Princess Cruise Food Complaint

Here is a shot of our ship, the Crown Princess in the harbor at the Greek island of Santorini. Beautiful ship, great accommodations but as a hotel/restaurant it was poorly managed.

With reference to the complaint below, I talked with another Princess Cruise guest who took a cruise to Alaska and her comments were the same -- nice ship, but the food was only average, and the timing of the entertainment was not passenger friendly.

As with my cruise, all of the good cuts of meat and fish were reserved for the additional pay restaurants, and the food in the regular restaurant was average at best. Like me, she had taken many cruises and the shipboard food was always magnificent. This time she said she may as well have eaten at Denny's, T.G.I. Fridays, etc. The steaks were no better than those at Ponderosa.

What really bugs me about this entire situation is that we already paid for the food as part of our trip package. Princess, however, is trying to bleed as many dollars out of the passengers as they can by shipping most of the better quality food to the pay restaurants. So, if you spend $50 per couple at the pay restaurant, you must remember that you have to add the amount from you fare to that total This just doesn't seem right to me.

Remember, I don't argue with the fact that they open pay restaurants, I am arguing with the fact that just about all of the better cuisine is available there, and not in the restaurant you would normally go to.

Are the other cruise lines doing the same thing? I don't know. If you do, please add a comment to this post.

Princess Cruises -- Rip Off Pro

It's bad enough to have to pay the ridiculously high prices that cruise lines demand in their shops, bars, etc., but Princess has let greed take them one step closer to becoming a pirate line rather than a cruise line.

First off, cruising is an expensive proposition, and I understand that completely. But when you start cutting back on the quality food in your restaurants to put them into the pay restaurants, then it's time to say wait a minute.

Princess, and other cruise lines, too, have added specialty restaurants to their pay as you go menu, so to speak. On my last cruise to Europe, Princess had several specialty restaurants that were from $20 to $25 per person added to your food bill. Remember, folks, this is in addition to the price for food you already paid in the trip package.

Princess also went further by taking the much higher quality food out of the standard restaurant, where most people eat, and put it in their specialty restaurants. In the past, the food in the restaurant was the best -- better than any restaurant you could find ashore. Now, however, the food is no better than at your average restaurant back in the good old U. S. of A.

I would say the food quality was one small step above Denny's, The Olive Garden, or one of the restaurant chains that feature average fare and lower prices. Where was the better food? At the specialty restaurants. I can understand taking some of the specialties away, but Princess took them all away. The biggest difference between Princess' Cruise Line's restaurant and Denny's or the local steak house or spaghetti shop? You can get out of there in an hour. It took the waiters at Princess two hours to serve us.