Island Princess Problems

[geoherb]

I disembarked from the Island Princess yesterday. Last Saturday morning, I woke up to the sound of vacuuming in the corridor. I thought I had overslept. It turned out to be 5 a.m. When I stepped out of bed, my feet went squish squish. The carpet was soaking wet along my side of the bed. I told the guys in the corridor that my cabin was also flooded. Thankfully the pipe that burst was clean water.

A supervisor came by a few minutes later and took me to another cabin so I could rest until it was time to get up. I slept maybe an hour between 5 and 8. I ordered room service to the temporary cabin and took my shower there. (I really missed my bar of soap.) When I went back to my cabin, another supervisor came and told me that they would work on it while I was in Boston that day. They had set up a large fan blowing on the wet carpet beside the bed. The carpet in front of the bathroom was also squishy.

 

I checked with guest services before leaving the ship. The crew member told me to check back in the afternoon after I got back on the ship after my day in Boston. I knew by then that my neighbor was moving to a balcony cabin, but I did not question her. When I returned to the ship after the day in Boston, my carpet was still wet. They had removed the fan for some reason. I packed my bags to get ready to move and went down to guest services to find out my new cabin. They upgraded me from an inside to a balcony. The cruise had fewer than 1,700 passengers (out of a capacity of 2,200), so there were plenty of available cabins.

 

What surprised me was that no one followed up. A friend mentioned that was normal for Princess. Only people who continue to complain and ask to meet with the guest services supervisor or the guest services director get to do so. Princess could really up their customer service. At the least, a supervisor should follow through to make sure that I was happy. They did upgrade my cabin, but they did not make any extra efforts to assuage me. Something simple like chocolates and a note from a supervisor would have gone a long way to make me feel like a valued passenger. 

[geoherb]

The burst water pipe that flooded my cabin affected four other cabins and the corridor. They had fans continuously running in the corridor to dry out the carpet. I saw several other areas where they had to do that on the Baja Deck.

 

In addition, there were two days where we did not have water in our cabins for several hours. The first time it happened, I found out around 3 when I tried to wash my hands in my cabin bathroom. Only a trickle of water came out. I called to guest services and was told that it would be fixed by 4 or 4:15. It did not work until 5:30.

 

 

For the second day, they gave us a printed notice the night before that they would be working on the water in the morning and would have it off for about 4 hours on a port day. We received a similar notice another day about work being done on the air conditioning system. The ship was hot in lots of places. I'm hoping that they're able to get these things fixed for the sake of the people cruising the next few months before they have the drydock. 

 

[JGmf]

Thanks for your live report and for this separate synopsis of problems.  I'll be on the Island Princess for an end of August 2024 Med cruise.  Not loving what I'm reading...

 

I'm not sure when they are going to dry dock, but should these blow-outs persist through the summer, I assume they'll keep punting to that time to do the long-term, more lasting repairs and upgrades.  In the meantime, they may get complacent (and rather unrepentant) on guest disruptions.

 

I'm hoping that cruisers through the summer report back to these boards.

 

Uggh.

[LACruiser88]

Even though the Island is currently our least favorite Princess ship, we are booked on a 54-day voyage in March of 2026.  We hope there are improvements made before we sail.  Or maybe she'll be sold before then?  🤷‍♂️

[geoherb]

The Island Princess is going to drydock in September. The August 25 cruise is 10 days. There's nothing scheduled for the three weeks after that cruise ends on September 4. It starts back up September 25.

[dickinson]

I agree with you about the lack of good customer service.  They should have treated you better with followup.  It is probably the luck of the draw as to who was in charge on this ship.  You hopefully would have had a better result with different people in charge or ship.  It shouldn't be that way though.

[geoherb]

3 minutes ago, dickinson said:

I agree with you about the lack of good customer service.  They should have treated you better with followup.  It is probably the luck of the draw as to who was in charge on this ship.  You hopefully would have had a better result with different people in charge or ship.  It shouldn't be that way though.

 

It took 3 seconds for ChatGPT to draft a form letter of apology. All the supervisor would have to do is fill in the info for the brackets.
 

Dear [Guest’s Name],

 

I am writing to extend our sincerest apologies for the inconvenience you experienced during your recent voyage on [Cruise Ship Name]. We deeply regret the disruption caused by the burst water pipe and the subsequent need for you to move cabins.

