Diamond Princess Disappointment

[peggy1]

We were on the May 31 sailing, and I have to say we were very disappointed in some aspects of the ship and staff. We arrived in our room to find five hairs under the duvet. We called to have the duvet changed. Our cabin steward never introduced himself and never made mention of this problem. This was a first, we always get introduced to our cabin steward and have a cordial relationship. He did a fine job of cleaning the room so that was the most important thing. The staff in total was very unfriendly and detached. The staff in the anytime dining rooms even had attitudes and were unfriendly and uncaring. We had some good service, but that was the exception rather than the rule and we did complete the form on the tables for good service. The ship is beautiful, but areas of carpeting around the elevators (especially) looked like they hadn't been vacuumed in days. Even the passenger service staff were abrupt and at times rude. I went to ask about the Direct USA service and a rep. tried to dismiss my questions as though he was being bothered. Meanwhile there was no one else in line. When I spoke to him in a more firm tone of voice, his attitude changed. We were on the Tahitian Princess last Sept. and we were so pleased with the staff and crew. We didn't get early seating so we were assigned Anytime Dining, which took some getting use to, but the Maitre D' was surly and we had gotten to the stage where we actually thought about removing our gratuities from our account, it was that bad. The ship is beautiful, it is a shame that the staff and crew are not of the same caliber. We have sailed about 35 times and we have never encountered such a take it or leave it attitude on a ship. We were on the Constellation in April and it great. I think it is back to Celebrity and RCCL for us.

[kendon]

I didn't love the Diamond either, but it didn't stop me from staying with Princess. Seems each ship has it's own "character". It should be consistent across the fleet, but it's not. Just booked the Ruby an hour ago, and will be on the Crown again in November. Give the gem class ships a try.

[quincytoo]

That is too bad!!! I had friend on that cruise and they LOVED it!! I was a little worried as I had been on the Diamond (Mex Riv Nov 06) and had raved about the cruise, staff, food, service, etc so much they decided to try it for the Alaskan cruise. I was on pins and needles until they got back !!!

 

What if they had not liked it?? LOL Turns out they liked it so much they have bought a deposit for another Princess cruise!!

[CZEE]

I didn't love the Diamond either, but it didn't stop me from staying with Princess.

Same here. I think Princess is good value for money.

 

I didn't care for the Diamond because of the size. My DH and I won't do the big ships again. It was attractive, just too large for us.

[cruisingalaska]

I was on the May 31 Diamond Alaska Southbound and I had a great time.

The staff was very friendly to me. We had anytime dining and always

walked right in to have dinner in any of the anytime rooms (Savoy/Pac Moon/Santa Fe).... only waiting once for 10 mins.

 

I never really looked at the carpet (only to find my way around), but I did notice in the Horizon Buffet that the new carpet was pilling (balls of fur)

as it was new. I joked with one of the buffet waiters that they needed to vacuum, and he just laughed along with me.

 

I had a great time watching Alaska sail by.... (Glacier Bay, College Fjord)...

I have no complaints.....Our stewardess was great and very friendly and extremely attentive.

[JWJs]

We sailed on the Diamond to Hawaii in December 07. I like Princess a lot but the Diamond was by far NOT my favorite cruise. If you read the Diamond reviews there are a lot of 1 and 2 stars which really bring the overall rating down. There are also a lot of 4 and 5 star ratings. I think I gave it a 5 star in my review. However, I think the Diamond is a mixed bag...it just depends. The dining room food and service left a lot to be desired. We are booked for the Emerald this coming December and I have a strong feeling we are really going to like this ship and cruise experience.

[ginagirl]

When I read the comments sometimes, I truly feel like I am in an alternate universe. We sailed the Diamond in February, 2008, to Hawaii, had Anytime Dining, and were extremely pleased with the cuisine and service. However, the first night we were lucky to have 2 wonderful waiters in the Savoy, requested them each evening, and after a little persuasion, were granted our wish. We thought the ship was in excellent condition, had a great activities staff, and overall great service. Yet, now, only 4 months later, I am reading negative reviews about the very things we thought were great.

