We are experienced cruisers (approx. 40) on many different lines but have always been partial to Princess. When we first learned of the Royal being built we knew we had to experience her early on. We chose the inaugural 7-day eastern Caribbean sailing and booked the first day cabins were available. We watched all the videos as she took shape and were even more excited when we learned Captain Tony Draper would be the master. We’ve sailed with Captain Draper twice before and love his wit and dry sense of humor.

Reading the initial reviews during the Royal’s Mediterranean season began to cause us some concern. Normally we attribute negative reviews to personal observations but there seemed to be recurrent issues reported by the Princess faithful. Nonetheless, our sailing day arrived and seeing her in Port Everglades made us giddy with excitement!

Initially embarkation went very quickly and smoothly right up to the time we got our cruise cards and saw many passengers queued up inside the terminal building. More and more people arrived and there was no information from Princess what the delay was. We were early, but not that early (1030 AM), and we sat not knowing what the issues were. Finally we heard that the boarding was delayed due to a back-to-back passenger who failed to get off the ship between sailings (as required) and could not be found. This caused thousands of others to wait up to two hours before boarding finally commenced. Not Princess’s fault but some info would have been helpful. Read more