Grand Princess Trans-Atlantic 9/02/2007

[JeanRoll]

My husband and I are experienced cruisers, he with 18 Princess cruises and I with 19 Princess cruises. We recently completed a 16-day trans-Atlantic cruise aboard the MV Grand Princess and at one point were seriously considering whether we wanted to make another cruise with Princess Cruise Lines. However, the cruise was not entirely disappointing. First the good points:

 

·Ship handling during a severe storm off the south coast of Greenland was in the highest tradition of superb seamanship. We cannot praise this enough. Captain Edward Perrin and his officers are to be highly commended.

 

·Stateroom steward service and laundry service were typically excellent.

 

·Production shows (that were not cancelled due to the rough seas) were excellent.

 

·Public areas were generally quite clean.

 

·The quality of the food at the buffet was surprisingly excellent. In some cases better than the dining room food.

 

·The quality of the food and the service in specialty dining room, “Sabatini’s” was excellent.

 

What really disappointed us was the poor service and mechanical condition of the ship. For example:

 

·Many waiters and assistant waiters could not speak English adequately and obviously were inadequately trained/experienced.

 

·We ordered a Ruben sandwich to share for lunch. The sandwich we received had a generous amount of corned beef but was cold and the bottom piece of the bread was soggy with sauerkraut liquid. We expressed our displeasure and sent it back. The next sandwich we received (20 minutes later) had only one thin slice each of corned beef and cheese and was on plain bread, the bottom slice again being soggy. We asked for the headwaiter to whom we strongly expressed our displeasure. He offered to get us another one but by that time we had lost our appetite and left the dining room with no satisfaction.

 

·One waiter rudely argued with us that we had not requested a table for two alone (the key word here being alone) when he tried to seat us with another couple at a table for four. We had, indeed, requested a table for two alone. Numerous tables for two alone were available.

 

·One waiter didn’t know the difference between cantaloupe and honeydew melon and another didn’t know what zucchini squash was.

 

·Dining room service for breakfast and lunch was generally quite slow and generally indifferent. One breakfast took one hour and five minutes.

 

·The German chef apparently thought that zucchini, shredded or cooked, should be added to foods where it was not customary or called for.

 

·From these and other dining room problems it was obvious that the headwaiters were aware of the problems but could do little to correct them.

 

·Purser’s Office personnel were aloof and not too helpful.

 

·We could usually get only hot water from the tap on the bathroom sink (no cold water) and the water temperature in the shower would sometimes go to very hot momentarily, We reported this to our room steward and shortly thereafter a “plumber” who could hardly speak English arrived but was of no help so we requested to see his supervisor. The supervisor, a British Engineering Officer, showed up promptly. He said there was nothing he could do about the hot water from the tap on the sink but told the “plumber” to replace the thermostat in the shower’s hot water mixing valve (that didn’t fix the problem). In discussing the problem with the Engineering Officer he said that Princess was cutting back on their preventive maintenance to reduce their operating costs. Penny-wise and pound-foolish. He had an inch thick stack of work orders in his hand.

 

·Water dripped from a light fixture in the hallway near our stateroom for several hours before the problem was corrected.

 

·On several occasions we noted holes in dining room tablecloths. Not a functional problem but tacky.

 

·There was a FINAL art auction and then a sequel FINAL art auction. We were surprised that there was no art auction in the exit way at disembarkation.

[vince_g]

Jean,

 

That Ruben sounds disgusting; soggy with sauerkraut brine. Sorry you ran into the problems you did! Sounds like you've been very satisfied with Princess up to this point though. Maybe it was just your time to have a few problems, or maybe it's the Grand's age starting to show. Sounds like you hit the luck of the draw...

 

Vince

[Colo Cruiser]

Sorry about your bad experiences onboard Grand Princess.

I hope this was an isolated overall bad experience. :)

[skybuffalo]

Jean,

We are sailing on the Grand in two weeks and I will post our experiences. Our previous cruises with Princess have been outstanding so my expectations are high.

 

Thank you for sharing with us. Ron

[spongerob]

Thanks for taking the time to make your comments. Although we don't have quite as many cruises as you (we're trying!) we have had a couple where a series of little complaints made us wonder why we had spent so much money...but other things made up for that and we've generally had a good time on all our cruises, and I'm sure you did, too.

