We were looking forward to travelling on a Princess ship again after a 5 year break during which time we had 2 cruises on P&O's Azura. It was our perception that Princess were better than P&O purely based on our experience. Sadly we can now say that Princess's standards have slipped when it comes to food in particular and to some extent on service although that decline is not so marked.

The departure from Southampton was smooth and efficient and our mini suite was ready and spotlessly clean. Our luggage took a long time to appear as did that of others on our deck to the extent that I was beginning to get just a little anxious as to whether it was actually on board.

This was our second cruise since the Costa Concordia disaster and it was good to see that attendance at the Muster is now monitored by 'zapping' individual cruise cards. A second drill was held 30 minutes later for those who had missed (deliberately or otherwise) the first and this was completed before the ship sailed. This was in contrast to a previous cruise we were on where those who missed the Muster had to attend the next morning which as we now know would have been too late for the passengers on the Concordia. Read more