Princess Cruises Reviews 825

I called Princess Cruises today as I wanted to feedback the fantastic service I received onboard our recent Sky Princess cruise and even the service shoreside was as brilliant as it was onboard. Fantastic holiday from start to finish.

I am writing to formally raise a complaint regarding our recent cruise with Princess Cruises, which commenced on Saturday, 28th September. While our initial impressions and overall onboard experience were positive, a number of issues unfortunately impacted our enjoyment and comfort throughout the trip.

We were allocated cabin E112, and from the very first night, it became clear that the location of this cabin caused significant noise disturbances. The cabin is situated between two areas used frequently by the crew, resulting in constant door banging and general movement throughout the night. I later learned from a crew member that the noise was caused by staff using these access doors and by cleaning teams operating in that area.

After almost a week of interrupted sleep, I contacted the online customer service team (I believe this call was recorded) to report the ongoing problem — which included both the constant door banging and the sound of running water from piping above our cabin. Although a South American crew member was sent to investigate and there was a brief improvement for one night, the disturbances resumed immediately afterwards and continued for the remainder of the cruise.

As a sleep apnea user, I also rely on specific equipment during the night. Unfortunately, the mask cover for my machine went missing during luggage delivery, which added further stress and inconvenience to an already difficult situation.

Due to these factors, I experienced severe sleep disruption throughout the cruise, which significantly affected my ability to enjoy what should have been a relaxing holiday. I attempted to address this issue at the Guest Services desk, but the queues were consistently long and it was difficult for me to stand for extended periods.

I have already submitted feedback through the online survey, but I wanted to formally document this complaint for your review. I would appreciate confirmation that my concerns have been received and that they will be investigated appropriately.

To be clear, the remainder of our experience — the food, entertainment, and the friendliness of the crew — was very good. However, the lack of proper rest due to cabin noise and the loss of my medical equipment component had a lasting negative impact on our trip.

I would appreciate your response outlining what steps will be taken to prevent this from happening to other passengers and to offer suitable compensation for the distress and inconvenience caused.

Thank you for your time and attention to this matter.

Yours sincerely,

Cabin: E112
Cruise Date: 28th September 2025
Contact: [Your Email / Phone Number]

My husband and I had a carribean cruise planned and paid for. Three weeks before we were to leave my husband was diagnosed with cancer, He is on radiation and chemotherapy. His doctors advised him not to travel. I called Princess several times but no one would put me through to a supervisor. Finally someone told to send an email to customer support and to also send in documentation. Janet Sweeney called me in the morning and told I would get a full refund - she was so sweet and so caring. The fact that I could not get a supervisor was extremely frustrating but the customer support was responsive,

1) Three days without heat in our cabin.
2) Dirty stained toilet and it took two days to get a response to our complaint.
3) Overall poor attitude toards customer care and satisfaction.
4) Will never never ever go on a Princess cruise again !

Using live chat for information on cancelling a cruise, we are told that you can move your cruise for a 100 admin fee which takes over the deposit on the cruise to a new cruise...

You can move the booking to "Any cruise and any price" to do this call us on the telephone.

You do this yet are told, no you cannot move your cruise unless you spend more than the original cruise.

Not willing to help at all, despite this is Princess giving out incorrect information to guests.

not a good experience - sometimes not their fault sometimes was. We were on Emerald Princess and 3600 passenger cruise to Greenland and Iceland. They amended the days that they were in the ports in Greenland, it was a pain as I had local trips booked not through the ship but ok it happened. Nanortilik was one port and they knew before they arrived they only had one ender spot - it was a total carnage to get off - this was stopped at approx 1430 and then to get back was just ridiculous, from about 1400 the queue never went down with upto a 2 hr wait to get on the tender - they know how long a tender takes to dock and load and they never took this into account.
Next issue was items running out - like skimmed milk, didnt realise it had run out at first when we asked and staff brought out watered down full milk ... eh. They then admitted they were out and would stock up in Iceland - can understand why they didnt restock in Greenland. Get to Iceland and no they didnt restock the skimmed milk(they never semiskimmed sadly) and again staff tried to pass off watered down full fat.

