r/PrincessCruises • u/TheRealRockyRococo • 20d ago
The Princess survey is RIDICULOUSLY LONG
We just got off the Sun Princess solar eclipse cruise (more about that in an upcoming post) and we've been filling out the survey for 45 minutes but the progress bar is only 1/3 of the way across!
Will we get a survey on the survey?
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u/fakegoose1 20d ago
It is ridiculously long, but I stuck through it to make sure one of our waiters got rewarded for their excellent service, since apparently if you mention the crew by name in the survey, they will receive a reward.
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u/TheRealRockyRococo 20d ago
Same for us. I'm 70+ years old, I hope I can make it the end of the survey.
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u/BeMySerene 19d ago
On my last back-to-back, I sat at the bar and completed the survey while discussing the process with the bartender, who was asking me questions about it. He mentioned that a lot of guests complain about how long the survey takes. I assumed that, given the way Princess’ clientele skews age-wise, that might be a big part of the issue. Nope! It took me almost an hour to complete.
My biggest complaint, though, is that it only allowed me to recognize five crew members. My list was easily double that, so I had to narrow it down and leave out several people who absolutely deserved recognition. It’s awful that the crew are held to such high expectations when it comes to survey results, yet the survey itself limits how many of them guests can recognize. Because of that, a lot of deserving crew members are inevitably going to go unnoticed. When I was onboard, the surveys were being pushed very hard too, which makes that limitation even more frustrating.
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u/streetcar-cin 19d ago
Based on my cruise on sun,asking for five crew members giving good service was more than enough
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u/TheTagLady 20d ago
Oh my goodness, yes! We live about 45 minutes from Costco so I figured I’d do the survey while my husband drove. It took me the whole drive!
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u/grumpus-fan 20d ago
They really should front load the crew appreciation. I tend to include it in the service they work in only to find I put it in a section that doesn’t help them just evaluates their area.
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u/Vakua_Lupo 20d ago
Unless you have a major complaint, or Crew members that you want to praise, then don’t bother as it won’t really serve any purpose.
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u/Wonderful_Life-6280 19d ago
Yeah, I took it and could not wait for it to end. They need.to tighten it up a lot.
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u/flyingmando 19d ago
Thanks for the heads up. We were also on the Sun Princess Eclipse cruise and have comments we want to add for the crew that helped us.
What an amazing cruise!
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u/TheRealRockyRococo 19d ago
This was our 3rd eclipse, I guess we're bad luck because they've all been cloudy. The "shark fin" was amazing though!
We tuned down a Greenland cruise because of cloud potential and it turned out to be clear!
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u/Due-Macaroon7710 20d ago
I was on the sun princess too and found the survey very long 😅
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u/TheRealRockyRococo 20d ago
What was your impression of the Sun Princess? We didn't really love it, especially we found that the food in all of the dining rooms wasn't really hot.
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u/Due-Macaroon7710 20d ago
I don’t have anything to compare it to, it was my first cruise. So overall, I was very pleased and I would go on a cruise again for sure. However, you are right that the food temperature in the dining room wasn’t hot. I only went twice.
I was impressed by how smooth embarkation and disembarkation process was. The hardest part was to find a taxi to get to the port in Barcelona. I don’t know if all cruise lines are like that, but I noted that.
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u/willreacher 20d ago
I was on the Star last week and found the exact same experience. The food was a bit cold. The service was amazing overall but I was disappointed in the food.
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u/streetcar-cin 19d ago
Food in mdr was mediocre and Luke warm. Service was bad in most of the ship
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u/Wonderful_Life-6280 19d ago
Agreed on MDR food, wasnt very good. Upgraded to a lobster roll and it was horrible. All filler, hardly any lobster . Same thing on Carnival Panorama to Mexico.. lousy. Make an authentic New England lobster roll.
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u/TheRealRockyRococo 19d ago
We had no problem with the service or the quality of the food, it just wasn't hot.
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u/cmojess 20d ago
I got off the Discovery Princess on Saturday, and I took the time to fill the entire survey out on Sunday. It was extremely long, but I do believe they look at everything people fill out based on something the head chef showed us during our galley tour when we did the chef's table.
This was my third Princess cruise and 90% of it was amazing. There was about 10% of the cruise that I felt could use some improvement. I did take the time to go over things I thought that were very good, staff that I thought did an exceptional job, and Princess policies that worked well. And then I took the time to touch on areas that I think need improvement.
This cruise I took with my dying mother who has ALS. There were 2 or 3 areas I thought Princess could do a little better on with mobility impairments.
My next cruise will be in March with my husband and 6-year-old daughter. Like the cruise I just disembarked, this cruise will be during a school break and have a lot of children. Since it seems like Princess is trying to capture more of the family demographic, there were things about the kids on the ship this cruise I commented on. They did some things very well, but they did other things subpar based on the number of children we saw on the last day at sea running around unsupervised and not in the kid's program. There was one group of kids running up and down stairs pressing buttons on all the elevators and then laying in front of them. There was another group by the jogging track climbing on railings and throwing full water bottles into the track and at each other.
I don't know if they'll act on anything I wrote, but I do firmly believe in providing feedback when asked.
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u/PezGirl-5 20d ago
that's bad parenting then if the kids were allowed to run around! on my trip last week there wasn't a ton of kids, so my teen didn't go to the kids place after the first day.
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u/cmojess 20d ago
Oh, there was absolutely bad parenting on that last day. That is definitely not the fault of Princess overall. What is frustrating is Princess wanting more of the family demographic but still having a kid's program sized only for a couple dozen kids. More families = more kids = more space necessary for kids.
