked on as well as the accommodations in those three locations. Our stay at the Fairbanks Riverside Lodge, however, is the reason I am writing this review. Unfortunately, this property had some serious Issues that concerned all three of us and need to be brought to your attention. When we arrived at the location, my son and I arrived at our room to find our luggage inside with the door wide open. There was nothing missing but there were no employees in sight delivering luggage so it is unknown how long the bags were there with the door open. Our door appeared to have been the only one in the immediate hallway that was wide open. We had made dinner reservations online at the Edgewater Dining Room which showed it was a menu that provided a 3 course dinner. We had purchased the meal package for the land portion of our trip and had been happy with the meals and restaurants up to this point. The other restaurant on site was a bar that served mainly hamburgers and bar foods per the website. Upon arriving at the restaurant we were seated and told the restaurant was only a buffet. Since the bar was extremely crowded we decided that we had no choice but to eat at the Edgewater. The food at the buffet was cold and very obviously from several days earlier. The salmon had skim coating on it that was obviously due to it being leftover by several days. The ribs were old, dry and overcooked and the prime rib was old, tough and inedible. The tablecloths covering the table were filthy. The serving spoons were caked with food and filthy. There were several employees in the immediate area of the buffet who were talking and laughing and yelling at each other and generally unprofessional. Their uniforms were dirty and unkempt. The sterno containers under the serving dishes were not lit. The sodas we ordered were flat. We left without eating and ultimately ordered pizza from DoorDash since we were uneasy with eating in the bar after seeing the quality of the food in the supposedly higher end restaurant. The food and beverage manager in charge of the dining room came over to us and apologized and told us she would have the general manager contact us regarding our concerns. We were never contacted by anyone. In the morning my mother and I went to the airport on the 6:00am shuttle. Our driver was great. My son was not checking out until 11:00am since he had a late flight. The do not disturb sign was on the door. At 7:30am, housekeeping repeatedly knocked on the door to ask him what time he was checking out. I have never been in hotel where that has occurred. I have reached out to Princess with no response to date. 

[JF - retired RRT]

Amazing.

First post...sometimes those "one off" posts are just to complain with no responses after that. Hope you're not one.

[jwattle]

They've been members since 2014; gives them more credibility 😉 

[Paula_MacFan]

1 hour ago, JF - retired RRT said:

Amazing.

First post...sometimes those "one off" posts are just to complain with no responses after that. Hope you're not one.

Their profile says they've been a member since 2014, about the same as you.......

[USCcruisecrazy]

Not sure why when they joined or how many posts they've done should make a difference.  Everyone did Post #1 at some point.  My concern would be, assuming their post is accurate and truthful, why the quality at this particular lodge was so bad and what Princess intends to do about it.

 

Amberwoodsplac...sorry for the poor ending to what sounded like a nice trip.  AK is a wonderful spot to vacation in the Summer months. 

[donaldsc]

I know that we are not supposed to criticize style but I will for the sake of any future posts from the OP.  Using paragraphs would have made the OP's post much easier to read.  The information he has in the post is useful but many people would look at the one long post and say "why bother".

 

DON

[cruisequeen4ever]

Goodness, that’s not good! My guess is they’re short staffed. It doesn’t make it right, but it sounds like they were taking shortcuts because of it. I’m very glad the rest of the lodges were good at least and hope that they fix the Fairbanks Lodge problems. 

[Mary229]

I am sorry you had a bad experience.  You should certainly write both Princess and the hotel management directly.  Leaving a review on TripAdvisor often gets notice.  I have traveled quite a bit in the past few years and can tell you hotels are suffering from lack of trained staff but management needs to know where staff are failing so they can correct.

 

 I would expect a refund for at least the food   My husband is a buffet fan and I can tell you more than once I demanded my money back.

[Tiggerontheseas]

3 hours ago, JF - retired RRT said:

Amazing.

First post...sometimes those "one off" posts are just to complain with no responses after that. Hope you're not one.

 

The poster is unfortunately 100% correct about Riverside.  We did a recent cruise first land tour and our entire trip was fabulous except the final two nights at the hotel.  My husband and I have basically just tossed off the days as 'not really' being part of the vacation but more just a stopover leg before flying home.  Lol.

[geoherb]

It's sad to hear how things have deteriorated due to staffing problems. We had a great stay in Fairbanks before our cruise tour several years ago. 

 

As for your complaint to Princess, get in line. I have not heard back from the letter I sent in January. I followed up in May with the online complaint form. 

[beg3yrs]

3 hours ago, Tiggerontheseas said:

 

The poster is unfortunately 100% correct about Riverside.  We did a recent cruise first land tour and our entire trip was fabulous except the final two nights at the hotel.  My husband and I have basically just tossed off the days as 'not really' being part of the vacation but more just a stopover leg before flying home.  Lol.

I have to agree. We were at the Riverside this May for two nights at the beginning of our land portion. The restaurant was definitely a buffet for all meals and the quality was down. At that time the servers were working hard and were personable but hey, early in the season maybe they weren't worn down yet. As far as food being days old, well ... we didn't see that and a quick visit by a health department inspector would shut down a facility faster than you can say OMG. I find it hard to believe that the food was actually three days old - however, it may have been out too long and ... sterno warming tins not being lit is kind of hard to fake. So, there's that.