there were a few other minor quibbles but the main one now is two accounts were in credit due to a trip we cancelled as they kept changing the details , one account was in debit - this was claimed by them within the week., over 4 weeks later the two accounts in credit have not been refunded - they do not reply to emails to either their .com or .co.uk email addresses and the helpdesk is totally useless being told two different things by 2 different people. They are a joke of a company and will not use Princess again as there are a lot better lines out there. Also forgot to mention on the first day they tried to poison me lol - asked for soft boiled eggs, over 30 mins later they arrived after everyone else had had their brekkie and soft boiled is an understatement - they had been introduced to the water and both the yolk and most of the white was nowhere cooked - tried to explain server but he just stared blankly - also they dont know what an egg cup was.

We are going on a cruise in November 2025, we are booking some excursions, I have a query about one of the excursions, so far I have phoned Princess cruises twice, on both occasions I was told that they would get back to me, nobody has contacted me so far, my worry is, how can they sell excursions if they can't answer a simple question about it. I can only hope that the cruise is run more efficient than customer services

We travelled with Princess cruises in June. We purchased the soda packages yet every time we ordered soft drinks we was charged, nobody seemed to know what the soda drinks package included. We spoke to guest relations on the ship, who didn’t know either until they printed off the package details and confirmed what we was ordering was included in the drinks package, so had the charges removed.

For the whole of the cruise we was charged for soft drinks, every day I was at guest relations having charges removed. Adding all the time up I spent at guest relations complaining and having charges removed added up to the equivalent to 3 full days at work.

I emailed Princess cruses whilst I was on the cruise, I emailed them on the day I returned to UK and I have emailed them 4 times since. Yet nobody has bothered to contact me, it is now 3 months since my original complaint but they do not care, there is no care for their customers and once they got your money they wipe their hand of you and are not bothered they ruined our 2 week cruise.

MY ADVICE WOULD BE IF YOUR THINKING OF BOOKING A CRUISE, AVOID PRINCESS CRUISES.

We thought we paid for everything on our cruise but had not. Items not included such as ice cream and wine tasting were extra. However we didn't realise this due to poor communication by cruise staff - very small stars and dots where the small print. We complained and asked for a refund of £69 which was agreed however we were 'victim blamed'. They finally agreed a refund but we had to deal with a complex system operated by NatWest Bank who required us to fill in a questionnaire. We did not fill it in and were subsequently passed to an Indian call centre who contacted us at 12 midnight. Nothing happened. Passenger care is very poor and I do not recommend Princess Cruise to friend and colleagues.

We thought we were on one cruise - turns out there were two cruises. People from the USA kept telling us how cheap it was - they paid for one cruise and were offered the second for $250US per person. We, on the other hand, paid over $18,000 AUD for the same experience. As you now have a rule that if one person takes a package the person travelling with them must also take a package, I paid
$2,248.08 AUD for one drink a day. You can say that we could have 2 fitness classes (we are almost 80) easier to walk the deck, also we could have premium desserts (2 per day) - too much sugar for us and far too rich - we would have ended up in hospital. My husband drinks and I drink one a day so in effect, I paid $2,248.08 for one drink. I am not going to change drinking habits at my age. Our phones didn't work but we did manage to get a few emails away in the computer lounge. My husband is a Veteran yet we only received one Veterans payment even though we had to settle up at the Casino because it was in fact, two cruises which you acknowledged by restocking the bar. We have been very loyal to Princess but in all the time we have sailed with you, we have never been given an upgrade or an offer or anything to help us. To add insult to injury, I have always paid for my own drinks but this time the charge was excessive for the 19 drinks I had. I could go on but won't. Suffice to say very disappointed. The staff were great as always and we are still waiting for Princess to send us a staff review. Sailing with Princess before Covid was a very different experience to sailing with you after Covid. Final straw was no church services at all even though we had free Sundays.

