11-Day Cruise Aboard the EMERALD PRINCESS: Baja California and Gulf of Mexico Tour

Overall, I loved my cruise. I loved going to Alaska. I love going with my family. We had a great time entertainers the Irish duo and Cameron were terrific! The crooners bar and O’Malley‘s were also terrific the staff they were fantastic. However, aside from the great food at the Crown Grill the food was awful, completely awful planks that they advertise for barbecue. I don’t know what it was but it wasn’t barbecue the salty dog they didn’t even know how to cook the food correctly. They said they had something like chili, but it wasn’t chilly. I’m not sure it was some kind of being that you had to chew. I’m not sure we went to the da Vinci dining room. My sister got the salmon. It was so disgusting. We almost we were almost sick. It was poached and it was served with muscles. It stunk there was no side with it. I got some sort of a sirloin steak with some sort of a gravy on it. That was nasty on the sidenote my brother-in-law sister both got an upgrade with the filet mignon and it turned out great but they paid an extra $35 so unless you wanna pay extra for your meal, that’s going to be awful to mediocre. I did buy the premier plan so I was able to eat at Crown Grill, which was fabulous. We eat at Sabatini‘s however they don’t even let you keep the bread at your table. The guy comes around very frequently with one piece of bread and it’s stale. It’s stale because they’re not handing out the bread. They’re holding it hostage. it’s ridiculous that you can’t have a bread basket at your table. I don’t know about you, but I like having bread at my table. I felt like they were portioning it out rationing it. Maybe they were running out of bread I don’t know, but it was tacky. I went to the Chef dinner it was supposed to be spectacular. I couldn’t even eat it. It was very fishy. It stunk it was a lot of smelly seafood that smell smell smelled old. It was so unimpressed but they did give you a lot of wine so there’s that.. the staff was very nice. I will be sure to buy the premier plan so that I can eat at the Crown Grill when I go back to Princess, but I will bring suitcase of snacks and protein drinks. I’m just so disappointed in their food. We alsodid a wine experience dinner that was very good. They did not keep their bathrooms clean that was very disappointing and disgusting

Our problems started with Princess wifi system that did not work half the time. We found that if you are 55 or older you should not sail on Princess especially if you cannot climb stairs. Management was clueless and had people climbing up and down several flights of stairs to get off the ship. We were once required to meet at 12:35 to get off the ship and no manager showed up where they sent out message to our rooms after 2:00 and text at 12:45. Managers finallly showed at 1:30 and had everyone go up to the next level via the stairs where they later required everyone to go down 2 levels to get off the ship. The issues continued with the Princess food that was no better than warmed over cold and tuff. I can say that the management and staff over the dining room went the extra mile.

7-day Alaska Cruise out of Vancouver Canada.

The positives were the staff and the food at the Specialty restaurants for dinner each night, as well as the staff and food at Reserve dining for lunch. It rained at each port, and the Endicott arm scenic cruising was cancelled. I can't complain about the weather as is what it is.

The big negative resulting in less than 5 stars was the lack of hot water in the mornings to shower. On two occasions, including disembarkation morning when we had to be out of the stateroom by 8am, nothing but cold water coming out of the shower. Despite multiple reports to customer service to fix the hot water, the only response was too many people taking a shower at the same time, running out of hot water. Having hot water to shower is a basic expectation that Emerald Princess failed miserably. I can't recommend this ship.