This was our second cruise, but the first with Princess. Our first cruise was in 2009 on the new Celebrity Solstice. We wanted to try out Princess, plus we were interested in the specific ports visited on this cruise.

EMBARKATION: There were many ships in port on March 17th. Our journey from the airport La Quinta to the port via All Stars Transportation was a long, tedious process as the driver dropped a crowded van of passengers at various ships. Given the crowded port, we might have done better with a cab. When we arrived at the Emerald Princess, there was an endless wait in line. Eventually it seemed that princess added more staff to process passengers, but it still took an inordinately long time. I had hoped to make it on board in time for lunch in one of the dining rooms at (1:30 p.m.), but we were cutting it close, so we went to the Horizon Court buffet.

CABIN: Our cabin was E730, a mini-suite with an extra-large covered balcony. We liked this room and spent quite a bit of time enjoying the space and the balcony, though it was windy at times. The bathroom tub area and the balcony showed a slight bit of wear. We thought the flat-screen TV's were too small for the space, and of course the lack of high definition limited the viewing experience. Still, it was fun to have two televisions, and we did enjoy the first-run movies. Our toilet quit working one afternoon. After about an hour, a maintenance person appeared and fixed the problem - the result of an air lock. Our room steward Jose did a most thorough and professional job each day. The evening noise from Club Fusion below has been mentioned in other reviews, and we did sometimes hear this at a low level, but it was not a problem for us. The location of the cabin (aft) placed us at quite a walking distance to elevators. Read more