Princess Cruises
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They called my wife a liar
On 8 July this year my wife and I travelled on the Sky Princess from Southampton UK for a two week Baltic Heritage cruise. We are experienced travellers, especially on cruises, and can say that Princess was the worst by far. We soon found that all the form filling demanded by Princess Cruises was nonsense,as was the streaming of passengers into Green, Blue and Yellow Lines (Yellow meant you would be medically examined and made to feel totally uncomfortable!). We were in Green anyway. Southampton Port and Border Control cut through all that cr*p and eased everyone through the shortest lines so we were through and on the ship in no time at all. However, once on the ship,booming calls over the ship's speakers to watch a safety video sabotaged our TV so it failed (first of many times) and we had to watch the muster stations film on my smartphone. When we went to the muster station to prove we knew where it was, a highly obnoxious little squirt told my wife that she had to watch on 'her appliance' so the ship's management would know she had used her phone for that purpose. She doesn't have a smart phone so we had a lively debate about what he could do with his unhelpful attitude as he accused her of being likely to lie about seeing the video if it could not be verified and was highly sarcastic when she told him she had seen enough muster drills so she knew what to do anyway. I was furious and went straight to the Customer Service Desk to complain. A huge crowd was milling about there. A woman told me she had already been queuing for an hour (and was still at the back of the queue by the way). I was even more furious and went to the nearest desk with staff available and demanded the dim girl there use her phone to get me an officer NOW for a serious complaint. She just couldn't understand why I wasn't interested in a shore excursion and seemed unprogrammed to pick up a phone on her own initiative. Fortunately an officer was nearby anyway and I grabbed him and made my views very clear indeed. Why do people put up with this awful attitude by the ship! I was determined to tell him that we hadn't paid over 5 grand for an attitude like this. Seemed to shake him a bit and he made sure to mark us as having registered for muster drill and to send someone to fix the TV (they did but the chap was a cabin steward with no specialised TV knowledge). I hope they fired the abominable squirt but I expect that was quietly forgotten. In brief after that: The worst cruise ship we have been on. Endless piped music at full volume everywhere ( and I mean everywhere) throughout the ship (by 'music', it was hip hop, rap, and unknown moaners with one line lyrics). Theatre shows were noisy and over-hyped. The show's own production numbers have always been the highlight of entertainment on our previous cruises but this was pretty dire. Three comedians: one quite good, one looked like he had crawled out of a drain and the third made fun of the British (he was English) and sucked up to the Americans present. The Filipino waiting/ room service/ cleaning staff worked really hard, were ever friendly and courteous and probably the worst paid and most exploited. We used Hop On, Hop Off buses, not the Ship's trips and saved money. Three of the docks used were full of coal, must have been the cheapest berths the company could find. Never again with Princess, so glad to be home.