GRAND PRINCESS Reviews

So we're currently onboard Grand Princess travelling on the cruise to nowhere. We were supposed to leave San Pedro on the 25th of September, stopping at Cabo (overnight), Loretto (cancelled due to closing the port tocruise ships), Guymas (replacement for Loretto), La Paz, Puerto Vallarta, and back to San Pedro.

Then came the Hurricanes (plural). 2 days prior to sailing, all passengers were notified that Cabo was out, as were Guymas and La Paz and Puerto Vallarta. They would try for Mazatlan and maybe Cabo on the way back. Guests could cancel with a full rebookable credit (no refunds) or take the cruise and get $100 credit pp. Looking at all the empty cabins on our deck and the not crowded venues onboard, I'd guess 30-35% cancelled.

We were originally booked into a mini suite. A couple of days prior to being notified of the change in itinerary, Princess emailed and offered is a paid downgrade from the mini suite to an aft premium balcony and cash (more on that later), as they had massively oversold the mini suites. The cash back came to just shy of $4,000. This on top of our $200 each OBC and $100 shareholder credit. Oh yeah, we're on the Princess Plus pkg.

Fast forward to day of the cruise. We arrived at 12:30 and as we are Elite and my wife is in an electric wheelchair, we literally cruised right onboard. The only stop was to let them run our passports and take pictures. Went right to our cabin. Cabin was half ready, no bar setup, but easy for us to kick back. Looked over the rail at the Vista suite next door and saw it was empty..... as in they cancelled. Called down to guest services to ask if it was available to upgrade. They said someone was getting it and we'd be put on the list and notified asap. No worries. The aft PB was fine. This was #26 for us on Princess and we were already booked on Diamond P in a Vista suite for back to backs in February.

So off we sail........ to San Diego....... for an overnight.......

day 2 wake up to the sight of 3 Navy aircraft carriers and 2 Navy LST's, along with great views of the Coronado naval air station (never saw so many AH-64 attack helicopters in one place before). By afternoon, still no word about upgrading. Went to dinner in the main DR and saw many empty tables and staff standing around trying to look busy.

Day 3 wife again calls down and asks to speak to the hotel manager (shes not playing around anymore), tells him about the non wait list and the no callbacks and the lie about it being taken by someone, says the Vista suite next door is is still empty and can we upgrade?. He says he'll check and see what's going on and get back to her. 10 minutes later he calls back and says we can have it for $840. She asks "per person'?. He say, no in total! BAM! sold. Now remember, they already refunded almost 90% of the money we paid for this cruise (other than the casino voucher for an inside cabin we get for a few different Vegas casinos every year), so $840 for one of the 10 or so Vista suites is a gift. They send down an officer to help us move everything next door. Took maybe 15 minutes. We settle in to our new digs and find yet another full bar setup. 4 times the room, huge balcony and no neighbors other that the50-60 year old party goers in the handicapped cabin across the hall.

So we finally pull out of San Diego and the Captain comes on the PA with the news we're going to try and avoid hurricane Polo, so no Cabo. No La Paz,No PV (even though Polo never gets close to any of them. It goes across Baja along the middle, 125 miles away from Cabo. No biggie, we've been to every Mexican port at least 15 times.

But now we are again Suite occupiers, so Reserved dining.

day 5 we find ourselves hitting the forward bands of ANOTHER hurricane, Rachel. And she;s no playing games. By late afternoon we;re hitting 15-20' waves and a 50-75 MPH wind of the starboard side. By sunset we're pitching up down a good 15-20 degrees and rolling 10-12 degrees

It's starting to remind me on the first Princess cruise we took (early '90's) in the Caribbean where they ordered everyone back to their cabins and people were rolling out of their beds. YeHa!

We manage to survive the roller coaster ride from hell and get safely to Mazatlan, our ONLY foreign port (remember, ships sailing from or to the USA HAVE to hit a foreign port or face huge fines).

Last night, we finally got the compensation offer that people have been clamoring for. All guests (except Princess casino booked) get a 50% discount from their current booking (this cruise) to be applied to a future Princess cruise through the end of 2027. The casino folks got $500 in onboard credit.

So, that's my take on Grand Princess. She's old, but tough. Her next cruise when we get back is a trans pacific to Australia. Then she comes back and is going into dry dock. She needs to work.

