I do kind of wonder if sailing the larger ships also doesn't help matters. I've been on the Crown a couple of times, and while I didn't have the problems that the OP did (although I did have the ship tip on me ), I definitely think there's a difference in the experience between it and some of their smaller ships. I just got off the Royal Princess a couple of weeks ago, and quite honestly, I felt that it was a great trip, and the staff especially I found to be quite responsive. I definitely do think that the larger ships like the Crown just don't have quite the personal touch that the smaller ones do.

The whole changing out of the mini-bar thing I will admit has always seemed to be something of an issue on Princess. On some ships it seems like you talk to your room steward, on some you call room service, on some they switch it out one to one, some they switch out on value, on some you can switch out for small bottles of wine. (And I will say, I know I saw something on cruisecritic a couple months ago about them supposedly changing some policies on that, so maybe there will be some more consistency going forward.) I've only ever had to do it once, and that time it went smoothly, but I've definitely seem stories of people having issues with it.

While Celebrity might be a choice, I've certainly seen people who have tried it after Princess and didn't find that it's any better of an experience. While Celebrity likes to think of themselves as a step up, these days they do seem to be just another mass market cruise line. Holland America does seem to get good reviews from a lot of people, I wouldn't mind trying it someday. I wouldn't mind trying something up a step, but at the moment, that's just out of my price range, or at least it would seriously impact how often I could cruise .