Princess Alaska Cruise Headquarters

We took the 11 day Alaska cruise in July. Kudos to Christine A, who (9/29/29) wrote a fair, thorough review! I recommend it. As far as our experience, my wife and I both decided that cruising is not for us and frankly I wouldn't recommend it for most people.
That being said, I'll list the pros: I feel that all the crew experiences we had, from our room steward to the Captain were professional and positive. There's no question in my mind that they are a dedicated group. The entertainers, particularly the singers & dancers, were awesome! Also, plenty of great music, lectures by Tess the naturalist and totem pole carving.
Now the cons: although the desserts & pastries were uniformly great, the rest of the food didn't live up to my expectations. I'm not a picky eater--I was in the Army back when good food wasn't a priority and I still shoveled it in. So when I say it was "meh," I'm sticking to it. Examples: I love mussels. They were consistently so bad that I sent them back- on two separate days. An aged rib eye steak on the menu? Great, I thought. Nope--it was tough but not bad enough to send it back. We wanted to splurge one night, so we went to the steak house. Our food wasn't bad, but it wasn't good either.
Now the real kicker: Our ports of call were supposed to be Juneau, Skagway, Glacier Bay, Ketchikan, then Victoria B.C. On the way to Juneau, one of the 2800 passengers on board became acutely ill and the powers that be decided there had to be an air evacuation at sea. The ship met up with the Canadian Coast Guard and accomplished this. Kudos to all involved and if it were me, I know I'd be thankful. However, the rest of us 2,799 passengers or so had paid for tickets and excursions to Juneau and the Mendenhall glacier. That port stop had to be bypassed due to the emergency. The money we paid for the excursion was immediately returned to us and we took a conciliatory trip to what we were told was Tracy Arm Fjord, but we found out later was a different fjord. Whatever. Bottom line, we felt very let down. since this would probably be our one & only Alaska cruise.
So I did a little research and re-read our cruise contract and discovered that in fact cruise lines can change itineraries as needed and no compensation (or even apology) has to be offered. That's the important point of this in terms of how you spend your travel dollars. Apparently, this is not at all uncommon! I'm a seasoned international traveler, but never experienced this one. Also, my searches happened to find a Netflix show: Patriot Acts, entitled something like "what the cruise industry doesn't want you to know." I highly recommend watching it & checking out the facts for yourself. It gives many reasons why there are better travel options than cruising.
So, who is cruising good for? People young or old with limited mobility, stable chronic health problems (but NOT those with environmental allergies!), families with a disabled loved one, or those who just want to stay on board and enjoy the many features of the ship.
So, our experience wasn't bad, but it wasn't great. We learned our lesson about missing a port of call. I hope this review helps you to weigh the pros & cons and decide for yourself.

Cruise is not for US but regardless of the location, hoping this will help people reconsider cruise line companies. We have planned this trip for months w extended family and had an incident where water leaked from the roof in my father's handicapped room onto his face in the middle of the night, starling him as well as the rest of the entire family. Water leaked from one side of the room and the panels on that wall eventually had to be removed, beds and people rearranged, to rectify the situation. Five of six calls later the issue around the inconvenience has yet to be resolved.

The boat we are on is in its inaugural season and it shows: movie night on the pool started 25 min late and when it finally did start it didn't start from the beginning but from the middle of the movie. At dinner, wait staff stated taking orders without giving us a menu. During the day at sea, activities provided that were complimentary were clearly geared towards spending as little money as possible: an "aviation" time which consisted of folding paper airplanes and flying them, adult craft time consisting of stringing together plastic buttons into a bracelet for which they actually ran out and turned people away, and a "officers vs guests game time" of flipping red solo cups on a table. Everything else involved an upsell-- why you should buy diamonds on the ship bc it's duty free, etc. A complimentary mini facial comprised of advertising services and products while dispersing as little of the product as possible. Everything else you have to pay extra for. They even charge a gratuity of $16 per day per person in your party without telling you. I get that this is a business but come on now. They even docked at a marina one hr away from the originally advertised location- when we went down to disembark in the morning, entire groups of people were already coming back on board citing there was nothing or little to see.