 

At [Cruise Line Name], we strive to provide exceptional service and create memorable experiences for all our guests. We are truly sorry that this unforeseen incident affected your stay. Please know that your safety, comfort, and satisfaction are our top priorities, and we are committed to addressing any issues that may arise promptly and effectively.

 

To make amends for the inconvenience caused, we have arranged for the following:

• New Cabin Assignment: We have relocated you to [new cabin number]. We hope this provides a more comfortable and enjoyable environment for the remainder of your cruise.
• Onboard Credit: As a gesture of goodwill, we have credited your onboard account with [specify amount] for you to use towards any onboard purchases, including dining, drinks, or excursions.
• Complimentary Services: We would like to offer you a complimentary [specify service, such as a spa treatment, specialty dining experience, etc.], which we hope you will enjoy.

 

Please accept our heartfelt apology for any inconvenience this situation may have caused. We value your patronage and are grateful for your understanding and patience as we worked to resolve this issue. Should you have any further concerns or require additional assistance, please do not hesitate to contact our Guest Services team, who are always available to help.

 

Once again, we apologize for the disruption and thank you for your continued trust in [Cruise Line Name]. We look forward to welcoming you back on board in the future and providing you with the exceptional experience that you deserve.

 

[1emerald1]

I have had a few floods over the years in my homes.  Water damage takes months to completely dry out.  For starters, all of the carpeting needs to be replaced in the affected cabins, if not future passengers will be exposed to mold issues and at the very least will develop allergies.  And any wood furniture will show the damage after a few months.

[azbirdmom]

Unfortunately you do need to ask to meet with the HGM / other officers before they offer you *something* as an acknowledgement of what you've gone through.  Sadly there have been way too many reports of not even a simple "I'm sorry" being uttered by Princess officers after similar events have happened. Would strongly suggest that you send an email to the group below and let them know what you went through and about the lack of contact on the ship.  The more they hear this the more likely they are to do better in similar situations in the future - at least we can hope!

 

Primary Contact
Collin Steinke
Director, Customer Relations
24305 Town Center Drive
Santa Clarita, CA 91355
csteinke@princesscruises.com

Secondary Contact
Lorna Warren
Vice President Guest Services
24305 Town Center Drive
Santa Clarita, CA 91355
lwarren@princesscruises.com

Chief Executive
John Padgett
24305 Town Center Drive
Santa Clarita, CA 91355
jpadgett@princesscruises.com

[Hflors]

If I only had a busted water pipe on our world cruise I would have considered myself lucky!  I had the ship not recognizing me as a passenger on the 2024 world cruise. And that happened in Freemantle Australia.  It's a long story but the bottom line was that I had been wiped out of the computer and they would not let me reboard!  I had to go back down the gang plank and find the officer in charge.  He had me sit outside the terminal and said " I have to wait for the crew drill to be over before I can do anything!!"  About forty five minutes later he finally returned and said "I have to find someone to replace me so I can help you!!"  I sat outside by myself and finally called my TA.  With her help the officer finally came back and escorted me aboard.  No "sorry" was ever uttered.  

 

The level of incompetence is astounding.  For the rest of that nightmare I just prayed that at the end the returned us to Ft. Lauderdale!!!  It was a total nightmare!

 

[dickinson]

8 hours ago, Hflors said:

If I only had a busted water pipe on our world cruise I would have considered myself lucky!  I had the ship not recognizing me as a passenger on the 2024 world cruise. And that happened in Freemantle Australia.  It's a long story but the bottom line was that I had been wiped out of the computer and they would not let me reboard!  I had to go back down the gang plank and find the officer in charge.  He had me sit outside the terminal and said " I have to wait for the crew drill to be over before I can do anything!!"  About forty five minutes later he finally returned and said "I have to find someone to replace me so I can help you!!"  I sat outside by myself and finally called my TA.  With her help the officer finally came back and escorted me aboard.  No "sorry" was ever uttered.  

 

The level of incompetence is astounding.  For the rest of that nightmare I just prayed that at the end the returned us to Ft. Lauderdale!!!  It was a total nightmare!

