If you have booked a room on the Crown Princess and are expecting to be treated like royalty, you're dead wrong. I have been on my fair share of Princess Cruises and have been a loyal customer, hence the Ruby status, but after my latest experience on the Crown Princess, I have decided to take my business else where. Why you ask? Let me indulge you.
This past January I was on board the Crown Princess for the 2016 Angels Fan Cruise. Since I have been on this ship before (for the previous Angels Fan Cruise), I had high expectations and was very excited for this trip, but from the moment I stepped on that dreaded ship, everything seemed to go downhill.
The Crown Princess just isn't known for all the amazing destinations that it travels to, it is actually an infamous ship. This ship is known to constantly make passengers sick due to the norovirus. The norovirus is the most common cause of viral gastroenteritis in humans. In simple terms it is a stomach bug that can give you abdominal pain, diarrhea, and vomiting. The norovirus can be spread through contaminated food or water and it can also be spread by food handlers, people who touch contaminated surfaces and from person to person transmission. Princess Cruises has experienced the most (over 20) gastrointestinal outbreaks in the last decade, according to Cruise Law News.
Right before my cruise date, the Crown Princess was infected with the norovirus yet again. Our departure time was delayed a couple hours due to this outbreak. The ship itself needed to be cleaned and cleansed of its sins, which is totally understandable, because I did not want to catch this stomach bug. When I was on the ship, it was the cleanest it has ever been. But that still did not help a lot of its problems. My bathroom and some of the public restrooms on the ship had some plumbing issues. Also due to the norovirus outbreak, you were required to sanitize before every meal and you were not allowed to serve yourselves. You could not even go get a pack of sugar for your coffee without someone doing it for you, and when you tried to do it yourself, you would get scolded by the crew.
What that tells me is that the problem is coming from somewhere or someone on the ship. The ship clearly is not being taken care of, in fact, it only gets a good cleaning when the passengers get sick. Since this is a common occurrence, I don't think it can be blamed on the passengers or the itinerary, which some of the Crown Princess crew members tried to do. Because several other cruise lines travel to same destinations and they have not had as many problems as Princess.
Speaking of the Crown Princess crew members, the ones I had encountered this past January were some of the rudest people I have ever met. Some crew members went out of their way to insult me and embarrass me because of my appearance. Never in my life had I ever been treated so horribly, especially while I was on vacation. Several crew members made me cry in public which led to some of my fellow passengers feeling sorry for me.
The crew on the Crown Princess is one of the worst crews I had ever seen in my entire life. Besides their disrespectful behavior, their complete lack of knowledge was astounding. It seemed like not one person knew what was happening on the ship. On our first day, assigned seating for dinner was cancelled and not one person knew. Everyone in the Botticelli dining room had to wait in front of the restaurant and along the stairs for almost an hour until someone told us that our dinner was cancelled, and if we wanted to eat there we would have to wait another hour or so. This is not the first time the dining staff had no idea what was going on, on my first trip on the Crown Princess, my family of five was seated at a table for four. The staff on this ship are not the brightest crayons in the Crayola box.
Disorganized is the best way to describe this ship and its staff. If you're looking to book a cruise, go with Carnival, Royal Caribbean, or Norwegian, instead of Princess. Princess has lost their prestigious and regal reputation because now they cut corners when it comes to quality. They do not care about your needs, all you are is another dollar sign to them.
Until next time.
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