 

Now, on the other hand, we just completed a 19 day sailing on the Island in May, and truly hated the cuisine, had awful service with Anytime Dining Head waiters and waitstaff, found the service overall to be lacking tremendously, and the activities staff to be condescending and critical of the older age of the passengers. In fact, this was probably our most dissatisfying cruise of all time. Yet, all the reviews I had read prior to the sailing were glowing. And yet, many, many passengers on my sailing were disgruntled with food and service too. Something must happen at some point where a switch goes on and off.:confused: We are very experienced cruise travellers; and in this day and age, certainly don't go with any high expectations of that of a novice cruiser. We do know what cuisine and service are good or excellent and also when it is truly lacking. What mystifies me is how a ship can receive such glowing reports one month and then just the opposite reviews the following month. I sometimes wonder if there is just a change somewhere high up in management that either influences for positive or negative work habits among the staff.

[time4cruise]

I am sorry to hear that you had a bad experience with Princess. We in general like the trips we had with Princess in the last 10 years.

[FritzG]

We are Princess Elite members, and we were also on the May 31st Alaska cruise. Also, we were on the Diamond for the Jan. 17th Hawaii RT-LA, and we noticed some changes. We had a great time, and we love the Diamond, but we both agreed that some things had gone downhill. Our room steward introduced himself and was very attentive, and our dining room (Vivaldi) waiter was also great. We thought the food was not as good as in January, but it was fine. A couple of negatives--I agree that the carpeting was pilling in many areas and didn't look like it had been vacuumed in days. Just vacuuming it would have made a big difference in the appearance.

The biggest disappointment to me, and one that I am going to write to Princess concerning, is the attitude in the dining room for open seating breakfast and lunch. Unless you are lucky enough to get your regular wait staff, they seemed cold and indifferent. For every meal we ate at open seating we had the feeling that they just wanted us to eat fast and get the heck out of their way. Any extra request was met grudgingly with a silent attitude that made you feel like you were imposing on them. I got the feeling that they were definitely wanting everyone to use Horizon Court for breakfast and lunch. The wait staff is all getting a share of the auto tips so it's not like they're working for free. Granted we always tip our dining staff extra, but that still doesn't excuse poor service for the other meals. We had different maitre d's on each cruise so I don't think it was an attitude promoted by the maitre d'. Also, afternoon tea was open seating, and that staff was friendly and gave great service. The Horizon Ct. staff was extremely friendly and eager to please, and I don't think they were expecting extra tips although we did tip one server who we saw a lot. The server in the coffee bar who my husband saw a couple of times a day was terrific too. We only saw this attitude in the International Dining Rooom. We noticed this somewhat on the Hawaii cruise in January, but it was much worse on the Alaska one last week. As I said it was the only negative comment I made on my survey.

[willysgrandma]

Ten people can have ten very different experiences on a cruise. And the quality of the ship and service can vary from ship to ship within the same cruise line.

 

The hair under the duvet would have turned me off too.

 

Since you had a good experience on the Tahitian, don't be turned off to Princess totally.

 

I have had good and bad cruises on Celebrity and RCCL too, but I am not turned off to either line. I just know now to choose the bigger and newer ships, that is what I have learned from my experiences with good and bad with various lines.

 

All the cruises I wasn't thrilled with (and none of them were terrible - how bad can a cruise be?) were on smaller older ships, so I know now to book bigger ships.

[ginagirl]

Hate to disagree with the concept that newer is better. We just did the Island, which is not old at all, and were very unhappy with the cuisine and service. However, last August we did the Regal to Hawaii, which started sailing in l972, (old) and it had good cuisine and excellent service.

[Colo Cruiser]

Hate to disagree with the concept that newer is better. We just did the Island, which is not old at all, and were very unhappy with the cuisine and service. However, last August we did the Regal to Hawaii, which started sailing in l972, (old) and it had good cuisine and excellent service.

 

The Regal/Crown were built around 1990. :)

[custompcsys]

This is by no means an accusation or assumption that this is what happened to the folks who had less than sterling reviews about the Diamond, but I find that in many cases you get back what you give. More than once I've seen passengers treat staff like servants and with an attitude of entitlement. If someone treated me like that I wouldn't be too happy or friendly either. This might be a partial explanation for the varying experiences on the same cruise with the same staff.

 

My experience on the Diamond, although a while ago, was very positive. The only negative I can remember was a Maitre D' who thought he was God and was obviously disliked by the dining room staff as well as many of the passengers. Other than that everyone was at least professional and cordial - I don't expect them to act like my best buddies, so being "friendly" would qualify as exceeding my expectations, and some did. I wouldn't hesitate to sail on the Diamond again based on that experience.