I am not a cruise expert but have been on a few cruise lines and they are better. This experience leaves much to be desired.

I should have checked yelp before signing up for this cruise. We just got back from the Ruby Princess cruise to Alaska. Tested positive for COVID of course. All 4 of us!! The ship is a petrie dish of viral plague.

We had a mini suite - it was comfortable enough - especially because I spent the last two days in the suite sick and coughing my head off. The furniture is old and worn - the bed was comfortable enough. the TV was OK but if you wanted to watch a movie it cut off about 2/3rd's of the way through - so no endings???

The food at the Crown Grill was excellent but there is SO much of it - it's a waste - I felt so guilty sening a 2/3rds full plate back. Sabatini's Italian was good - we went there night two. The buffet was horrid - couldn't stand the smell of that whole deck! Fortuntely deck 15 is about 1/3rd outside! Ice cream is frozen coffee creamer.

Room service - or the dine my way was OK - I did find a couple of things that were good - we had coffee delivered every morning.

The room Steward was great - he is from the Phillipines works 9 months on the ship and goes home for3 months. He works hard and we were happy we got him! Be safe Edgardo!!

The entertainment was pretty corny - some of the music was great. A couple of "torch song" singers have made a vocational error.

The excursions were insanely expensive so we didn't do any of them. The stops are subjet to change so beware! There were two medical emergencies on the cruise so we missed Juneau - Skagway is fun but mainly for the breweries. Shops on all stops were not worth the effort - best to get off the ship for some decent food.

The liquor is all watered down - just like in Vegas when you order the free margarita - you can have 10 of them on still stand up straight! Best to stick with beer and wine. We had a drink package but had to pay for most of the wines we wanted - they were "not on the package".

The shops on board are useless and overpriced. The jewelry is pushed very hard - avoid those shops completely - don't even glance their way when passing!

The spa was fun! I got the most expensive mani-pedi of my life but it was very relaxing and Monique was charming. That day the sea was really rough so snuggling into a large chair for foot pampering was wonderful!

Now for the worst part ........ when we were in Glacier Bay (not an animal in sight) a huge flock of seagulls swarmed on one side of the ship. We looked along the side of the ship and they were dumping gallons and gallons of sewage into Glacier Bay. It poured out of the ship turning the water dark grey. It made me so ashamed that I had paid for this!

DO NOT ever book a cruise on Princess!!!

This is the worst cruise line. The app and website are confusing. I ordered my medallion on the app but it was extremely confusing to know if I ordered it or not. But I received an email confirming that I did in fact order it but only to find out that I only ordered the clip. Like why would you say medallion in the email when it's wrong? Like how am I supposed to know I'm ordering the right thing!?!

So now supposedly if you don't have the medallion you have to wait in an extremely long line to get on the cruise. But Royal is really fast at getting you on without a medallion. I will never cruise with princess again because your website and app are confusing and when I call for help none of your staff know the answer. So not only is your website and app awful but your own staff can't even help me.

I will be letting everyone know on my SM that if they cruise with princess to look forward to dealing with the confusing app that no longer worked and then had to download a new app and still when I went to buy my medallion that when it said it was being sent that it really wasn't. You need to invest more money to get an engineer to fix your website and app. And you need to have your employees better informed about payment etc. because I called and tried to add a credit card and they couldn't. They didn't know how to add a credit card and the app would keep searching. Like nothing works not your website, app, or your phone number.

We go on cruises every year and we wanted to try princess this year. Already this is a terrible cruise line. Also you have to upgrade your package to get the stuff that is free on Royal cruise. Like the gym is free on Royal but you have to pay on princess. The coffee, bakery, pizza, restaurant are free on Royal but on princess you have to pay for all of that.

And you know I don't mind paying for all of that because I can afford it but what really makes me mad is that your website and app aren't user friendly and is confusing.

I find it interesting there are no reviews for Mexican journeys. Carnival Cruises owns Princess Cruises and let me say they are total scammer. Sure they have all the standard amenities as other cruise lines but their food is just miserable. Please read on...

