princess daphne

[first cruise]

According to the brochure we have. we are allowed 1 litre of liquor per cabin. However the CIC web site says" absolutly no alcohol." I am inclined to believe the web site, as the last ship I was allowed to take liquor on board was the old Oriana in 1986. All the ships I have been on over the past ten years, NO ALCOHOL. They make a lot of money selling liquor in the bars and do not want anything to spoil that.

 

Don Barnes

 

Hi All,

 

Not too sure about the alcohol policy. When we were on the Funchal, we were allowed 1 bottle each at each port to come onboard, and everytime we have cruised with Princess we have been allowed 1 bottle of wine or champagne each per port visited...... On the Funchal we brought onboard Shayne's whiskey and my Vodka and Gin (wow, do I sound hardcore here!!) without any dramas. I intend on having a couple bottles in the carryon baggage to test the waters at the first port anyway!! See you all very soon, First Cruise

[opshop]

Hi all we took alcohol on board our cruise 13th january had no problem. Even hubby brought beer from nearly every port and they didnt stop us. They dont screen you when you go on board. Have a great time. from opshop.

[chookysgirl]

Thanks for the alcohol update opshop. We are on the 23/3 cruise so will catch up with all of you at some point (probably the trivia quizzes)!!! Luckily we aren't on the 6/3 with Lea and Shayne as we are Lea & Wayne, haha that WOULD be confusing! I have a question re excusions, has anyone organised their own drivers/tours in Vietnam previously? We are a group of 8 so may plan and book our own excursions in port. :rolleyes:

Thanks in anticipation.

Lea

[binjicruise]

Hi Cruisebuddiesinoz

 

We are so glad we got off in Ho Chi Minh. The cruise appears to have deteriorated further once we left. We knew the sea conditions weren't going to improve so my partner didn't want to have another few days in bed.

I too got a bad chest infection on board and had to get medical attention when we got back to Singapore. I still have a bad chesty cough that won't budge. I was voiceless for at least 3 days.

We have also written to CIC and got their stock reply. We don't hold out much hope for any sort of decent apology, but our travel agent is following it up with her agent in Sydney.

The rusty water appeared in our bathroom the night before we left. By the morning it was running down the walls of our cabin:confused: As we were on deck 7, I can only assume it was coming from the cabins on deck 6.

Good luck to all who are booked on future cruises. If things get really bad you can always band together and mutiny!:mad:

we are on the princess daphne right now it is fantastic. dont listen to this moron

[loxy1]

I have just come off 14 days on Princess Daphne. Apart from our reduced time in Yangon and being at a port 24km out of town etc etc. My only quibble is that the REception staff are Ukrainian and the Tours girl was Romanina and the translation into English is not good. Getting info for ports and any maps was like a State Secret (think KGB). You whould have thought that most of the ports we came into, the ship had been there twice already in the season, they could have had maps and info on the ports.

 

The food is great, the service is great. Good choice of drinks at the bar.

Entertainment first class. Paris showgirls, and a boy dancer. The cruise staff, Sonia and Sarah hare the 2 hardest working staff on the ship.

Cabin was kept very clean by our steward.

We took 1litre on board and no-one questioned. We could get glasses of ice to take back to our cabin. It was much nicer sitting out on the back deck with the rest of the other lovely passengers having a nice cold beer.

[loxy1]

we are on the princess daphne right now it is fantastic. dont listen to this moron

 

:D You cant control the idiots who don't look after their own health and spread bugs. If you arent well on holidays, stay in your cabin and take some drugs.

[first cruise]

Thanks for the alcohol update opshop. We are on the 23/3 cruise so will catch up with all of you at some point (probably the trivia quizzes)!!! Luckily we aren't on the 6/3 with Lea and Shayne as we are Lea & Wayne, haha that WOULD be confusing! I have a question re excusions, has anyone organised their own drivers/tours in Vietnam previously? We are a group of 8 so may plan and book our own excursions in port. :rolleyes:

Thanks in anticipation.

Lea

 

Hello!! We are also on the 23/3 cruise (doing the back to back) with LEA & WAYNE and will be at all the trivia quizzes (with a glass of the best in Lea's hand!!)...... Guess we will be confusing everyone!!!! ps: Shayne is really cute, what does Wayne look like????? Should we start rolling our eyes now????? lol

 

First Cruise (Lea and Shayne)

[first cruise]

Thanks for the alcohol update opshop. We are on the 23/3 cruise so will catch up with all of you at some point (probably the trivia quizzes)!!! Luckily we aren't on the 6/3 with Lea and Shayne as we are Lea & Wayne, haha that WOULD be confusing! I have a question re excusions, has anyone organised their own drivers/tours in Vietnam previously? We are a group of 8 so may plan and book our own excursions in port. :rolleyes:

Thanks in anticipation.

