Having relatives near Houston, this was a great opportunity to do a Christmas time cruise with family. There was even a cruise planner who seemed to make everything easier when booking the cruise in May. Unfortunately having a guaranteed cabin, resulted in being given a cabin 3-4 days before the ship sailed. Princess never even emailed to notify us of a cabin and the only way i found the cabin was to call the cruise planner who said a cabin had been assigned. Had we known of this cabin even a month before, we would have paid for an upgrade. Having cruised since the eighties, this was the first time, this had ever happened.
Other reviews were spot on in the delays and issues getting to the ship and getting off. It didn't seem to be a Princess cruise as there were so many things missing, almost like the crew and ship were "just going through the motions". Because of "weather" issues things kept changing and needless to say cost a great deal of money in changing flights and hotels. Princess Cruises should be held responsible for these additional costs as the itinerary kept changing. If they had stuck with their initial announcement of a delay, things would not have resulted in many traumatized passengers. I am still waiting to receive a folio of expenses on the ship, even though I have contacted Princess Cruises at least three times. The casino was also abruptly closed freezing the little funds I had there. Princess did say they would send them to me, in 5-6 weeks. (The casino was terrible and yes I know putting hundreds of dollars into quarter and dollar machines was stupid, especially when nothing ever came out).
All in all, this was a very expensive cruise. Hopefully Princess will reimburse those that had to change plans several times. The free use of phone and internet at the end was a bit of a joke as you couldn't get through on the phone and you had to pay for 30 minutes of internet and they would supposedly reimburse you.