I took my parents on a belated Mother's Day cruise on the M.S. Dixie II on Sunday, May 27, 2007. It was a complete disaster. For $50/head for a 2 hour cruise, my expectations were for a lot better than we got. It was supposed to be a buffet cruise, but since there was only enough seating for about 1/5th of the passengers (no freakin' kidding!), we were forced to wait until near the end of the cruise to eat. Then when we finally did get something to eat, the lunch buffet was a cheesy-assed single table of cold cuts and bread, potato salad, fruit salad, italian noodle salad, and a couple other items, and that was about her. There were some fairly good deserts, but the rest was mostly just cheap junk. That combined with how packed the boat was... must have been like 500 people they packed on that baby, really really degraded the whole experience. It was hard to find in a tiny space you could squeeze in along the railing on one of the two upper decks, and part of the lower one.
Also, I had pre-reserved my tickets with a credit card, but still had to stand in a huge line in the sun for about an hour. They have no will-call/ticket pickup. All around, a bad experience. I was so upset about how we couldn't sit down for a nice lunch buffet that it ruined the whole trip.
Granted, this was Memorial Day weekend, and I can understand wanting to optimize profits, but the operators of the M.S. Dixie take this WAY too far, clearly at the expense of maintaining a decent customer experience. I think this is short-term thinking, because I for one and all in my party were so upset that I don't think they'll ever receive repeat business or positive referrals from any of us (certainly not me). Very stupid, short-term thinking. I hope they enjoyed fleecing us, because it's the last money they'll see from me, and most likely at least three other people.