Caribbean Princess-Christmas- Dedc 24 Caribbean P the good, the bad and the filthy!

[Queenk2]

I really do not know where to begin and I am rarely at a loss for words!

Clearly all cruise vacations have things we like and those things that we wish we might change.

Itinerary- WONDERFUL! Having had the opportunity to sail in the Caribbean many times both with Princess and other lines, I still love St. Thomas-shopping and St. Martin- Orient beach.Princess Cays is beautiful and is an enjoyable day.

Dining Room- We only ate dinner in the traditional venue and the food was simply excellent. Our original waiter spoke very little English and had to be replaced by his head waiter-he could not handle any special requests or in fact keep one of our very allergic friends" pea free". Fernando the head waiter was terrific and accomodating and literally "ran" to the kitchen to get us anything we requested. In fact he brought us huge shrimp and something special almost every night.

Buffet- DISGUSTING!!!!!!!!!!!!! Let me preface these remarks with fact that we are elite members and this was my 16th cruise with Princess. As all of us know, who have continued to cruise over the past 20 years, there has been a marked general decline in service and food over each progressive cruise. When Carnival joined up with Princess things really disintergrated. I am NOT comparing Princess to the old Sitmar or even the cruises of only 5 years ago, but rather to the other lines in the same category such as RCCL or Celebrity. I stopped sailing with Princess in 2001 or 2002. I decided to give it another try as their benefits such as free internet and dry cleaning/laundry sounded great.These serices were great BUT let me discuss the food service............

Granted this was Christmas and the ship was VERY full. However that should NEVER interfere with cleanliness! There is no service in the buffet...people take things taste them and return them to the offerings. There are missing utensils and passengers pick up food with their hands. I know I use the sanitizers offered, but MANY do NOT! The problem lies with the lack of supervision. No one oversees the serving of food. My husband saw the most disgusting thing on Princess Cays... a buffet server went to the mens room and on the way back, sneezed into his hands. He went directly back to grilling meat WITH NO GLOVES! No wonder Princess has suffered outbreaks of virus infections! Now that was what we saw...I can only imagine what goes on behind closed doors.I already stated that I am elite with Princess, but I have the same status on both RCCl and Celebrity. They are my favorite lines, and I have NEVER seen anything like this on either line...and I travel with them during Christmas as well. I also travel during peak summer season to Europe when the ships are equally full and have never experienced anything close to this on either line!

 

Service- varied- As stated above the head waiter was amazing! He reminded me of the way in which I first became hooked on cruising. Next we can discuss cabin stewards...in a word my room was filty! So bad in fact that the head of housekeeping was summoned to my room by the purser and he had a crew in my stateroom vacuming the dust and dirt from the floor.I do not normally go under the bed to check, however I lost an earring back and my husband and I were looking for it. The housekeeing staff had to wash my bathroom floor a number of times in order to get the stickines off of it!There was hair in the drawers and thick dust on the shevles. I must commend the head of passenger relations- Ren. He listened to my problems and handled them with complete professionalism. In general the senior staff are very nice, however there seems to be an attitude on the part of the other staff. My daughter was traveling with us and she had a room with a friend. Her room was clean, however it took her stewardess many requests to get a robe or even some pool towels. She practically snarled at both her and her friend. Granted, she is young, but she is also an experienced cruiser.

 

There is one other gripe I would like to air. I have NO PROBLEM tipping and in fact often tip higher than the recommended amount. I do resent the 10 dollar daily charge that they automatically put on your cruise account unless you ask to have it removed. I like to tip for service I recieve and sometimes BEFORE I recieve the service, however I fail to see the need to tip someone just to subsidize the salary that Princess pays. The pool decks are VERY dirty and in the week I sailed, the decks above the movie area were NEVER mopped. There were old soda straws, dirty coffee cups and other garbage there all week.Shall I pay for the deck hands...I think not.

Will I ever travel with Princess again? I don't know. I am driven by itinerary as much as the ship. They do offer some very nice trips to some great ports, however their lack of cleanliness bothers me a great deal.

Karen