underwhelmed

We were on the Norway&Northcape cruise 29th June to 13th July we booked quite early for this cruise and in January when the price went down we were given a reduction,after ringing Bolsover who in turn got in touch with Princess, but of course the fares continued to go down and almost everyone held out for a better deal, we thought maybe an upgrade would be offered but these were given to late bookers who finished up in better accomodation for ?œ1000 less than we paid, to add insult as we paid for a balcony cabin in the category we could afford we were in c108, 3 cabins from the front on deck 10, a considerable walk to anywhere except the theatre, and, on the first sea day we tried in vain to open our balcony door, we rang reception twice and explained to 2 different people our problem, they said they would check up for us and call us back, this they did and both said that they had been informed that it was Princess policy to lock balcony doors on sea days for cabins at the front of the ship, I said why would anyone pay for a balcony in these circumstances as a window would be better, and the second one told me that it was up to our travel agent (Bolsover) to tell us about this when booking. Having been on Princess in a cabin almost exactly the same distance from the front previously I was angry to say the least and asked to see a supervisor as I wanted to register a formal complaint, especially after they refused to move us to one which we could sit on as the scenery passed us by, they told us it was full, we got an appointment for 17.30 and went down to meet Madelaine who immediately apologised before we said anything, she was appalled by our treatment and said it was most definitely not the Princess policy but she would find out where the directive came from anad tear off a strip, well we never got to know who had locked the doors, but the plate of biscuits and an apology really did not compensate us for a completely wasted day spent in the cabin waiting for phone calls etc. knowing we had paid considerably more for the experience, apart from that the cabin was quiet and comfortable once we could get outside for fresh air, however the dining room anytime is a fiasco if you just go they ask you to share and then put you on a table for 8 and once the table was full on occasions we were in there for 2 hours while some guests had 2 courses more than us and it finished up with us getting to the phone before eight in the morning to book a table and we never got the time we would have liked even then, but some people managed to get a fixed table for the same time every night, although this isn’t allowed if we ask!! why? The food isn’t as good as we are used to on Princess and if you leave it they just take it away where previously they would ask if it wasn’t to your liking and would get you something else if you wanted it, and the entertainment wasn’t good either, all in all it would take a lot to get us back on Princess and we will never again book early.