Embarkation on the 29th of Oct from LA was the usual Princess "job well done". Princess probably has the best embarkation and disembarkation of any of the larger lines. We, there were four of us, stayed at the Double Tree the night before sailing, using their park and cruise service, where you can leave your car at their parking lot for up to two weeks while cruising, and using their shuttle service to and/from the terminal. We booked this online, but be sure to book the right service. The Double Tree is the best park and ride motel/hotel that we have found so far out of LA and we found out about it from a cruise critic review. It does pay to read the reviews!!!

Princess now allows you to access your cabin right after embarking, so you can drop off your carry-on and go relax in the buffet,in the dining room or just wander around and get familiar with the ship, which is what we always do first. The ship was clean, well maintained and the service was above par, as usual. There were over 2000 returning guests on this cruise so you know that Princess is doing something very right. The rooms were the average Princess size, bigger than many other cruise ships, which made it very easy to store items and we weren't bumping into each other getting around the cabin. The wardrobe area was huge and there were plenty of hangers, which isn't always the case. Being this was a two week cruise someone on Princess has their act together to think about placing more than the usual amount of hangers in the wardrobe. The pillows are so soft that they really don't have any substance to them. The bathrooms were small and the shower was so small that all one heard on the cruise was jokes about just how small they were. We are normal size adults and not overweight, yet it was cramped for us. Don't drop the soap because there was so little room that you almost had to step out of the shower to get it. The soaps, shampoos, conditioners and lotions were very nice. Plenty of storage in the bathroom and one outlet for a shaver.

Like her sister ships, the Sapphire and Grand, the Golden has the worst buffet set-up in the industry. One doesn't know which of three "entrances" to use for getting in or out, so people are trying to go in and out of each of the three small "entrances". It looks as if you should enter from either of the two end openings and exit from the center one, but there is no signage and people are using any of the three for both. Mass confusion is a mild way to express the frustration that was mirrored on many faces and from the comments we overheard. There was no effort from any of the crew for people to use the hand sanitizer lotion so many ignored it and one could watch people grabbing food with their hands, touching the food next to it. Bad!!! The buffet area is very, very small with very little room between the islands so that people are continually bumping into one another or waiting for room to get by. One other thing that I heard quite a few comments about was the way the food was set-up in the buffet area. Example: in the morning you walked in one of the end openings and you got your plate, silverware and proceeded to the main food line in the rear of the buffet. So far not too bad, except that there are two end openings and each has different items so if you want juice and yogurt you have to go to each of the openings to get it. Not really too bad because one must walk around to get them no matter how they are placed, but being they are right at the openings there is a back-up of people trying to get those items and trying to get into the main food line. If there was more space it wouldn't be as much of a hassle but it is very tight spaced. Next, the main food line. From the right side of the line facing into the buffet area you would get your toast, if any was ready, or wait there for your toast until it was, because you would be stuck in the corner with others trying to get by you. Okay, next there was eggs, two choices, then hot cereal. The next island had sausage, two choices, then more two more choices of eggs, then bacon. The next island more eggs and other choices of food. So what would happen is a person would go through the line looking to see what the choices were that day and then walk through again trying to get their food. Okay, not bad? No room to have more than one or two people to walk through between the islands with the main line and the ones next to it, serving cold cereals and such. So there would be a major traffic jam of people going back and forth trying to get what they wanted. A good example was the salad bar for lunch. The salad items were at one island, then the dressing at another and then then rest of the salad items were at another island. So to get one salad one was walking back and forth between three islands, with a multitude of other people doing the same thing. Why doesn't Princes place all of the eggs at one island, all of the sausage and bacon at another and the other items together? One other thing, I know that a Princess rep reads the reviews so this is for you: why are the butter pats so huge? They could be cut in half and still be plenty for two pieces of toast. So much waste! The food was good and the selection was very good. If you didn't like what was being offered, like for breakfast, you could ask for a made to order omelet, no problem. The desserts were wonderful, as they are more European, which means real cream, less sugar, light and tasty. Read more