I have been on the grand a few times before in the past when she was a young ship and you know they’ve kept it up pretty good being 21 years old or so I expected more wear and tear, but I brought a first time cruiser with me this time and she enjoyed it tremendously never been on a cruise and I thoroughly enjoyed the cruise being satisfied with the condition of the ship, she is still a good ship to sail up the inland passage. We were on there for two weeks though back to back out of Vancouver. The food was fairly good not like it used to be. Seems like they’ve cut back in some areas, but I was satisfied being older, eating less than I used to the meals work seem like less choices in each each part of the meal desserts were just so so but still a good value overall entertainment was a couple nights that were good other nights they could just get rid of those shows and nobody ever miss him. I think when the ship is older, it seems like they don’t put their best productions on just kind of filler type stuff not what I’m used to having cruised almost 50 times I’m various ships.

This will be the last time I sail on Princess. This cruise was just a mess all around and this ship (Grand) needs to be scrapped. First, don't bother with the premier package - this ship cannot accommodate it. They limit the number of drinks you can purchase and there are no suite amenities like a lounge. Ship is understaffed. Good mediocre. Crew seemed unhappy.

The cabins were not ready until around 2pm on embarkation day so the common areas were crowded with bags and people. The casino staff were rude. The activities on board were minimal. They had beer pong - yay - and a presentation on where to eat at the next port. Given the price of this cruise they just simply did not deliver. I've had much better experiences on other cruise lines so we will not be booking with Princess again. Please read the other reviews this seems to be a common sentiment.

Find a different cruise line.

We did one way from Whittier, AK to Vancouver, Canada. Traveling with 2 kids (12 and 6).

The roof of the main buffet (Hoirzon Court) is leaking, you can enjoy some dirty water droplets on your food plate as well. All over the place were buckets catching dripping water.

Corridors are all leaking and constanly industrial fans are running to keep them dry.

The entire place smells with strong paint and chemical ordor.

Pools are disgusting and over 101F degrees hot. Overfilled, where 3ft 9in min height is actually over 6ft deep.

Food is absolutely subpar. Buffet has only a few options and you would need to add salt and pepper by yourself to get the taste. Only the breakfast was good.

Kids have nothing to do. They were bored the whole time. Their are 3 childcare places based on age, but all of them were pretty small with nothing of interest to kids.

Everything is charged extra, so you end up paying the same as any other high end cruise lines, but get a subpar experience.

The only reason we picked this was this is one of the cruises to go into Glacier Bay. But if you want a better cruise experience, avoid this at all cost. Take a separate glacier boat tour like Kenai Fjords, which gets you the same wild life and glacier experience.

We did the 7-day cruise first followed by the 7-day land tour second (PA7). Some would say to do it the other way around, but we wanted to see College Fjord on the cruise which necessitated doing the cruise first. We didn’t feel that doing the cruise first was problematic.

We went June 27 – July 11. Should have gone July 11 – 25 or July 25 – August 7 to see the salmon running. We did not get to see the salmon running, which was a major disappointment to us. Our weather was perfect; it rained only 1 out of 14 days which is amazing by Alaska standards.

We would grade the cruise portion of the tour 9 out of 10. We rode on the Grand Princess and took a state room with a covered balcony on the starboard side which you want to do when heading north from Vancouver to Whittier. We did the Premier package. The food, drinks, entertainment and service were outstanding. Our only complaint about the cruise was that Captain John Foster was unwilling to allow bridge tours. We were celebrating our 40th wedding anniversary but that carried no weight. We felt this was lousy guest relations. We were told that the next Captain taking the ship back to Vancouver would have accommodated our request for a bridge tour. One other small complaint was that there was no BOTTLED water available even though it was published that Princess Premier includes BOTTLED water. Water out of an aluminum can is horrible.

Travel Advisor reviews as follows. These excursions were NOT Princess related comments:

White Pass Scenic Railroad: Save your money and do a wildlife tour instead. Unless you have never seen mountains, trees, water, or you are a major train buff. We felt this was basically a waste of time and money.

Whale Watching / Mendenhall Glacier Tour: We did see several whales doing tail flips, no breaches. The whales were a modest distance away from the boat, so it was not spectacular. The Mendenhall Glacier portion of the tour was a waste of time and money. The Glacier was like a mile away; it is a dirty retreating patch of ice.

We would grade the land portion of the tour a 3 out of 10. We should have rented an SUV and done the land portion independently, not through the Princess package. There was way too much down time waiting around and riding prisoner of war buses with old, broken, slow-moving people aboard. We felt like we wasted nearly 4 days out of 7. We spent a good 14 hours on those buses. We feel like we wasted $3000 due to all the down time. You are only allowed 2 pieces of luggage for 2 people for 7 days. Our other 2 pieces of luggage were sent ahead to Fairbanks, and we were without them for all 7 days. We lived out of 2 suitcases for 7 days and they had to be repacked 5 times. Luggage must be packed up and set outside your room by 7:00 or 8:00am each day and is unavailable until late in the day. You must have everything you might need or want during the day in your personal backpack. The Princess lodges have no Wi-Fi in the rooms, no small refrigerator, and there are no fitness rooms whatsoever. The Denali Princess room was like a dormitory room; there was no room to unpack your suitcases whatsoever.