 

What an awful experience.  😞

[NewPennCruiser]

We also just got off the Island with geoherb and echo his comments about some of the issues. We didn’t have water issues but did notice a/c issues throughout the ship. We usually think the public places on ships are cool but on the Island, it was a mixed bag and you never quite knew when you might need a sweater or shorts. Of course, it was an interesting itinerary because we spent time in Nova Scotia and South Carolina so outside temperatures fluctuated greatly and we spent probably 7 of 10 days in cooler weather. That made me think about the complaints coming from the cruise prior to us that spent most of their cruise in the tropics. During the couple of days we were cruising into Charleston and back out we noticed our cabin getting warm and at some times, the Horizon Court was unbearably warm. One positive note though was that it was never overly crowded since we were sailing far from full capacity. Being roughly 500 passengers under capacity certainly made the experience more pleasant. No lines, easier elevator service, no chair hogs at the pool (temperatures contributed to that as well) but I thought if we were sailing full, it would have been a completely different experience, especially with broken water pipes and a/c issues in areas. You can’t move people if you don’t have available cabins.

 

We had a great time. The crew was fantastic, the public areas were clean and comfortable even if the décor is a little outdated and the passengers we met were all mostly friendly, held elevators, smiled, said hi, etc; all contributing to a nice relaxing vacation. But our main topic of conversation at the airport after disembarkation was over the fact that Princess really needs to make a decision about this ship. It needs upgrades and it appears a lot of the infrastructure of the ship needs overhauled and or fixed. Princess needs to either invest a lot of money and time into upgrades or make the decision to sell. This was our third time on this ship and we love how comfortable it is with the size and layout. I would hate to see it go but the ship seems to need more than a simple drydock to fix some of its issues.

 

On a side note, geoherb, we hope you made it home after your airline delays and it was very nice meeting you on the cruise.  

 

Dave

[JGmf]

18 hours ago, geoherb said:

The Island Princess is going to drydock in September. The August 25 cruise is 10 days. There's nothing scheduled for the three weeks after that cruise ends on September 4. It starts back up September 25.

 

Oh boy.  My cruise is the August 25 cruise. Yikes.

 

I'm booked in a guarantee mini-suite as that's all that was available in that category back in February through my CVP.  I wonder if the room assignment will be extra late in happening as they hopscotch room assignments with rooms with known issues.

 

Also: with dry dock the day after our cruise ends, what's the service and staffing level and stocking of provisions on the ship going to be like?

[geoherb]

40 minutes ago, NewPennCruiser said:

On a side note, geoherb, we hope you made it home after your airline delays and it was very nice meeting you on the cruise.  

 

 

I made it home last night. Our neighbors invited us over for dinner as another friend was visiting them from New Mexico. And now it's time for me to do laundry.

[RLK33853]

Totally agree that management on Princess has gone downhill.  While things always have the potential to go wrong, Princess Managers in the past were always ready to make things right. When our cabin was flooded years ago (same as this topic), they quickly rectified the issue and gave us a 25% FCC of our fare.  If something like a bad meal in a specialry restaurant happened in a restaurant, you would find some chocolates or a bottle of wine had been delivered to your room - without ever even asking.

 

We have 51 cruises with Princess and over the past 3 years the Managers have either lost their authority to make things right or are informed to let things go in hopes that no one will complain further.  That is why we have been trying other cruise lines over the past year.  I believe that we have found a few - Crystal (yes it is a luxury line), but Viking Ocean (while more expensive than Princess but not by alot) exceeds what Princess was in the past in Management, service, quality of food, and ships.

 

On our last Princess cruise this past Janaury (Discovery) - we were sitting at dinner when all of a sudden my wife jumped up.  When I asked why, she said something had dripped on her and when she felt her hair, her hand came away sticky.  We looked up and found brown sticky goo leaking out of the ceiling had dropped on her head.  The Head Waiter came over and apologized, then moved us to another table.  He returned later to explain that he thought the coke gun from the bar above had leaked coke syrup and that is what happened.  You would think that when he reported this incident either by report or at his managers meeting, the Hotel Manager would contact us - nope, never heard another word about this happening.  The only thing that happened was that the table we were seated at wasn't used for a couple of days.

[geoherb]

26 minutes ago, RLK33853 said:

On our last Princess cruise this past Janaury (Discovery) - we were sitting at dinner when all of a sudden my wife jumped up.  When I asked why, she said something had dripped on her and when she felt her hair, her hand came away sticky.  We looked up and found brown sticky goo leaking out of the ceiling had dropped on her head.  The Head Waiter came over and apologized, then moved us to another table.  He returned later to explain that he thought the coke gun from the bar above had leaked coke syrup and that is what happened.  You would think that when he reported this incident either by report or at his managers meeting, the Hotel Manager would contact us - nope, never heard another word about this happening.  The only thing that happened was that the table we were seated at wasn't used for a couple of days.