 

I picked out one comment:

 

·Many waiters and assistant waiters could not speak English adequately and obviously were inadequately trained/experienced.

I'm not American, but I've lived in this country for almost 20 years. The regional accents and dialects sometimes baffle me, and English is my first language. How much more difficult it must be for someone who probably does have limited experience with English trying to comprehend Texan, Okie, Southern, New England, etc. It has to be quite a challenge.

 

Please don't take my comment as a flame, it's just something to consider. I work in an international business and often have had employees from other countries working for me. I've had to work in places where English is not the primary language, too. It's far more challenging than you might think and it takes a few weeks to acclimatize even if you have working ability with the new language.

[JeanRoll]

spongerob,

The comment about the communication with some of the wait staff was merely to state a first time experience that we encountered compared to our previous Princess cruises and other major cruise lines that we have sailed on. By the 19th cruise with one cruise line there are things that are accepted whether good or bad. I was merely stating that this is something that we had never encountered. I do not speak a foreign language and have often thought how frustrating it must be especially when your livelyhood relies on speaking a particular language.

 

Ron, I see by your post that you were on thr Caribbean Princess this past January. We were on the previous itinerary for the New Years cruise. My husband and I really enjoyed the Caribbean Princess. Seems we must have passed each other at the pier in San Juan.

 

Enjoy your cruise to New England. Say, "Hello" to Halifax for us, we love that town. Perhaps some of the things that we encountered on the Grand Princess will have been worked out. Captain Perrin is a joy, he loves to talk and will keep you informed.

Jean

[OhioDogLover]

We are on the Grand in Jaunary. I certainly hope that things are corrected by that time. While I understand that there are always goof-ups in everything, no matter how well organized, trained or prepared we think we are, there are certain expectations on a cruise. The Grand will be even older by then, so I hope it isn't "showing its age" even more.

ohiodoglover:D

[mbleackl]

We are on the Grand in Jaunary. I certainly hope that things are corrected by that time. While I understand that there are always goof-ups in everything, no matter how well organized, trained or prepared we think we are, there are certain expectations on a cruise. The Grand will be even older by then, so I hope it isn't "showing its age" even more.

ohiodoglover:D

 

We have sailed on the Grand twice, once when almost new and the last being this past February. The ship has been refurbished and I thought looked just about as good as the first time. We didn't experience any of the kind of problems that JeanRoll did, and I think it may have just been a one off. I find most wait staff to be respectful - their jobs depend on it. You can complain if it's not. To be truthful, I would never do a transatlantic in the fall like JeanRoll- too many storms. We are doing a 32 day on the Grand in April, and looking forward to it.

[JeanRoll]

I do agree with Mike and Veronica that a Trans-Atlantic cruise in the fall is not for everyone. We have a sailboat and my husband has done some ocean sailing. He loved the storms and is getting plenty of mileage from telling stories to his sailing buddies about the storms. He says that the best part was that he was not at the helm!

 

At the same time, the cruise was sold out and sailed at maximun capacity. Another interesting point, 83% of the passengers were repeat customers with Princess. The average age seemed to be 65+. Because of the large number of Captain Circle members on board, they held Captain Circle parties on two separate nights making it a total of four parties; one night for folks on PC with two parties and one night for passengers on Traditional Dining with two parties.

[B40 Tha Cruisa]

I am sorry about your bad experiences. I dont think though, that one can chalk it up to the age of the ship. 9 years really isnt that old, it just sounds old as we are spoiled with all these new-builds, which is great. Your problems sound legitimate for sure, it seems as it mostly had to do with the performance of the wait-staff. This vary's from cruise to cruise as im sure you are aware... The same crew may do a great job on the next cruise, who knows? Im glad you were able to pull some positives out of the cruise though, many people would be so upset about the problems you encountered that it would ruin their whole cruise!

[Nobbi]

While on this particular crossing which we enjoyed tremendously, we encountered just a few Elite members who were bitching about minutia.