Lost luggage...no clothes..toiletries..shoes..formal ware..etc....no help from anyone aboard ship....missed many events because of the wrong clothing...cruise is half over when we get our luggage very disappointed in our once in a lift time dream trip.
.so sad

Sent my autistic boy home early........
This ship and staff can not handle any form of special needs. Refused refund and im never going to be able to take my boy on holiday ever again after this experience.

This from a UK perspective - Princess Cruises is very much an American company and the differences between what's on offer there and for their UK customers is slightly different.

The good point is the onboard experience itself. Sky Princess sailing was hard to fault, service, cleanliness and facilities all first class. OK, cabins/staterooms are smaller than on other lines but they are well maintained.
There were some issues with other cruisers but staff did their best to sort these as they happened.

What lets Princess down is the pre/post cruise service from the UK office. Problems before cruise with promotions were ignored, with even an escalation to management getting a generic 'couldn't care less' response. Lots of reference to US only policy and terms and conditions that don't apply in UK.

British isles cruise June 26-July 8
1st - Orkney island port got changed well b4 we left. This was a huge disappointment.
2nd - Edinburg port missed after about 45 minutes of them trying to anchor. Said the water was too rough. They had missed the same port with the prior cruise as well. I feel like there’s a problem there other than the water. This was seriously the most important port of the entire cruise. Plus, we had an excursion scheduled(not through Princess) so that was $ lost.
3rd - La Havre port. We missed our bus to Paris because they were having a tall ship exhibit going on so all the draw bridges were up and weren’t going to be available until 11am. Another excursion $ lost. I felt like the ship should have know this and let us know.
4th - Twice in one day I had hair in my food at the buffet. Buffet was fairly repetitive and food was somewhat bland. They sent chocolate covered strawberries to our room, as an apology.
5th - Service is just not readily available or friendly other than our room steward.
Jose our steward was excellent.
Drinks in the buffet were pretty much self service for the most part.
6th - some of the entertainment was fairly lame. The hypnotist, the Talsmen, can’t remember his name, but male soloist, and the ship quartet were not good.
Some of the entertainment was really good. Some of the ship entertainers and dance shows were good and the Whitney Houston tribute show was excellent.
7th - Too many tender ports. I think 3 ports were tender and the process seems convoluted to get a ticket and then wait for your number to be called.

Things that were good:
International cafe iced coffee drink, the bar tenders on deck 7 near Princess live, Aaron and Jed from the entertainment dept., beds were fairly comfortable, room steward (Jose) was excellent.

Certainly not enough good to outweigh the bad for the price that we paid. Won’t be traveling with Princess going forward. This was our 4th cruise, 1st with Princess and by far, our worst and most expensive.

🔴 WARNING: Princess Cruises Denied Boarding to Autistic Grandson – 17 Days Later, Still No Resolution
I am writing this review to warn other travellers—especially vulnerable passengers—not to book with Princess Cruises.
On July 20th, my autistic 10-year-old grandson and I (a 65-year-old woman with mobility issues) were due to board a Princess Cruise from Southampton. After travelling over two hours from London, we were told at the terminal that the ship was overbooked, and we would have to wait around and hope someone didn’t show up so we could take their cabin.

After three hours of waiting, we were finally denied boarding—despite having fully paid, checked in, and followed every instruction. My grandson was in tears, devastated, and overwhelmed. A staff member named Alexandra was incredibly rude and slammed the door in our faces while my grandson cried.

What’s worse is that we’re not alone—another couple was also turned away after waiting hours in the terminal.

Despite multiple calls and messages since then, it’s now been 17 days, and Princess Cruises has done nothing except make vague promises of a refund. The cruise we were booked on was at an outstanding offer, and now even the promised cruise credit and refund wouldn’t get us anything near the same standard.

Even the “replacement cruise without flights” they initially offered has now been withdrawn. Every option they’re presenting now would cost us more, even though this whole mess was caused by them.

What’s even more shocking is what I’ve since learned: Princess Cruises routinely overbooks their ships by 30 to 40 cabins, gambling that some passengers won’t show up due to things like missed connections, visa issues, or being late. So even if you pay in full and check in—you’re not guaranteed to actually board.