 

Wow! It's so simple to see what should have happened. They should have offered your wife a free shampoo in the salon. They should have offered both of you a free dinner in the specialty restaurant of your choice. 

 

I'll know now that I have to be the squeaky wheel. 

[Rick&Jeannie]

13 hours ago, Hflors said:

If I only had a busted water pipe on our world cruise I would have considered myself lucky!  I had the ship not recognizing me as a passenger on the 2024 world cruise.

That's NUTS!

[RLK33853]

41 minutes ago, geoherb said:

 

Wow! It's so simple to see what should have happened. They should have offered your wife a free shampoo in the salon. They should have offered both of you a free dinner in the specialty restaurant of your choice. 

 

I'll know now that I have to be the squeaky wheel. 

 

Yes, unfortunately you have to complain these days - Princess Managers are no longer proactive in any way.  Should we have complained to Guest Services/Hotel Management about my wife being dripped on with something that we hope was indeed coke - probably.  But it wasn't something that actually affected our cruise, it was just kind of gross at the moment.

 

In contrast, on our last Crystal cruise I phoned the front desk as our butler or room attendant had forgotten to put coke in our fridge and asked if we could get some delivered (clearly an earthshattering situation that required management's immediate attention). 

 

The coke was delivered all right - by the Head Butler who apologized for this issue and asked if he could supply us with an upgraded bottle of champagne.  All this for forgetting to put coke in our fridge.

[HS2BS]

We were on the Island Princess’s repositioning May 24 - June 4, and there were too many problems to list. We had a wheelchair accessible cabin without an automatic door, and a non accessible balcony(so why charge us for a balcony). Air conditioning was a consistent problem in cabin and in most of the ship. Food - boring and mediocre quality, entire ship is very poor for accessibility movement, guest services gives lip service but forgets to note discussion.

Overall this ship should have never made it past Covid scraping - after 19 Princess cruises we now know that this line needs better management! We have Ruby booked next year(last Princess cruise for us) and are canceling our 54 day cruise March of 26 on this ship.

 

Hal

[gvre]

 We did the Octoberfest cruise on the Island. The engineers struggled most of the cruise to get the air to work, it never did work. If we opened the balcony slider to let air in the wind whistle under the door and since we were on deck 12 the air that was coming in under the door was hot as all the warm air from lower decks rose up to our deck.

They did give us $250 shipboard credit for the inconvenience

[dreams_of_travel]

FWIW,  I had no issues at all on this ship.  I know down the hall from my cabin on Baha deck, there were water problems (as noted by Geoherb).  The management could've and should've done more to make those passengers with said water issues, or A/C problems feel like they were appreciated, and not ignored.   As for some of the food complaints, as on all ships, things are always in flux, meaning that food can be good, or awful.  Same with service at various food venues. I had little interaction with the officers, or the customer service desk on this cruise, but I have had CS on other ships who were quite subpar.  I liked the smaller ship vibe, and may consider this ship for another sailing if another itinerary piques my interest. As always, YMMV.

[Rick&Jeannie]

We board the Island in 1 week...definitely very concerned about what awaits us.  We've been on her before, back in 2022 (Oktoberfest) and had a GREAT cruise...probably one of our favorites out of 25 so far.  I just don't recall anything negative as far as the condition of the ship.

[geejay]

3 minutes ago, Rick&Jeannie said:

We board the Island in 1 week...definitely very concerned about what awaits us.  We've been on her before, back in 2022 (Oktoberfest) and had a GREAT cruise...probably one of our favorites out of 25 so far.  I just don't recall anything negative as far as the condition of the ship.

 

[geejay]

Eagerly awaiting your opinion of the Island. We are booked and wonder if we should cancel and go on another ship,  I did love the size of this one when we went some time ago.

 

 

[ecs66]

On 6/16/2024 at 8:48 AM, NewPennCruiser said:

we love how comfortable it is with the size and layout.

I agree.  And the decor -- a little "old-timey" traditional.  Not sterile and glitzy.  My favorite ship, although I haven't been on it in about five years, so many things could've changed or slipped into disrepair since then.