Pros
They do give vacation time which accrues after 90 days and they have a system for requesting time off and "points" earned for good performance reviews which can also be used for time off or to extend breaks or simply to turn into some extra cash. I worked at the Seattle location and I can definitely and confidently state that the team of co-workers was an awesome group to work with and I made a lot of friends that I think I will have for life. I was in the customer service department so I also had the (sometimes) pleasure of speaking to our customers directly; they were older and in large part also very nice or at least understanding in MOST situations. They also offered fully subsidized transit and I felt that the "product" or their ships and service was all topnotch which was the saving grace when trying to sell it.
Cons
If you felt like the previous section seemed a bit light on discussion of pay or management style, don't worry, I have a lot to say but none of it belongs in the 'Pros' section of this. Where to begin? There were just so many failures. Upper management (direct supervisors, managers, directors, department heads, etc.) seemed at the outset to be well-intentioned and many of them I believe were fine, nice people on a personal level but they were lacking in general courtesy, professionalism, and even the most basic of social skills. There were many consistent issues with systems, with trending customer complaints, with low employee morale, and a plethora of others, but they were never amended or given any attention when brought to light innumerable times by myself and other coworkers. I don't know why we all tried so hard to help the company fix its issues considering the abysmal pay that they provide especially when juxtaposed with the amount of different tasks that they expect just one department to perform. I am not sure if it is common practice in call centers these days, but at Princess, they had the same department (of which I was a member) dealing with complaints, financial inquiries, sales, support (technical and otherwise), and all other direct and travel agent calls. Almost no other department was allowed to accept a transfer of call, even if that department was the only one with access to the information necessary for resolution - so I and my fellow department members would play middle man which was counterintuitive at best in most cases. The systems were crap, outdated or cheaply patched together; I know programming and systems so I tried to provide polite feedback but I always had the feeling, as did many others, that our opinions weren't valued and we weren't respected. The company provided opportunities for time off in the form of vacation hours or the usage of "points" as aforementioned in the pros section here, however it was more of a brass ring scenario; you would request time off, for instance, three to four months prior and select say a very slow period for the company, but it might never get approved in most cases or if it did you wouldn't know for sure until two weeks prior or less. This is not conducive to arranging hotels and flights and other items that are integral to a vacation and also things that in most cases charge cancellation fees. I spent too many days being berated by angry customers but finding myself sympathizing with their plight due to how valid their complaints were: the website would never work right, they couldn't access their booking or its details, they were disconnected by the faulty phone system multiple times, the marketing ads were misleading to verging just shy of false advertising, etc. Then, whats worse, is going from being assaulted with righteous issues from the patrons, taking those problems to a direct supervisor or manager, and being ignored or condescendingly placated and then shooed away (yes I was literally shooed away twice by a supervisor) as if I were someone's terrier?! We were also told upon hire that there would be a bonus program to provide commission of sorts on bookings (since we also did sales amongst our laundry list of jobs) but even that was misleading when first presented to us and turned out to be another brass ring that required one to jump through more than a few flaming hoops with little reward. The bonus program was percentage based on your overall check for the month and the amount of the percentage was based on tiers of sales percentage monthly - as I said before sales was only part of our job and therefore this system inspired many workers to seek sales (obviously, I mean we were there for money at the end) and prolong sales calls to increase sales percentage. This left many others to deal with all of the complaints and support calls to the detriment of their "close ratio" or overall monthly sales. Even if one did manage to secure the bonus it wasn't something to write home about; a few times I secured it and the highest ever was $85.00… for a month's worth of hard, hard work to sell their product. To provide comparison, a travel agent makes %10 commission and for what my sales amount was that month, a travel agent would have walked away easily with a couple thousand and thats not to say that I expected THAT amount, but $85.00 in comparison made me realize how dumb and lacking in self-respect that they thought I was. I no longer work at Princess and I managed to walk the straight and narrow and not get fired (which many did due to losing their grip I think) but I value it for one primary thing… it taught me what a poorly managed company looks like and now I know the warning signs to avoid. If you are considering a position here, I would strongly advise against it and furthermore, even though it may be to the detriment of some of my friends, I would encourage you to take your business elsewhere. The customers aren't treated much better within the booking process and via telephone to the call centers. If you must book with them, find a really reliable travel agent who deserves the commission and will actually get it. That way you never have to call that place yourself and learn first-hand how much of a joke the company is.