Here are some specifics day by day from the Land portion of the tour:

Day 1 – this day was a total waste. We were the very last people to be allowed to disembark the ship at 10:30am. We sat in a lounge for 3 hours like prisoners waiting to get off the ship. Had we done the land portion independently, we would have been allowed to disembark at 7:30am. We then faced a 2 plus hour bus ride to Kenai where there was nothing to do besides a cheesy 4th of July parade.

Day 2 – this day was not bad although we did face another 2 hours on buses to and from our Kenai Fjords Aialik Glacier excursion which involved a 6-hour boat ride. The Glacier was spectacular.

Day 3 – this day was a total waste. We faced another 6-hour bus ride plus a 2 hour stop in Anchorage to kill time. We went to 49th State Brewhouse for lunch but that was not an Alaskan experience. When the bus finally arrived at McKinley Princess, Mount Denali was visible. The lady from the lodge went on and on about the facilities while we were itching to get off the bus to see Mount Denali, which luckily we were able to do. Just let us off the damn bus, we are not prisoners!

Mt. McKinley Princess Lodge had well below average food for dinner and for breakfast. I had the worst pork chop I have ever eaten (couldn’t even finish it). The service was also horrible (at one point I went and found my own coffee and creamer).

Day 4 – this day was a total waste and the most irritating day of all. We had to have our luggage put out at 7:00am and it was not even picked up until 8:30am. Then we had to sit in the lobby for 5.5 hours until another prisoner of war bus arrived at 1:30pm. More down time and with no luggage available. Then, yet another 2-hour bus ride to Denali.

Day 7 – this day was a near total waste. The morning featured yet another prisoner of war bus to the Gold Dredge excursion which was just so-so. But then, our bus would not start, and the decision was made to send a mechanic instead of another bus. We stood in the parking lot for over 1 hour and were then taken for another 1-hour drive around Fairbanks to kill time. At 1:48pm we were waived off the 2:15pm Riverboat portion of the excursion, so we got screwed out of 1 hour of 2 hours on the Riverboat on a beautiful day. It was an unacceptable error in judgement by not immediately sending another bus instead of first TRYING a mechanic who could not get the bus started. It was also an unacceptable error in judgement by waiving us off the first leg of the Riverboat with 27 minutes to get 40 people boarded. This whole situation really soured our last day on the Land portion of our tour.

I thought this cruise was a great value. Food was way better than our expectations. Service from every crew member was phenomenal. We enjoyed each port and obviously the glaciers were breathtaking. I know it's an old ship but I don't feel like you feel it unless you are purposely seeking the imperfections. The ship never felt crowded, disembarkation and embarkation were both a breeze. Even tendering in Skagway was relatively painless. Glacier viewing without a balcony on the outside decks was manageable due to the the relatively lower number of passengers. Ship was smaller so got pretty close to the glaciers.

Some cons were that the fitness center gets crowded on sea days, pools while are a plenty still get filled with kids. Hot tubs are always taken, especially by kids. The entertainment skews retirement feeling like a lot of game shows and trivia but even we in our early 30s still partook with pleasure. The shows were not bad, considering it's just 45 min and free. Comedians were funny enough and nice mature change of pace.

Horrible.

1. Luggage destroyed between bag drop off and to room

2. Charged every single day for spa services....but didnt do spa

3. Out of 7 people excursions...4 excursions planned, my 14 year old daughter's tickets to two of them "weren't paid for" ...but i showed confirmation AND credit card transactions. Was hijacked to spending money to get the 2 missing...Just to only get one out of the two..so now we cant go and they won't refund..because who would leave their 14 year old alone on a ship while whale watching?

4. $100 credit for luggage that cost 300

5. Customer service couldn't care less

This was supposed to be a cruise of a lifetime. I've sailed carnival, royal carribean and celebrity....I thought princess was supposed to exceed two of those lines. Nope. Not at all. I literally was on the carnival cruise when the bridge collapsed in Baltimore..and they made sure to take care of us. I spend my entire life/work problem solving. All this trip has been is problems. Not travel. Not the insane hotel prices in Vancouver for being world cup....the cruise is a nigntmare