Background - First time Princess although we have cruised with Carnival, Holland America, NCL, and Royal Caribbean. We have also cruised our own boat extensively. The Emerald Princess was completed in 2007 and is an amazing vessel. She is huge 900 plus feet long with more bars than I found. She is gorgeous and I never felt overpowered with the number of passengers aboard. I rate the ship A++ all of the staff were outstandingly friendly. All asked if they could help. Well Done Emerald!
Getting on and off was as easy as any ship we have cruised. Consider on this voyage Emerald had about 2600+ passengers to on and off it was well done. Not without some waiting but nothing that bothered me and I bother easily. I was particularly impressed with their mandatory Lifeboat drill. Well-done and the information provided was vastly more instructional than most.
Stateroom - We selected a mini-suite and it was a very good choice for this type of cruise with a lot of sea days. We enjoyed the extra square feet in the room and especially in the shower. The shower curtain did not attack me this time. Our first time with a balcony and it may not be our last. Well worth the extra. Consider the weather and remember the ship travels at 20 kts or more so there is always a lot of wind. Select a cabin on the leeward side. Our room steward Danny was perfect from simple requests to the oblique he opened a bottle of wine nobody else could.