We just returned from the Emerald Princess sailing on Jan, 25 through Feb.4. There were 4 of us, my wife and me (in our early to mid 50's) and my uncle and aunt from New York who are in their late 50's to early 60's. One word can summarize this cruise, excellent!

Since we live in central Florida, my uncle and aunt flew in the day before and we all went out to dinner to celebrate our son's 22nd birthday. He watched the house and dog while we were sailing. We got up early the next day and had a great drive to the port. Once there (1:30) we gave our luggage to the porter, I parked the car, met up with them and got in line for embarkation. This went very smooth and painless and we were on the ship in less than 30 minutes. We had a PS on the Caribe deck aft (beam included) while my uncle and aunt had a balcony cabin on the Riviera deck forward. We met our room steward, Wannaporn, from Thailand and she took care of our needs like getting a few more glasses and changing out our mini bar and whatever we needed. She was fantastic throughout the cruise and we did tip her well over the standard tips (which we kept active). My uncle and aunt did the same for their steward, Judy from the Philippines. We took a walk around to get familiar with the ship and then to our respective muster drills, again, very painless and fast. Then off to the Outrigger bar for our CC meet and greet sail away. Thank you Larry for arranging it. I just wish we could have stayed longer and meet more of the group, but we had to get ready for dinner. On our cruise we had a group of ladies from the Red Hat Club as well as a group of home improvement people from Canada. Great groups, lots of fun and very courteous. There were some children on the cruise and they were well behaved and you hardly knew they were around.

We had early traditional seating in the Boticelli dining room. Who ever selected our tablemates deserves a promotion from Princess. We had a couple from the UK and a couple from Canada at our table. We all hit it off from the start and enjoyed the conversation, joking, and had just a fantastic time with them. Our head waiter was Magdelena, from Poland and her assistant Daniel from the Philippines. They were great! They were very helpful and efficient and we were always one of the last tables to leave because of conversations. They also worked the Da Vinci dining room for breakfast and always greeted us with smiles. We did go out to the Crown Grille one night and found the food and service to be something we would expect from a 5 star restaurant. My uncle and I had steaks while the wives had the lobster and other things. This was by far our best meal while on board and well worth the extra charge. If you have the chance, eat there. Read more