We wanted to visit europe but thought it would be too tiring doing a bus trip. This cruise visited all of the places we wanted to see. The ship and staff were amazing. We were on the deck which was one up from where you get on and off the ship normally at ports. On our floor was the international cafe at one end and it had a laundry at the other end, which from our previous cruise, we knew was a real bonus.

A couple of tips - after reading the daily newsletter we thought we had to pay for food and coffee at the international cafe, about half way through our cruise we got talking to people there and they said it was only the ice creams that you had to pay for ! We think this should be made more clear on the flyer. The food was all amazing as was the service. The only negative i would say was that we had trouble with our pre registered credit card being okd by our bank - tip is to let your bank know that you are going away so you dont have this problem. I think it was badly handled by the ships staff as the first night we had a note in our letterbox to contact them which i did. I wanted to pay in advance but the girl on the counter went out the back to ask someone and said we couldnt do that. I then gave them another card number. The next day our cabin card was stopped which was very embarrassing when we went to buy something on the ship and were told we had to see customer services as it had a hold on it ! I can understand this if i had made no attempt to contact them. I had to wait in line again at customer services. The person i spoke to this time said i could pay in advance ! Time to get all your staff trained a little better i think Princess ! By this time my card had been okd but it seems to take 12-24 hours to have the hold taken off your card ! Another tip is to remember to take an adapter for your chargers etc. We were from New Zealand and the boat is American, luckily we met people on the boat who we could borrow adapters off until we could buy one.

Another tip is, when you are booking your shore tours, the ones that say strenuous dont necessarily mean you are walking up hills or running, they can mean that you are on your feet and walking/standing for a very long time, in our case around 10 hours ! So make sure you take snacks and drinks as one of our tours didnt have lunch until 1 pm and we had left the ship at 7 am and standing/walking in 30 odd degrees heat without a break ! Also if you do full day tours you may have very little time to shop, so if you see something, buy it as you may not see it again or have time to buy it. Also if you are doing half day tours, dont assume you will have time to shop as you may not get into that port or off the ship until just before you are due to go on the shore tour. All in all a fabulous cruise and we would definately cruise with princess again.