 

"Oh, the trouble with being Elite is that we have to see the same shows over and over and over again. And they're just getting worse all the time. Soooo many Elites are thinking of switching cruise lines." This was in a conversation with our great Cruise Director James. :rolleyes:

 

There were also comments about "too many Eastern Europeans" who had such poor accents. Now I would guess that the people who made those comments were monolingual. (Guess the language--or worse--gues their country of origin.)

 

Now, bear in mind that I'm not a native English speaker. Generally when my partner and I travel, I'm the one that tries the foreign language. On this cruise while in a restaurant in Torshavn, I asked for the bill in Faroese (I had a little book). The waitress laughed and even told her colleague what I had said--it was correct but with a strange accent.

 

But when Jack & I go to England or down under, I frequently ask him what the natives said in their brogue. My dear friend Stuart who has a PhD in Microbiology and works at a hospital in Londom hails from Scotland. Especially when on the phone I have a hard time understanding some of his diction. That's my issue, not his.

 

The cruise lines are not staffed by Americans. The crew speaks English with all different accents. We should thank them for it. We visited Norway, Iceland, the Faroese Islands, and Greenland. Most passengers didn't even bother to go to local ATM to get local currency. Most merchants were happy to sell their wares for whatever currency was given to them. I doubt that more than a few tried to learn a few words of Norwegian, Faroese, Icelandic, Danish, or Greenlandic to connect with the local hosts.

 

I could bitch about some things on this cruise. The food was bland and made for the average passenger on this crossing (See the OP's post for demographics). I just brought my own condiments.

 

But overall this was a wonderful cruise. Despite the hurricane force winds we were safe. Yes, glasses and ashtrays flew off the tables at Skywalkers but we still slept well. Jack & I received wonderful gifts for our wedding anniversary. The photographers were excellent at doing the formal pix.

 

Yes, the dining room staff at the maitre d'hotel wine tasting had no idea how to pronounce cabernet franc or meritage, but that's life. Sh*t happens.

 

Enjoy yourself at sea. So many crew members work so hard to earn a living and to make our lives pleasurable.

 

I can highly recommend Princess in all spheres (perhaps except the food :eek: )

[JeanRoll]

B40 Tha Cruisa is correct that a nine year old ship is not considered old. We sailed the third to last itinerary on the Pacific Princess and the old Royal Princess (our favorite) several months before she left the fleet. We saw no signs of lack of maintence on these ships as we saw on the Grand Princess.

 

Our plumbing problems on the Grand were minior and they did not prevent us from having a wonderful time in that unique part of the world. However, we were alarmed when the Engineering Supervisor told us that Princess was cutting down on maintenance to save money and he could not fix our plumbing problem(s) at that time. He took out a stack of work orders from his pocket of other reported problems on the ship when making this comment.

 

We heard of far more serious plumbing problems from other passengers. It is not fair to Princess to elaborate on second hand comments about other passenger's problems. Since I did not personally see the problems and thankfully did not experience them, it would become gossip to discuss it further.

 

We have sailed on three Princess ships (Golden, Island & Crown) in the past nine months and did not see/experience any signs of lack of maintenance as on the Grand Princess. I sincerely hope this is an isolated case for we still have a high regard for Princess and are counting the days till our next cruise in December on the Island Princess.

[FLACRUISER99]

Hey S**t happens. I was highly dissatisfied with my last cruise on the Island Princess, but I have 3 more cruises booked on Princess ships.

[CruiseAholic]

Hmmm...I wonder if the 'reuben' in question was actually the corned beef sandwich with kraut.

 

One day, that was on the menu and we heard many people complaining that it was not a reuben. Well, it was not advertised as a reuben but they just couldn't understand that.

 

Most of those that I heard were rude to the staff, if I had been one of the waiters, the sandwich would be over a few peoples heads.

 

Staff seem to respond to what attitude is given to them. Voicing a complaint is one thing, doing it rudely is another.

 

Our service was good to excellent overall, several times the service was slow, but where do I have to go.

[WeBeGone]

Captain Perrin is our favorite captain of all our cruises. If anyone could give you a good sailing it would be him. Sorry about your other "stuff". Most complaints were about the dining room or food. To us those things would be minor and funny. And it seems you mechanical complaints were all fixed. I guess I'm just a half full kind of person.