Pacific Princess Review
Princess Small Ship vs. Oceania Small Ship: no contest!
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Pacific Princess and Oceania Regatta are exactly the same ships - small ships built for former Renaissance line. The comparison ends there. Pacific Princess is 4 start, Oceania Regatta is 5.5 stars and the difference is even bigger than 1.5 stars.
The buffet uses melmac dishes. I haven't seen those since 1965! For those of you unfamiliar, those dishes stain and are nasty. Italian day featured New England Clam Chowder and Matso ball soup. They are clueless. The food was hardly up to mediocre standards. 'Hot' sandwiches were on the buffet for the taking - they were totally dried out. I ventured to the dining room, thinking a sandwich would be freshly made. wrong....the same dried out stuff was served there. They ran out of bananas 3 days before the end of the cruise. The wait staff was inattentive. They consistently wandered around, eyes straight ahead, not looking to help the passengers. Those stationed behind the carving station were too busy with their own conversations to notice the passengers. I couldn't get a cup of coffee served to me in either the dining room or buffet area to save my life.....
The towels and bedding were shameful. The pool towels are way beyond their expiration date: stained, threadbare and in short supply. Bedding: As a solo traveler, I asked that the 2 twin beds be put together to form a larger bed. That was done, however, Princess did not put a mattress pad over the 2 pushed together beds. The simply covered them with a bottom sheet. One night I rolled over, and my elbow went through the bottom sheet and ripped it! The beds had started to separate and my elbow went into the separation and ripped the sheets. Really! It's a very poor piece of material that will allow an elbow to rip it. (and no, I am not an overweight slob). ....unless my elbow needs to be registered as a lethal weapon. The only morning the cabin staff vacuumed the hall carpet early was on New Year morning. 8:00 a.m. I was wakened by the sound of a vacuum cleaner banging on the hall walls. You can't make this stuff up.