We decided to try the new Royal Princess for a two night cruise to see if we liked a big ship and try out the Penthouse Suite. We've been on many cruises and have been on quite a number of Princesses in a Suite, so were trying a like-for-like with the intention of going on a 14 day cruise with them later. So we wanted to see what 3600 passengers getting on a ship would be like but what a surprise it was being was told it was only taking 1268.

However we were bitterly disappointed with first impressions i.e. because it was a short trip we just took a suit carrier and were told we would have to take that onboard the ship ourselves even though I was disabled. Then when we checked in we were with everyone else and were not given an early number for boarding even though we were in one of the Penthouse Suites. It seemed to be chaotic to say the least. When we eventually arrived in the cabin, although it was smaller than previous it seemed better laid out and looked very nice until we got the shock of our lives when we opened the patio door to the balcony to find that the balcony is only approximately a metre in depth. There is no room to put a lounger and no room to have a dining experience as they say in their literature on the balcony. There is no room for foot stools as shown in the brochure, in fact we had friends in a deluxe balcony cabin and their balcony with the same depth.

As for the room itself two big televisions were definitely a plus, but the toilet roll holder is situated in a very inconvenient position and you needed to put a toilet roll on the sink to use. In the age of technology where people often take their laptops as we do on holiday, the safe is too small even to take a small laptop the size that we take on holiday, but there is however plenty of room in the cupboard to put a larger one. Read more