[ginagirl]

I meant to type 1992. A typo. I was on its inaugural in 1992 and it's last Hawaii sailing in 2000. Sad to see the Grand Lady leave.:(

[Julia’s Journey’s]

We loved the Diamond but haven't been on her for a couple of years.

[Putterdude]

We were on the same cruise on the Diamond with the JWJ's and we liked the ship a great deal. Although the ship is large we felt it was easy to move around on and is an upgrade over the "Grand" class. Any issues that we had were with rude, loud or ill mannered PAX and certainly not the crew. We felt the ship was clean and our cabin well looked after. The food and the service in the dining room was a little shakey to begin with but as this was a Christmas cruise and was sold out they had put a lot of new crew aboard and it took them a few days to get in sinck with one another. So maybe it boils down to different people different expectations. We would certainly sail on her in a heartbeat.

[FritzG]

I'd sail on her again in a flash, but I did notice some things that had gone down since my Hawaiian cruise in January. I tried to make it clear that it was a great trip, and I wouldn't switch from Princess, but the 2 negatives I mentioned were not steps in the right direction for Princess.

[Nana G]

We have sailed 15 times with princess and the only ship we would not go on again is the Diamond. All in all, we stayed with princess and avoided this ship thus far. Not pleasing memories of the staff or the dining experience. Try other ships, they are usually far better.

[ginagirl]

I was wondering when you had your sailing on the Diamond in view of the fact that we were so pleased with it this past February.

 

I wonder if after Princess finds they are receiving a large number of complaints on a particular ship- they send out "The Fixers." It would be a wise policy for them to have one or several groups of proficient managers who travel from one "problem" ship to another. They would manage the ship until it is back up to standards and then move on to another. That would help explain how ships go from excellent reviews to poor ones and then back to excellent again. In fact, I know if I owned a cruise line, that's what I would do to encourage and maintain consistency among my ships. Any thoughts on this, fellow cruisers???:rolleyes:

[Colo Cruiser]

I meant to type 1992. A typo. I was on its inaugural in 1992 and it's last Hawaii sailing in 2000.

 

Me too. :)

[ginagirl]

Me too. :)

GET OUT!!!!!!! :D What a hoot!!!!!!

[renebfl]

We were also on the May 31 sailing. Would still book for the itinerary,but....we had traditional seating, after 5 minutes, I had to ask our waiter HIS name and introduced ourselves to HIM. That was about it on the conversation. I was used to having our waiter make suggestions after our 15 cruises and this was quite different. He never spoke to us during our meals even when we encouraged it. Dining room food was ok, but had to think about what to eat the first few nights. I am NOT sorry for our cruise. The naturalist was great,the Horizon court had better food,pizza was great. We went to see Alsaka and we did. Just disappointed in our dining experienced, We stopped going after the 4th night and went the the Horizon court.Wasn't crazy about Sterlings steak either, but the fish was phenomenal.

[Colo Cruiser]

GET OUT!!!!!!! :D What a hoot!!!!!!

 

 

Yeah I just could not recall the year. I knew it was somewhere around there.

I have great sunset pictures sitting at the dinner table next to the window. ;)

[Buddy604]

Wow, alternate universe indeed. I was on the Diamond Northbound on May 24th, and stayed B2B for the Southbound on the 31st, so I was on the same cruise as the OP. We found the staff and service to be excellant, though many of the PAX on the southbound leg were ruder and louder that the northbound leg. I know the southbound was not sold out until the last week and had many flash sales to fill her up, so that may have played a part in the demographic.

 

Interestingly, because I stayed on the ship during the turnaround, I heard several of the staff-only announcements, including the congratulations from the captain for the crew on what was their highest satisfaction score in three years based on the passenger questionnaire.

 

I'm sorry the OP didn't have a stellar time - I was in heaven myself, but if I'm not in a bad mood, I'm easy to please. :D

[ginagirl]

Yeah I just could not recall the year. I knew it was somewhere around there.

I have great sunset pictures sitting at the dinner table next to the window. ;)

The only thing that I remember vividly is the lounge where we danced to live music prior to dinner. The first time we sailed her, they had bright red patent leather :eek: material covering the barstools in that room. And last summer, the same lounge had been re-decorated in a very classy and subdued fashion. What a wonderful improvement. DH looked at me like I was from another planet when I remarked on the change. After all the years, and all the ships, he was amazed that I remembered that. I guess it is strange. Do you happen to remember those barstools???:)