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In June 2012, we took the Emerald Princess Baltic cruise. We loved the ship then, and were not disappointing when we booked our Eastern Caribbean cruise on the same ship!
The sad part was, many of the employees we got to know so well on our Baltic cruise were gone for this trip. However, our waiter extraordinaire, Miguel was still on board. Even though he was now in charge of the Room Service night shift, we, of course, ordered room service just to talk to and see him!
As far as dining service, the food was very good, but not quite up to par with past cruise we have taken with Princess (including the Baltic Cruise). Also, the menu with its many nights of special cuisine (Mediterranean night, or matching food to ports of call) was missing and many of the entrees and appetizers did not exactly match as in the past. They have also done away with many of the Maitre 'ds they used to have in the dining rooms. Whereas before they had one for about every 10 tables, now there are 2-3 for the entire room. This to us has diminished some of the charm of eating in the dining room.
The stops were very nice...extremely diverse islands starting with Antigua (take the Lawrence of Antigua tour instead of the ships - Lawrence is a delight), St. Lucia, Barbados (Cool Runnings for snorkling) St. Kitts (Thenford Grey "The Tour" excellent), St. Thomas, and Grand Turk (No Princess Cay - Hurray!)
For most of the ports, we were either the only or one of two ships in port, which helped with the crowds.
The arrangement of the inside stateroom was not very good this time. Usually we have no problems, but for some reason, the head of my side of the bed ended in the light switches and I kept turning on the lights when I shifted.
If you enjoy the Caribbean, or have never been, I would recommend this cruise and the Emerald Princess.
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