Lea

 

Hello!! We are also on the 23/3 cruise (doing the back to back) with LEA & WAYNE and will be at all the trivia quizzes (with a glass of the best in Lea's hand!!)...... Guess we will be confusing everyone!!!! ps: Shayne is really cute, what does Wayne look like????? Should we start rolling our eyes now????? lol

 

First Cruise (Lea and Shayne)

[first cruise]

One must learn to not press the send button twice to make sure the message gets through..... one must learn to not be so impatient!!!!

 

One must settle down and stop checking how the garments are packed in the suitcase and one must stop going and looking at the cruise documents and drooling...... all good things will come to pass in a very few short weeks!!!

 

Can't wait to meet Lea and Wayne on board at the trivia quizzes!!!!

 

Lea and Shayne!!!!

[Kruzermum]

Hi All,

 

Well we have been home now for 24 hours and boy are we missing our gorgeous girl Princess Daphne, crew and friends :(

 

Please send my big hugs to Adriana (Piano Bar Head Bar Princess) and Olena (Piano Bar and show lounge waitress) Nicu (2nd in charge Maitre D) Sergi (Maitre D, I could see no evidence of any make up) and the gorgeous Gusti, Nyoeman, Denis and Alex our sensational waiters who we got to know! We fell in love with all the staff, they were exceptional. The Captain was fabulous and I applaud how hard these folks work and man is it tough work.

 

We were the only passengers with kids and they were treated like royalty, just fabulous (by the way, our kids are extremely well behaved) we had many many compliments from the 'golden oldies' as to how shocked they were at the beautiful behavior of our children.

 

Go and enjoy, take grog on board every stop you make as they do not screen as long as you are fair and reasonable. Your security is their utmost priority. We plan to sail again with CIC in 2012 and we know we will not be disappointed.

By the way Joseph the Head Chef and his Culinary team are MAGNIFIQUE the food was mouth watering delicious. I was served shilled champagne fly free!

 

Enjoy Enjoy Enjoy I am so jealous that I can't join you.

 

Stephanie McKinley :-)

[matilda]

Hi Stephanie,

We are so pleased to hear that you had such a great cruise. Everything sounds wonderful!

We are so looking forward to our cruise - 23 sleeps until we leave!

Regards, Lesley and Des (Matilda)

[Kiwiboy]

I don't appreciate being called a "moron". I gave my review as I saw it and was backed up by another person on this site who travelled on the same cruise. It was because of the cruise we had that they went out of their way to improve things for the future cruises. I am glad that people are enjoying their time on this ship and that things have improved. I call it as I see it. Of the eight other cruies I have done since 2005 this was by far the worse.

[cruizerofperth]

Dear Kiwiboy

There is no doubt in my mind about your cruise. After your reports we made many phone calls to CIC as we were concerned and they themselves confirmed many of the details. I personally wish to thank you for your input, due to your comments, many improvements were made for our cruise, with an Aussie representative flying to Singapore to address the issues you raised prior to our departure. Clearly they have improved with each trip which is wonderful for those of us who went on later cruises, but disappointing that it was not that way from the start. Once again, thank you for the feedback which made such a difference for us and I am sorry that others find it necessary to be so rude.:( Everyone should feel free to post their experience without worrying about critism otherwise the "feedback" forum is worthless. Everyone is entitled to personal opinion on their experience.

[hagis]

Cant wait the cruise now sounds wonderful maybe thanks to you kiwi as it seems they have sorted all the problems that you mentioned so people should really thank you for being so honest. We are on the cruise that leaves on the 20th really looking forward to it.

[goldies]

We are also on the cruise that leaves on the 20th February. Really looking forward to it now as things seem to have really improved. The shore excursions seem rather expensive. We know people that have visited Vietnam (not by ship) & they have arranged excursions in town for a fraction of the cost. Has anyone else arranged their own.

[goldies]

Hi again - Have just been reading some of the older reviews & was wondering if someone could answer a couple of things. I see that men have to wear long pants in the dining room. Is this only in the evening & is this the only place to eat at night. If men have to wear shirts with collars that need ironing, I can imagine it would work out rather expensive as I noted that someone said it is about $3.50 per garment.

