We took this same cruise 2 years ago on Celebrity cruise Line and it was "the one foot in the grave cruise". The whole cruise from start to finish was a pure nightmare due the the Celebrity personnel. This time it was over Christmas and New Years and it was the best ONE we have have had in our 20+ cruises.
We arrived at the LA port around 1 pm and within 30 minutes we were in our room and had met our wonderful room steward, Carmelo. Our luggage started to arrive almost immediately and so we just started to unpack and one and by they appeared. By dinner time, we only had one bag left to arrive and put away. What a wonderful way to start to not be inundated with baggage all at once. My husband is handicap due to a stroke and heart attack (we don't get handicap rooms as we prefer suites for roominess)so most of the "work" is left up to me. My room steward offered to help immediately...I have NEVER had one do this much less help. On Celebrity we had a butler, room steward and asst room steward and NO ONE offered to to do anything and did nothing except if we asked, what a difference. We had not sailed on Princess for a while, but we got to thinking, no one cruise line is perfect, but we actually liked Princess better overall is why we chose them for this special cruise. We figured this would be my husband's last one and we really wanted it to be special. No one new this on board, so the "special ness" that Princess showed us and everyone one was even nicer than expected. They really went overboard to please everyone.
Our waiter, Jesse James (yes that was his name from the Philippines) and his asst Salvator, were just absolutely over the top also on pleasing us. The maitre d was just the best also when he realized the table assigned just wouldn't work for us and immediately offered us a perfect table right by the front for my husband and made sure every night he had a chair without arms for him to get easily out and in of the chair. How thoughtful!!