My husband, son and I went on the last northbound Alaska cruise of the season aboard the Island Princess. We have cruised before on Royal Caribbean and Celebrity. This was our first Princess cruise and will most probably be our last. I was waiting for Princess to contact me due to my survey answers, but that never happened. So, I decided that it was time to let other people know my opinion because Princess didn’t care enough to contact me and try to keep me as a customer.

Guest Services needs improvement. All of the little things that could be resolved easily were not done. I received misinformation about their scavenger hunt and where to put the entry. There was no apology for a mail merge that went crazy and placed different first names on a personalized letter. On day 6, when I asked why the whole atrium smelled of smoke since day 3, I was told that the smell was investigated and there was no problem. When I insisted on an answer, the supervisor called and left a message that a passenger had opened a fire door. So, I was to believe that Princess couldn’t get rid of smoke for 3 days due to a fire door. This is poor maintenance of the ventilation system. My son’s room smelled of burning rubber and was told by Guest Services that a belt was burning and the smell would be gone in 10 minutes. The smell was still present on the next morning. Belts don’t just burn. This is a maintenance issue and the belt should have been changed long before it started to burn.

During the trip, the naturalist told us about a whale sighting and a glacier sighting. Both events were during first seating dinner. Princess should have passed these points outside of scheduled dinner times. This shows a lack of concern about why passengers sail to Alaska and what they want to see during the cruise. Read more