Princess Cruise Line Ltd — Local services in Seattle

PLEASE READ IF YOU ARE CONSIDERING BOOKING ON THE REGAL OR ANY OTHER PRINCESS SHIP!

After 50+ cruises across multiple lines and Elite with Princess, we had the WORST cruise ever. Our room smelled of urine, strongly. They were unable to fix it and never OFFERED to move or compensate us until I finally asked 4 days in after it remained unresolved.

The asst hotel mgr,Tam,actually asked if I could PROVE it was urine. Mind you, this is after guest services asked me to talk with Tam. I asked if I was going to be offered anything at all for spending days and days in a urine smelling room and being moved to an inferior cabin away from my kids. A fellow guest informed me that it is toxic and harmful in addition to being dirty and gross after I was told by an employee that they would never have put up with it for 1 day EVEN as an employee (full disclosure - not a guest service employee but someone in the future cruise area).

When they offered me $100 credit towards a FUTURE cruise IF I signed a form accepting it as compensation, I refused and just said I’d take up the issue from home.

Guest Services then tracked me down to where I was playing cards with my family (but they don’t “track” your movements with the Medallion……right) and ASKED ME to come speak to the manager about my experience. In actuality, they put me in a closed door room with Tam, the associate hotel manager and Pierre, the guest service manager standing behind her. Imagine my SHOCK when they start asking questions as if it was an interrogation. Then come the comments about not being able to “prove” the smell. I asked to leave and Tam says that she thought I would want to come to an agreement and share “my side”!?!? What is happening?! How and why are there sides? So we resume, and it turns hostile again very shortly when she questions how an ADA balcony stateroom can be better for me than a regular balcony room with a “deluxe”balcony. I’m embarrassed to admit that Tam made me cry having to explain to her why an ADA room accommodated me better. Has she not stepped foot in these rooms? Even after I explained the reasons the larger ADA room was superior, she continued on multiple occasions to say that they provided me with a “significant” upgrade in cabins. I took this as a slap in the face every single time because she was basically telling me that she discredited all of the reasons she asked me to give her. She sat there across her desk with a smug smirk on her face and Pierre standing behind her writing on a notepad. I ASK for a tissue and finally tell them I am asking again and this time, insisting, that I be allowed to leave her office.

You see, I’m in my scooter in her office because I am legally, as certified by the actual federal government (which it would not have shocked me for her to have asked me to prove) disabled due to nerve damage in my spine controlling my legs. With the door closed and me in my scooter and 2 officers sitting and standing in front of me, it felt like they were trying to assert, successfully I might add, an imbalance of power in the situation and in the room. In addition, Tam made it very clear in her facial expression and tone of voice that she didn’t like me or my situation. I even told her that I, for some unknown reason, felt like she didn’t like me and was acting hostile, and she made zero effort to change her tone, expression, or body language. If the above experience isn’t enough, I was also told that the Regal has had recent outbreaks of bedbugs and other rooms smelling of urine as well. The bedbugs were left unchecked by staff overnight for elderly guests. One thing to actually have and not eradicate bedbugs (how could the steward have not noticed the evidence on the sheets not only of the bedbugs but the bleeding they can sometimes cause), but another thing entirely to say we will look into it TOMORROW.

I do feel that I need to qualify that I am not a person who complains and causes a fuss. If you look at my Google reviews you’ll find that it is rare for me to be negative at all.

DO NOT SAIL...

Went on a 7-day cruise from Seattle to Alaska (my first cruise ever). Overall, Princess seemed like a good cruise company. Here's what I thought Princess did well:

Beautiful ship and facilities. Imagine the most luxurious, massive hotel ever floating along the sea. Pleasant and abundant staff. There's something like 1 staff member per every 2 guests or something. People are helpful and friendly and always around. I even got to meet the ship's navigator on an excursion (she was awesome and super friendly). Decent food. Lots of buffet and restaurant options, including much seafood. There were always options for vegetarians/pescatarians like me as well. Nice variety of desserts. Good itinerary. We stopped in Juneau, Skagway, and Ketchikan. Also Glacier Bay. Timing in each place was about right. Excursion options. We did several excursions along the trip that were fantastic. From biking to canoeing to ziplining, I really enjoyed getting off the ship to do these activities. Naturalist lectures. The ship's naturalist (Rob Raincock) is both knowledgeable and fun to listen to. I went to every one of his lectures (about salmon, bears, whales, rainforest, etc.) and enjoyed them immensely. Medallions. The wearable tech on the form of a medallion works extremely well. It lets you on and off the ship, in and out of your cabin, facilitates security, onboarding, dining, and more. The tech was seamless and reassuring (someone knows where I am and can find me if necessary, etc). We even got internet via the Princess app, and it worked well. Choice of restaurants. You can choose different restaurants to eat at, though the menus are mostly the same at all of them. The restaurant variety was fun to explore; you could also just go to the buffet on the Lido deck. Staterooms and balcony. The balcony view was beautiful and I loved seeing the ocean and hearing the breeze. The cabin rooms were spacious and comfortable. Bathrooms were clean.