 

In summary it sounds to me like the facility certainly didn't improve and probably did get worse.

[Tiggerontheseas]

25 minutes ago, beg3yrs said:

I have to agree. We were at the Riverside this May for two nights at the beginning of our land portion. The restaurant was definitely a buffet for all meals and the quality was down. At that time the servers were working hard and were personable but hey, early in the season maybe they weren't worn down yet. As far as food being days old, well ... we didn't see that and a quick visit by a health department inspector would shut down a facility faster than you can say OMG. I find it hard to believe that the food was actually three days old - however, it may have been out too long and ... sterno warming tins not being lit is kind of hard to fake. So, there's that.

 

In summary it sounds to me like the facility certainly didn't improve and probably did get worse.

 

Yeah, true enough.  I admit that I am unobservant enough to not even know if the warming tins were lit but the food was certainly cold enough for them not to have been.  And mushy, overcooked or dried out enough for it to have been a couple of days old (although, I'm certain it wasn't - heh).  I had to laugh.  We were sat for breakfast and the server said, "oh, no - these are wrong" and grabbed our green napkin wrapped cutlery off the table and returned with blue napkin wrapped cutlery.  I was confused but no biggie.  Opened the napkin and the spoon was really filthy.  So, I flagged down another passing server and he grabbed a green napkin off the next table and gave it to me.  Opened it up and...no spoon.  Ahhhh...now everything made sense!  It was apparently a code that not all the servers were allowed to know. 🙂

 

 

[beg3yrs]

Spoons! I forgot about those. It seemed that spoons were in short supply at all five lodges! Had to ask for them everywhere. How are we supposed to stir the sugar in our coffee?

[Thrak]

We have stayed at that lodge twice - oth times as part of a Connoisseur Cruise Tour - and had excellent service and meals. We had zero complaints or issues. It's terrible that the OP had such a bad experience. Short staffing is no excuse for that sort of experience. The OP stated they had "reached out to Princess" with no response. I'm not sure what method of "reaching out" was used but, if it was me, I would send my concerns via email to customerrelations@princesscruises.com. I have written to them several times and each time got a response. Twice I got a follow up phone call.

[Coral]

Suitcases are often left unattended. I have seen downtown Anchorage hotels with 50 suitcases outside and no one in sight. People leave their luggage outside of their rooms on ships. I have also been instructed to leave my luggage outside of my room at a hotel for it to be picked up. Right or wrong, it happens.

 

I think Princess (and other hotel vendors) are struggling due to lack of employees available to work. Sorry this happened to you.

[Steelers36]

9 hours ago, donaldsc said:

I know that we are not supposed to criticize style but I will for the sake of any future posts from the OP.  Using paragraphs would have made the OP's post much easier to read.  The information he has in the post is useful but many people would look at the one long post and say "why bother".

 

DON

Photos would have helped when writing to hotel and PCL mgmt.  Evidence.

[donaldsc]

2 hours ago, beg3yrs said:

Spoons! I forgot about those. It seemed that spoons were in short supply at all five lodges! Had to ask for them everywhere. How are we supposed to stir the sugar in our coffee?

 

While a shortage of spoons was inexcusable, it the real problem was stirring the coffee you could have done it with a fork or knife.  Not very couth but it would get the stirring done.

 

DON

[AtlantaCruiser72]

1 hour ago, donaldsc said:

 

While a shortage of spoons was inexcusable, it the real problem was stirring the coffee you could have done it with a fork or knife.  Not very couth but it would get the stirring done.

 

DON

The truly Posh use their pinkie 😂

 

To the OP - I am sorry you had such a poor experience. Staffing issues aside this is a management problem. A good F&B manager would make sure that even a limited offering was kept fresh and hot and would have proactively offered guests with meal plans some sort of an “I’m sorry” in recompense. They KNOW what the offering should be and that guests have pre-purchased meals of specific types. This is bad management 101 as a case study. 

[georgiacat]

We stayed 3 nights at the Princess Fairbanks Lodge in June 2022 prior to our cruisetour.  A few comments follow:

 

Fairbanks:  Not many stores are open on Sundays.  Lots of construction downtown.  Great place to eat:  The Crepery.  Hubby had the Bavarian and I had the crab, both delicious, $13 each, large.  They were very busy.

 

Fairbanks Princess Lodge:  I think we were the first people of the season there.  Staff were very friendly and welcoming.  Room 261 was very good.  Use credit card to pay for things (cashless place).

Dining room breakfast buffet - very good, $20.95 pp.

Dinner buffet - not so good, ran out of food, tasteless, slow service, $34.95 pp

Grill - limited choice of about 4 sandwiches - good food, slow service, about $15-20 per sandwich with chips.

Gift shop - coffee and snacks (did not try)

 

Shuttle service:  Call for shuttle, about $5 pp; usually full.  Got phone number from front desk.  No city bus service on weekends.  A tour guide told us that the city bus route is complicated, the bus does not go directly from Lodge to downtown, must make changes.

 

Gold Dredge tour and Riverboat Boat tours both very nice.