The Emerald Princess was definitely designed for the needs and wants of Americans.  It also had what I would call an age itinerary for this length of cruise 18 days.If you were under the age of 50 this cruise would definitely not be your cup of tea.In fact I would not recommend the Trans Atlantic trip for those under 50 as you would have little to do other then play bridge,bingo,cards etc.I attended one Scholarship at Sea class about photography and learnt absolutely nothing and walked out after 20 minutes of rubbish and refused to pay for what was a waste of time.It was more like a discussion group of first graders rather than cruisers who truly wanted to learn something about their cameras and simple ideas about using the basics of their camera.I was very disappointed,and what was charged as an hour lecture, tended to be more like 25 minutes. It was a waste of time and the lecturer (the ship's photographer was not sure of all his info so would refer to the other photographer sitting on the side). This in no way lessens the total experience of cruising but does change your cruising day when little else is offered. I found the Emerald Princess to be far too big for the service given.I did not enjoy all the shows but the performers were all world class and the comedian who was an American favorite created a lot of laughs and I enjoyed that night. It is a lovely ship and some tender loving care has been put into the decorating,design of cabins whether inside or out, both were lovely and large in comparison to many ships, and very soundproof as there was no outside noise noticed throughout the entire cruise.The colors and little artistic add ons made for wonderful photos. But it completely lost itself when designing the kitchens though.The vicinity of where they were in relation to the dining rooms,in particular.We dined in the early seating of the Botticelli dining room, and I noticed there were many empty tables at the early seating,which meant that there were waiters who literally had nothing to do, if only one table had patrons at it and the other tables had none. Then there were some who had to work very hard because there tables were full.The kitchen seemed miles away,and the assistant waiters,had to walk miles to get special items from the bar,as an example, to get my nightly cocktail that I ordered.How ridiculous is the design of a ship when one cocktail takes an assistant waiter away from the dining room for 5 minutes,and how inefficient.The meals also seemed to take such a long time to arrive from the kitchen, Princess seemed to have wanted the noise of the kitchen away from the dining room, but in doing this has allowed the dishes that would have been perfect straight from the kitchen to have lost some if it's flavour.A waiter stacking plates on trays and then having to walk with them stacked on a tray to the dining room, made me feel as if l were eating from a cafeteria. The buffet room was wonderful most of the time but I found many sections of food choices to be luke warm rather than hot, which made me uneasy when thinking of rules of preventing food poisoning to the passengers.I also noticed at times many kitchen hands, not necessarily handle the food hygienically and this also made me feel uneasy about the preparation of the food itself. Other than those issues the time at sea was restful and calm, and the smile of many of the staff, as you met by them was appreciated.I would not cruise again on a big ship and with so many different dining areas, as the ship just becomes a mass of people that you might see at the beginning of a cruise and never see again. My last issue was with the need of money. The old phrase of when you cruise everything is taken care of, was not present on this ship.Everything seemed to cost extra.Even the tenders(cost!!!!) to get you too the town you were visiting, was ridiculous considering how many elderly people were on board.What was really silly was one town we visited, where we were supplied with transport to the end of the wharf and then left a good mile from the town and for many that mile was a long way,when they might not have got off the ship if they had known the distance to the town.So it is a personal choice and hopefully others will add to these reviews, as cruising is a very personal thing and each to his own.