I’m not writing this for sympathy. I’m writing this so other families, especially those with disabled children or elderly members, can think twice before ever booking with Princess Cruises. The lack of care, accountability, and humanity we experienced was beyond unacceptable.

I am now beginning legal action, but above all, I want to ensure no one else goes through what we did.

Avoid Princess Cruises. Your money, your plans, and your family deserve better.

Terrible time on Sun princess, very poor service, flexible ding that is not flexible, ship badly organised and far too big. I have been on many Princess cruises but never again. Awful time on this ship, loud music everywhere and no peaceful areas, all the activities in the Piazza so always packed and no seating. Overall a terrible ship, don't use it.

Firstly, Princess Cruises turned out to be quite unreliable. We had six shore excursions planned, but the most important one — viewing the glaciers and icebergs — was canceled without adequate explanation. Another excursion, originally meant to take us to the city of Victoria, was substituted with a visit to a much smaller, unremarkable location, the name of which we don’t even remember. For these cancellations and itinerary changes, we were given just $200 USD per person as compensation — and even that had to be spent onboard. This felt insufficient and disappointing.

Secondly, getting access to drinking water onboard was surprisingly inconvenient. Guest cabins were located between decks 6 and 14 (we stayed on deck 8), but the only place with self-serve drinking water was on deck 15. Each time we needed water, we had to carry our own thermos all the way up, and elevator wait times could be long. Alternatively, bottled water (800ml) was available at the bar for over $3 USD each, but the bar staff were not always honest. On three occasions when two bottles were purchased, the family was twice charged for three. Refunds were only issued after complaints were made at the front desk.

Very disappointing.
This is the 8th cruise we’ve been on (including others from the same group - Royal Caribbean & Celebrity).

The ship (Sun Princess) is nice, but unless you are a meat eating American who likes X-factor style singers it isn’t for you.

The breakfast consists of around 20 stations, 17 of which seem to serve variations of exactly the same thing (bacon, sausage, beans, egg - and pretty much in the same format - e.g. there are no poached eggs or eggs Florentine.).

The buffet for dinner and tea is also poor. Same every day, and not great quality. It's also very bland. There are a couple of token Indian dishes, and even those are bland too.

The entertainment is naff singers for the main part. We had 2 dreadful comedians. The only bright spot was the magician (Mike Bones) who was great.

You have to pay for shuttles, the sunbeds get nabbed and left reserved all day without Princess doing anything about it, and even the kids sports area has basketballs but no football! It’s like non-Americans and non-meat eaters are second class citizens. Even the sandwich bar often only has a choice of meat sandwiches half of the time.

On top of that they force you to carry a tracker, and they state on their app that they are capturing your facial recognition data (no idea why, but it surely is unnecessary and seems a breach of privacy). I asked for a normal card rather than the tracker pendant (which is magnetic and emits EMF) but they said I couldn’t have a card.

I was looking forward to better entertainment and much better food, but left disappointed. This is the worse cruise we’ve been on for food, sport, entertainment and privacy.

I’m posting the review here, rather than at the end of the cruise, as if my experience with Celebrity is anything to go by, they tend not to bother listening to genuine feedback.

We booked the Princess Premier Package and for 2 days now they've blocked my stepsons medallion insisting he can only buy non alcoholic drinks. He's 28 years old!! The ship is tired and a lot smaller cabins than other cruiselines we've used. Spent more time at guest services than enjoying the actual cruise

The cruise experience itself was actually pretty good. The problem I have with them is a policy issue. My fiancee works for an airline and is able to get travel discounts, which she used to book the cruise. After booking I was looking at the Princess website and realized they offer a military/veterans onboard credit. As a vet I thought this was great. I went through the verification process and waited for my credit to be applied. And waited, and waited. I decided to call customer service to see why the credit hadn't been applied. I was told because my fiancee booked with her discount that I wasn't entitled to the veteran's credit. I'm not sure what one has to do with the other, but I hope Princess addresses this in the future.