Regards

Carole (goldies)

[hagis]

Hello!! We are also on the 23/3 cruise (doing the back to back) with LEA & WAYNE and will be at all the trivia quizzes (with a glass of the best in Lea's hand!!)...... Guess we will be confusing everyone!!!! ps: Shayne is really cute, what does Wayne look like????? Should we start rolling our eyes now????? lol

 

First Cruise (Lea and Shayne)

Hi We hired a taxi for 6 hours for 100 american there was 6 of us

[cruizerofperth]

1. Gentlemen must wear pants and collared shirts to dinner each evening, none negotiable. You will be sent back to your room to change if you arrive in anything else (that said, there was a young fella on our trip who only bought casual clothes, they had to let him in, he simply had nothing else). There is no where else to eat at night and no room service. There are option for both breakfast and lunch.

 

2. Tours in Vietnam

There are plenty of taxi's waiting at the port in Vietnam, make arrangements with them to go where you want to tour. We made arrangements before we left home but made a huge mistake in mentioning we were coming in on a cruise ship. The tour operators already had a copy of the itineraries ships provide and the cost, thus we were charged slightly more than the boat for a private tour. This was our own fault for not looking into the costs before making enquiries. You will be able to negotiate a taxi for less than half the cost of the tours for two people, but keep in mind you would want a driver with exceptional english and knowledge of the area. From the feedback from others who used this option, they had a wonderful time at a very reasonable cost.

 

Hope this helps.

[hagis]

We done our own in vietnam gave the taxi driver 100 dollars took us to all the tourist places there were 4 of us and 6 of us in Denang same price

[Kiwiboy]

Dear Kiwiboy

There is no doubt in my mind about your cruise. After your reports we made many phone calls to CIC as we were concerned and they themselves confirmed many of the details. I personally wish to thank you for your input, due to your comments, many improvements were made for our cruise, with an Aussie representative flying to Singapore to address the issues you raised prior to our departure. Clearly they have improved with each trip which is wonderful for those of us who went on later cruises, but disappointing that it was not that way from the start. Once again, thank you for the feedback which made such a difference for us and I am sorry that others find it necessary to be so rude.:( Everyone should feel free to post their experience without worrying about critism otherwise the "feedback" forum is worthless. Everyone is entitled to personal opinion on their experience.

Dear Cruizerofperth

Thanks for your comments. To date we have had no response at all from CIC after many emails and an email also from our travel agent. I guess they are not interested in any dialogue with the person who started the original complaint.

I agree it is a bit disappointing that an ill informed person can join the site and their first post is an insult to another member. Maybe they work for CIC?:cool:

But it makes me glad to know that mine and Jimmy's experience posted here have led to improvements being made. It is good to hear that the following cruises have been enjoyable for other people.

[chookysgirl]

Thanks for the advice Hagis...does anyone have any contact for english speaking tour guides in Vietnam? As we will be a party of 8, are there many minivans available to hire portside? What about Halong Bay, did any of you do your own thing there? I have been following a thread on Trip Advisor for a pickup from the ship by junk, seems pretty messy and complicated for them to tie alongside up so we may do that via CIC. Any clues on what to see and what to give a miss??? Thanks again.

Lea

[hagis]

Hi In Danag and Hochiminh most of all the private taxis can speak english and some of these seat 8 but that is the only placese I have been we even found in shos and cafes they all spoke english and at all the tourist places hope this helps

[Don Barnes]

Dear 6/3 Passengeers

I was wondering if anyone has received their tickets yet? I am only asking as we fly out on the 1/3 to Hong Kong and they are not leaving us much time to go through the documents and check for discrepencys which need to be put right. It is only two weeks till we leave and if some others have their tickets it will give me an excuse to harrass the travel agent.

Hope to get them soon.

Don Barnes

[matilda]

Hi Don,

No, we haven't received our tickets yet, or anything else. However, we only posted off our Chinese visa numbers to CIC last Tuesday, when we picked up our visas, so they haven't had a lot of time. We are not leaving Melbourne for Hong Kong until 5th March, so no panic yet for us.

Regards, Lesley and Des

[jimmy4au]

If it wouldnt have been for Kiwiboy and myself things would have not been changed. Obviously the first three cruises where not up to standard, and by our email received from CIC directly they have improved their services dramaticaly. Kiwiboy we have received an apology letter from CIC with a credit offer to use the Athena or Funchal during 2011/12. I believe the Funchal will be cruising from Singapore next xmas instead the Princess. We believe the Funchal has been refurbished. So we might take it up and see the difference...