So we booked a ten day cruise and after thinking about a mouth watering cruise buffet, we were totally disappointed. I mean beyond let down. It's not a buffet, it's worse than a chow line in the navy. I'll bet you a donut, the food is better on an aircraft carrier.

You'd think they have crab at least one day in 10 days. Nope! A pile of shrimp on ice? Not here they don't. What they do have are stacks of bananas and cold plums. They have hash browns bought at Costco. The other night was German Night, sausages....

You might think I'm being picky but come on. In their "pastry pantry" they had orange and green jello dishes and tiny deserts. If you drink just water, your card won't get charged other than the daily per person tip charge. You'd think sodas would be free but no, you're almost forced to buy a soda plan.

As we stood in the chow line I commented to the guy in front of me, "Not going to do another Princess Cruise." He responded, "I totally hear you!" I understand the chefs are working under a corporate budget but food is what brings people to their shops.

Go some place else. If you're hoping for a great buffet, Royal Princess isn't the place...

Rated one star because I haven't even boarded the cruise yet! I found this yelp page because I was [do not laugh] looking to see if there is a brick and mortar Princess headquarters in San Francisco...because I CANNOT FIGURE OUT THIS APP! And then I start reading the reviews here. I'm really worried about this cruise now based on how glitchy the app already appears to be not to mention the customer service. The guy today at Princess told me to switch back and forth from the old to new app to find dining reservations that were made several weeks ago and for our spa appointments. When I commented that why would the old app be anymore helpful than the new app, he said "This is a recorded line so all your comments will be noted for further review. Keep them coming." LOL. Still can't find my reservations. Can't download the app onto my computer. I'm pretty sure my pricey shore excursions are set in stone since I see the charges on my card. Fingers crossed that this cruise doesn't turn out to be a dud.

I've taken 5+ Princess Cruises and generally, Princes sCruises has exceeded my expectations- all were very enjoyable.

my complaint is with how Princess Cruises constantly pushes their " Medallian Ap"

I do not have a computer that can download ANY aps..........

Please STOP pushing your Medallion Ap- please be considerate, not every passenger has the ability or the desire to download an ap in order to take your cruise.

HORRIBLE Customer Service. our booking was cancelled without our knowledge. Trying to rectify is a total dog's dinner. Customer Service hold times...commitments made to call back (with no call following)...movement to Instagram and Whatsapp where follow-up is still non-existent. I guess their business is good enough that they do not need to respond.

Caribbean

FOOD:
We never did get a reservation for the Crown Grill even though we started 30 days before sailing. A friend tipped the hostess $20 to get a table.
And the main dining room and buffet were terrible. In fact, the food at every place except Sabatini's was bad. The only good dessert was also at Sabatini's

Room service was a joke. The ap on the tv never worked, my medallion never worked, so I called in orders. The food, if we even got it, was cold, except the milk for the cereal, which was room temperature.

Entertainment: was 3rd rate at best. The band by the pool was a two high school age guys that the acoustic so loud and out of tune and musical ability were so bad many were getting up and leaving the pool that day.

Superbowl game would have been great to watch on the screen but had to go get our own food and drinks at the bar and lost our seat to watch the game

entertainment ended by about 1100 in most venues so forced to go back to rooms and no food to be found at night except for the café where the sandwiches and dessert were dried out and old and inedible (except casino until 1:00 which forced many people to go into the casino if they didn't want to go to bed. Sounds like a good way to make more money from the customers. And they charged for drinks in the casino even with premium package (although they removed when we complained).

Pool: As usual, rude passengers put towels on the lounges then disappeared for hours. When will someone start enforcing the rules?
Jacuzzis warm at most.

As you know, we didn't get to go to Princess Cays, which couldn't be helped, but that was the main attraction for Heidi who is a sun worshipper,

In short, I've had better cruises on Carnival.

Was on a 10-day Alaska cruise. Tested positive for Covid immediately after the cruise. Cruise was June 16 - June 26, 2023.