This will be a lengthy, transparent, and fair review but anyone considering to go on a Princess cruise should read this to help make their decision. My family and I just returned from a 7 day Alaskan cruise on the Star Princess with several other families. I will preface this review with the fact that our older daughter has life threatening food allergies will include useful information for anyone traveling with kids who have food allergies or who themselves have food allergies/sensitivities.

This was our 6th cruise overall, 2nd Alaskan cruise, and the first time on Princess. We have previously cruised on NCL, Disney, Carnival, and Royal Caribbean. We had varying degrees of experiences on these cruise lines but all were positive. By far this experience with Princess ranked at the very bottom and was a very negative experience. Let me start with the pre-cruise issues. Due to my daughter's food allergies, we began to communicate with Princess via phone and email as they requested to make sure we knew how to manage her food situation during our vacation. When we had previously cruised we would normally provide a list of her food allergies and the cruise line would work with us to either ensure their normal stock of allergy friendly food items would work for us or, as was the case with NCL, would purchase the food and have it there for us during our trip. In this case, after providing the list, we were simply told to work with the head maître d on board. I went back and forth with customer service and in an attempt to find what they stocked and to what degree they would be able to prepare dry packaged foods that we brought in case they did not carry the brands suitable for her. To my surprise neither I nor the customer service representatives could speak directly to the food department. After numerous attempts to obtain more information Princess stopped responding and I was forced to give up.

At this point Princess was unwilling to give me any details to help us prepare and had took an odd stance telling me that my daughter's allergies are my responsibility and that I am traveling at my own risk. It was an absurd statement – it's my daughter of course I'm responsible - and was a sign of what was yet to come. Thinking ahead, we packed an entire suitcase of dry food to last the week because we had no idea what to expect. Based on our previous experiences cruising we thought it would be a lot easier once we got on the ship and that they would be adequately prepared. In fact, we thought we were probably unnecessarily worrying. After all, cruise ships have endless food and large staff to ensure guests thoroughly enjoy their vacation. Read more