Here's what I disliked:

Casino. I hated smelling smoke near the casino. I'm not sure why there's a casino here. Aren't people into seeing the beautiful outdoors of Alaska? I avoided the areas by the casino due to the smell of smoke. (A few times, I also smelled smoke on my balcony due to a guest who was smoking in an unallowed area.) Jewelry stores, both on and off ship. There's nothing worse that disembarking from the ship in Juneau only to see jewelry store after jewelry store selling diamonds. I don't quite get why there are so many diamond stores, but I didn't need this. Ship activities. I'm wasn't interested in bingo or raffles or other afternoon cruise ship activities. Apart from the naturalist lectures, most of the activities on the ship didn't interest me. (They're more geared towards retirement-aged demographics, which was probably appropriate.) I even tried to play basketball, but it was nearly impossible due to the wind, rain, and the lack of other bballers on the ship. I did attend a music night, which had an amazing soprano opera singer. I enjoyed that. I heard the impersonator was also good. But most activities, I skipped.

Overall, I would prefer to travel on my own in a more self-directed way (rather than via a cruise) but I also appreciated traveling with friends on the ship. Our group included 3 couples, so we had many enjoyable dinners and excursions together.

Even so, I never got used to the feeling of being one of thousands of tourists when our massive ship pulled into port and we descended upon the city. I longed to go off-path where there weren't throngs of people and where locals wouldn't see me as just another cruise tourist. I could easily sense that locals disliked the cruise ships but relied on the economic boons of it.

I learned that it's pretty cheap to fly to Alaska, so if I do another vacation, I might just fly and do my own traveling. But a cruise is a great option if you want a more guided/handheld experience through Alaska, especially if you're...

I was blessed to spend my 30th anniversary with my wife in Hawai’i. It was a very wonderful event overall. However, I have mixed feelings about my experiences aboard the Crown Princess. The ship was showing signs of its age: There was some loose and rusty trim around panels on some of the exterior doors, a couple of loose hand rails in elevators, rust stains on the exterior of the hull, for example. The rest of the ship was beautiful; although the smell of fresh paint in the spa area was a turn off. It took 16 days for us to spend four days in Hawai’i; three of the four stops required us to be back aboard ship before 5pm. That is a lot of time at sea and very little time in port; the scenery doesn’t change much at sea. Entertainment was everywhere. Some of it cost extra; some was free. A fabulous performance by an impressionist was free to attend while a lei making course charged extra. Bars, lots and lots of bars; there were bars everywhere; very light on the alcohol though. A dozen or so shops were available to purchase clothing, jewelry, perfume, but not an aspirin. To get an aspirin one must go see the DR in the medical center/ER. DR services are not free by the way. The shops put out items on sale. My wife picked out a tee shirt commemorating another voyage which shows Hilo on the wrong island (second quality); I picked out a nice watch with month and date displayed on fake dials which do nothing. I frequently ran into up-sell tactics from the beginning all the way to the end. I returned home to a princess catalogue of future adventures. Without fail, the crew and staff were excellent. Special call out to four: Geronimo was our room steward. Whatever we needed he was there for us. He even anticipated our need for ice and brought it to us without us requesting it. Yes, we did need ice. Joy, hailing from the Phillipines, was a hostess at one of the fine dining establishments. Her smile and friendly demeanor was a billboard saying “welcome to a fine evening”. Dijana, from Serbia, served us everything from tea and treats to steak and lobster. Her friendliness made us want to come back again. This brings us to Marie, one of the alcohol servers, who prepared several fresh fruit smoothies for us. The only place that makes smoothies closes at like 10:00 am. Marie went overboard (pun intended) in providing fantastic service. She sourced some fruit and made us smoothies in the middle of the afternoon if we wanted. In summary, it was a wonderful experience with a few unexpected hiccups: very little time in port, poor quality of merchandise. There were many fine features to the experience, however, there is one factor strongly influencing my opinion – the constant push to spend more money. Every time I turned around someone wanted me to spend more money. It was akin to a floating carnival. I don’t like...