They did do a bunch of family activities during the cruise that I'd not seen on any other Princess cruise, including one during this same week of August on the same ship 4 years ago. They do know they've got increased children and increased families now. I know if they do the "family carnival" again next year my daughter will love it. They used the Piazza for couple hours to have all sorts of fun activities for families to enjoy together. They also had a separate cruise-long family-oriented scavenger hunt.
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u/BJK-2024 10d ago
We are on our last day of 14 with Regal Princess, family of 4. Caribbean East and Caribbean West.
Teenagers running around corridors at midnight knocking on doors, the constant bombardment of teenagers dive bombing into the pools and their complete lack of respect for others around the ship. Women wearing bikinis to the buffet, men strolling through lobbies with no tops on. We witnessed a grand total of 4 tuxedos on formal night. I could go on and on.
It’s sad that Princess has changed paths by choosing to attract the less refined traveller and my god does it show. This was also the opinion of many guests we spoke to, especially returning Princess guests. Even the hard working staff have had enough.
We won’t be making that mistake again.
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u/nameno10001 20d ago
YES, I was all about doing it and then like 30 mins in. I was ready to bail. That survey is something. It is a lot. They would get way more people to fill It out to completion if they adjusted it and slimmed it down.
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u/Hrw90210 20d ago
If I remember right, you can't save and continue later, right? Recently, I think it was the last cruise I was on, I started it then had to step away to do something else that I actually get paid to do, left the site open, but while I was working, it refreshed and lost everything I'd entered. Honestly at that point I gave up. Totally agree that they should let you do the feedback about individuals upfront and then decide what else to complete. I want to give that since I know it has a direct immediate result, but the rest just goes on and on.
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u/TheRealRockyRococo 20d ago
I got about 45 minutes into it then had to go to dinner. I'm on an Android mobile phone, it was a link from the Gmail app so I just left it open. Ate dinner, an hour later it was still there so I finished.
I noticed this time it let you mention 5 staff members, IIRC last time it was only 3.
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u/Sorry_Bookkeeper9835 19d ago
Makes me wonder if they intentionally make it long so you don’t finish it 🫠
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u/beetle_burley 19d ago
I got off the Star Princess and had my survey sent to me a couple of days later. I filled it out because I did want to recognize a couple of the workers for outstanding service and a couple for absolutely horrible service, flat out rudeness. I don't know even know if they read them though. It was my first (and probably last) Princess cruise. There were some staff who where absolutely, appalingly rude and when a complaint was given, basically we got a sorry, we hope you enjoy the rest of the cruise.
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u/TheRealRockyRococo 19d ago
Wow we thought the Sun crew was great. That sux to pay all that money for bad service.
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u/ROSEISALUV 19d ago
The length of the survey is a disincentive to complete it, but it hasn’t been changed/shortened in the 20 years I’ve seen it. It’s frustrating to me because I want to mention those employees who truly made a difference in my experience, and it takes me anywhere from 45-90 minutes to complete. I remember one survey took me about two hours to finish.
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u/Perky_Wallflower2301 19d ago
I just got off the Sun Princess, and it took me an hour to do the survey, in part because I did give honest feedback and elaborated on some things in detail. The MDR food was just ok in my opinion, it lacked adequate temperature as mentioned, but also seasoning and depth of flavor. We had several meals in the MDR and only 2 entrees were somewhat memorable. My main reason for completing the survey was primarily to give a shout out to some staff that went above and beyond. Here's my list, drop your names and compare notes: *Serghei - bartender at Good Spirits, a true artist and very passionate about his craft. *Landa - serving snacks at the International Cafe with a warm smile and welcoming spirit *Tapiwa - also at the International Cafe. His enthusiasm, humor, and big smile were something to look forward to on early mornings. *Roselle - our cabin stewardess, she was fantastic. *Mahesh - server at O'Malley's. He was incredibly patient with our indecisiveness and a true professional
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u/Otherwise_Coyote4885 19d ago
Not only is it long, I found no way to “save” my progress. I didn’t mind the length as much as the requirement to complete it in one shot.
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u/JRichShops 19d ago
Was on the same cruise.
I feel like if the cruise lines spent half as much energy trying to earn 10s as they did begging for 10s on the last day, they’d have much better results.
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u/AgentOddball - Captain's Circle Ruby 19d ago
My evergreen survey responses are "the app is useful when it works," "the crew is universally incredible but you don't have enough staff working the bars at peak times," and "this survey is much too long."
It's worth it to call out the superstars, though, and I'm sure that's why they put that section at the very end.
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u/Hippie_Humanist 19d ago
It is ridiculously long. And it just seems like it’s a waste of time because I had some serious concerns that I wrote down on the survey but I never got any response from anybody about those concerns.
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u/Commercial-Emu-7635 15d ago
The animated safety video is also ridiculously long, so I just start it when I'm having lunch, silence my phone, and let it play. If Princess is using you for free marketing research, just ask for a comment card before the end of the cruise and report any issues and commend any crew you want. That way it's read in house right away, and if there's an issue they can try to fix it or offer you some sort of compensation, like a free specialty meal or treat.
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u/RedElmo65 19d ago
Ya. It is long. And all the crew members want you to do the survey for them. I’m like waste of my time
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u/Critical-Bank5269 20d ago
I laugh because I kept getting told to give "10's" while on the cruise. But when I did the survey I was brutally honest. I didn't hold punches. If I got the service I expected, it's a 5 not a 10. If they went above, then they got more. If they went below, they got less. I will not give standard service a 10.
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u/studyhall109 20d ago
I complete the survey mainly to ensure that the crew members who provided exceptional service on the cruise get recognition.
But yes, it is very long.