Golden Princess Review
Rating by category
Additional details
This ship is in dire need of retirement.
Embarkation and disembarkation: Boarding the ship went well - no problems here. Disembarkation was also fine until the staff member went to scan our room cards as we were leaving the ship and they had already been deactivated. We then had to queue at a separate desk and check out manually. That was not great.
Ship: Dated, in dire need of repairs. I exited my room one evening to find face towels laying in the corridor. I thought someone had spilled a cup of tea or something but it was actually the roof leaking god-knows-what. There was also some sort of issue in the day spa area. It seemed that water from the adjoining pool area overflowed into the spa area saturating the carpet. A large blower fan was brought up to try and dry it out but the stink from wet carpet was intolerable. Smelt like rotting garbage. Everything just looked a bit tired. It's no wonder the thing is being sold off.
Cabin Review
Interior
Stateroom: I had to book an interior room as I was cruising with two other couples (who had nice looking balcony and mini suite rooms) and couldn't afford a balcony room on my own. Once I finally got into my room (the door handle jams and I had to try 4 or 5 times most times to get into my room) the room itself - other than being very old and dated - was fine. HOWEVER - it was located right next to the engine room (B537). Upon booking this room and noticing on the map that it was next to empty space, I just assumed it was a linen closet or similar storage area. How wrong was I! The entire cruise was interrupted with the clanging of pipes (think coke bottle lid flicking around in an aircon vent) from the engine area plus the hum of the engine itself. It was awful and made it difficult to sleep! I reported it and nothing was done. I also lost TV reception every time we docked at a port. Not a huge drama but I enjoy watching a bit of telly before going to sleep and unless I wanted to watch nothing but ship channels (endless ads), there wasn't much to enjoy here. The bed was also in need of replacement - the mattress was uncomfortable as were the pillows that just flattened out as soon as you laid on them. I also struggled at times to get the onboard wifi signal so that I could communicate with my friends on board and make plans to meet etc. There were two USA electrical outlets that were placed so close together that I could never plug in any more than one device at a time. I could have requested a power board but I just made do.
Port Reviews
Port Lincoln
Visit Line and Label restaurant! SO GOOD!!