GENERAL/EMBARKATION: This was our first cruise, and the trip exceeded both of our expectations. We took the seven day trip leaving from San Juan that hits St. Thomas, St. Kitts, Grenada, Isla Margarita and Aruba. We got into San Juan a day early and spent half of the day seeing Old San Juan just off the cruise ship dock before embarkation. By the time we went to get on the ship around 4:30pm there were no lines at all waiting to check in, so if you are willing to wait a couple of hours, check in will probably go much more smoothly than it would at 2pm or so. Although Princess says you are not allowed to bring alcohol on the ship, we had no trouble doing that by putting it in our backpack (unfortunately, it took us until the second port to figure that out).

FOOD: The personal choice dining worked very well for the two of us. We usually went to dinner between 7 and 7:30 and were seated at a two person table immediately, with the exception of one night where there was a five minute wait. We did not make reservations beforehand, although that option is available. The food was very good overall, with a number of excellent main dishes but a couple of misses as well. The service was also very good overall, although one night the server seemed to be rushing us -- I think we finished dinner in about a half hour that night.

For breakfast we ate at the buffet each morning, usually to save time so that we could get off the ship sooner and on to our daily activities and excursions. Due to the number of people eating off the buffet in the morning, the food was typically fresh and it was easy to figure out which items were done well and which ones to avoid after the first day -- the breakfast food was very consistent day to day. The rest of the time the buffet was predictable -- the cold items were usually good but many of the hot things were overdone and seemed to have been sitting out for some time. Read more