Cruisemagpie

While the new cruiser will probably accept the prices at the pay for food outlets we still cannot help feel that the cruise lines are telling us that if you want good food it will come at additional cost. In 2002 the midnight buffet on the QE2 was something amazing. The free German special dinner we were invited to included magnificent food and free wine and beer. Never see that sort of thing now. Cruise Critic reviews will tell you the dining room and buffet food quality and range is on the decline. Pay extra for good food is not the cruise dining future we would like to see.

Just read the Cruise Critic review of the Pacific Explorer, the renewed Dawn Princess which we quite enjoyed in the past. Surely others must feel somewhat puzzled by the latest cruise industry grab for guests cash.

The new Luke's Café to charge $6 for French fries and up to $15 for a hamburger, a seven course meal at the Chef's Table $99. The Pizzeria will set you back $25 for a cheese board,$9 for salads and $12 to $16 for a pizza. That's not all folks, $10 for breakfast room service and the P&O Edge Adventure park will be a steal at $139 adults and $119 kids for unlimited access.

We know what they are thinking in the P&O board room, profit, profit, profit but will cruisers go for it?

Add to this the service charge on drinks, tour costs and the extras may cost as much as the cabin hire for the cruise.

Is this the future of cruising? If so our cruise days are numbered after more than 50 cruises.

Obviously the new generation of cruisers have a different attitude to cash and cruising than us old timers and the cruise industry is planning ahead but will cruisers follow?

Well P&O are at the very least teaching the Aussie cruisers a few lessons after being forced to suspend gratuities on all Aussie cruises.

We have been vegetarian for 40 years and cruise regularly. Cunard was the only cruise line that knew anything about vegetarian food as they had lots of Indian chefs when we sailed with them. Princess has fallen far behind in vegetarian offerings with some days on recent cruises we did not see any vegetarian food other than greasy vegetables. We get tired of being offered macaroni and cheese lunch and dinner as a pretend vego meal. The vego meals in the dining room border on dull to boring with occasional days where something nutritious and tasty is made available. The problem is that the chefs do not appear to be aware of modern vego healthy possibilities and are not really trained in that area. We did have special vego meals offered to us in the buffet on the Caribbean and Sun Princess and we found what was presented almost inedible. The Regal P was a more recent cruise and that was fabulous and it is a mystery why other ships cannot prepare fresh vego food as well as the Regal P. Also some Princess ships have fallen in vego standards from a few years ago to now in our experience, for example the Sun Princess had very good vego food a few years ago but not in January this year.

Thanks for reading and commenting. The point made was that some food and cleaning practices were questionable on the ship bringing into the discussion the issue of whether or not other health practices were satisfactory. The norovirus can be transmitted by food if there is failure in the food handling and safety procedures. As for the reported "cabins infected" each day the crew we spoke to would well say things like "60 more cabins reported ill last night" so must be in house expression for the Sun Princess as the captain talked about cabins and disinfecting them during the crisis. Actual people infected would be a guess as it was unclear if one or more in each cabin became ill. But certainly the Sun Princess has been hit hard by the norovirus for an extended period of time and it may be simplistic to blame new passengers each cruise.

Well the crew members we spoke to could be lying. But the captain kept telling us each day that more cases were reported over night and the running totals were of interest to the crew we chatted to. As to our cruise experience and what that has to do with reporting on your adventure remains unclear to us but for the record, 45 years of regular cruising covering most cruise lines with cruises from 2 weeks to 3 months. Also taught ballroom on Princess and other lines. Reports of Sun Princess norovirus problems are on Google and reported in the press so no secret.

The ship was unsuccessfully sanitised a number of times before we boarded. The trend to blame the passengers is not helpful in solving the on going norovirus problem on the Sun Princess. We all seemed to survive shopping, trains, airports, supermarkets, eating out etc before boarding and did not pick up the virus but 2 days into the cruise passengers became ill despite all the precautions put in place. People were becoming ill who would not even use the lift and avoided touching surfaces and were washing their hands regularly. Something is definitely not right on the ship.

The cleaning practices and food handling procedures we found to be not satisfactory. Wiping tables and chairs in the buffet with the same damp cloth was questionable. ( this practice improved to using soapy water as the problem escalated). Food cooling in the buffet, scaping scraps from one platter onto fresh platters in the buffet is not acceptable and against health guidelines for buffets. The norovirus can also be spread through food if food handling procedures fail. We would not sail on the Sun again as the illness placed staff and passengers under stress and interfered with the cruise experience. The crew we spoke to said they had never seen anything like what was happening in many years at sea. Some think we are new to cruising because we do not list ships we have sailed on suggesting that the original comment on the problem were irrelevant but we have cruised over 45 years and just about seen it all and had a few rounds with the norovirus despite all efforts to stay out of it's way.

Sun Princess still having norovirus problems a month after our cruise and at least 3 whole ship sanitations previous to our cruise.

Perhaps the problem is partly due to the cleaning practices, poor food handling practices in the buffet (letting food cool) and the dual use of some pay restaurants where they are used by guests for socialising during the day. These areas were not cleaned before evening use. Whatever the case the seriousness of the outbreaks appears to have been understated by Princess Lines as up to 70 cabins a night were infected on our cruise and the medical centre overwhelmed according to cruise staff.