Background - My husband & I are in our late 50's. However, I like to think of us as young 50-somethings. As Jimmy Buffett says "we're growing older but not up"! This was our 42nd cruise and our 19th with Princess. Living in New Jersey, we prefer sailing out of the NY area as we want to avoid all the issues associated with air travel these days. Our cruises normally are to the Caribbean, Bermuda and Bahamas. This was our first cruise north since our Alaska cruise 25 years ago.

Embarkation - We arrived at the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal at about 11AM. Most of the passengers from the prior cruise had already disembarked and not many had arrived for our cruise, so there was very little traffic and congestion around the terminal. We breezed right through security and check in. We waited for about 5-10 minutes in the Platinum Lounge. We were on board by about 11:30 and went directly to our cabin.

Accommodations - We had a mini suite on Deck 9 (Dolphin) Aft. We were a bit concerned about the location being so far aft, but we were blessed with very smooth seas the entire trip and felt very little motion. I kind of missed being rocked to sleep at night. Read more