We had an open mind for this, our first ever cruise, and had quite a good time on it, even possibly exceeding our expectations since we didn't know what to expect. This was the 1st Alaskan cruise of the "season" out of Seattle and you'd have thought that Seattle had never seen a cruise ship before given the general state of confusion amongst both the terminal staff and the Princess staff. Once that fiasco was negotiated, the rest of the cruise was much better though we felt like the Princess staff could have done a better job in telling folks who had never cruised before what to expect or not expect by using one of the 4 or 5 blank TV stations that just had the Princess logo on them. There was a stop or two that ended up being late but that could have been a continuation of the departure that was late by almost 2 hours (see terminal confusion at beginning of review). We had no problem with our excursions as we knew we'd not be left behind if they ran late. We chose "anytime" dining and were glad we did. The food was generally good with the exception of "Indian Cuisine" night but we don't care for that kind of food to begin with. All of our interactions with Princess staff and crew was good and we noted no problem at all. Disembarking was somewhat similar to embarkation though it did go faster. Still, not knowing how the procedure worked we waited in our assigned spot for 3 hours until it was our time to leave despite us indicating our preferred departure time ahead of time. We had such a good time that a month after our return home, we booked a Caribbean (Western) with Princess (Ruby) for 12/2014. One more thing: The Golden Princess appears to be one of the older ships in the Princess fleet and showed its age in many ways. It's proposed dry-dock for upgrades in August 2014 couldn't be coming at a better time.