On portions...better too much than not enough.

On 7/31/2012 11:22 PM, wrote:
Just finished my first Princess cruise on the Dawn Princess.

I don't know whether the flaws I found are specific to the ship or if
they are fleet wide.

a) I have never been charged for room service before. Dawn Princess
had a $6.00 charge plus tip.

b) Using a scooter, I found getting back on the ship extremely
difficult. Many times I could get off the ship on a nice smooth ramp,
but when I came back to the ship the ramp either was steps or it had
one inch square wooden cross pieces about every foot. Both these
configurations required that I walk up the ramp and the scooter be
carried up.
There were a lot of tender ports on this cruise and the tenders
were easier with the scooter than the ports where we docked. Although
I will say that one of our table mates fell getting onto the first
tender and was basically out of action for the rest of the cruise
because she injured her leg so badly.

c) The Princess Patter sucked and it was not delivered until late in
the evening. On other ships, the next day's schedule was delivered
while we were at dinner.

d) There weren't enough elevators - I often had to wait 10 minutes for
an elevator at dinner. I realize that this is a small ship, but the
aft elevators only go to decks 8 and up, so they are basically
useless.

e) Many of the passengers either came on board with or got the flu.
There was no real effort to deal with this other than periodic
announcements about hand washing. Someone at our table had a bad cough
and two of us at the table also got a bad cough. I already have a
compromised respiratory system which is why I need the scooter. Last
year I was sick with pneumonia for three months. I was sick for the
whole last part of the cruise and missed snorkeling at the Great
Barrier Reef which was the main reason that I took this cruise. I
have had both a flu and pneumonia shot - they claimed that the flu in
Australia was different from the flu in the US.

f) The ship was late to Airlie Beach and there weren't enough tenders
to take people to shore - we didn't get to shore until about 4:30 and
we didn't get to see much of the town at all. About all we did was
take the shuttle bus in and back to the tender dock and we were on the
next to last tender back to the ship and got back too late for dinner.

There were good things. Our room steward and waiters, the port
consultant (and maps of the port), the excursions that I was able to
take, our table mates, and the computer room guy were all bright
spots.

The food was good in some spots and not so good in other spots. I
felt that the portions were too big. I usually but not always got
help in the Lido.