My wife and i just finished our two week adventure on the golden princess and found the golden a well maintained and very well run ship by a wonderful crew commanded by master "captain" foster and director David Cole and mark turner. all worked very hard for us and and gave us a great adventure to hawaii. our adventure was not the best cruise we have taken but it was a good overall value for the price. for the events and things we could not attend I asked several people who did attend to get an idea of the event to report to you all. We chose to travel by car to the port of Los Angeles so we chose the park and sail at the crown plaza in San Pedro and it was only a block from the port. Just about everyone in the hotel went to the green onion restaurant just a short walk away and the prices were good and the Mexican food was not to spicy. on wed morning we were delivered to the port by the hotel shuttle after the free buffet and were dropped off in front of the port. the buffet was not so good but it was free. embarkation was well run and you could tell they have been doing this for a while so it went smoooooth. They took our bags at the curb and we walked into the terminal and after filling out the medical form[asking if you have been sick the the last week] we were directed the only one up elevator, they would not let me up the escalator with my carry on bag,,"for medication and such" as i walk with a Cain, this took 20 minutes to go up one flight..long line.. Deck 14 lido deck buffet was open and we just went up and started our first of many meals on the golden[more on the food later]. We booked a mini suite, D610, the mini suite has no cover over the balcony and there is no privacy if this matters to you you need to book just a balcony on deck 11 or 12. The suite had a nice little couch and a bath tub, yes a bath tub and it was so nice to soak my sore painful back in the tub. if you have been on a carnival, spirit class ship the balcony room with a couch is about the same but the mini suite has a larger bathroom. the beds were two singles placed together and ,yes they were soft with a dent in the middle of each single, the middle of the bed where they were joined was a hard spot so you rolled back to your side if you got to close to the center of the bed. The first night the weather was bad and the sea was severe and you could tell the waves were over 7 to 10+ feet. this caused most of the passengers to stay in there staterooms for the second day as there were so many sea sick folks. remember if you ever complain to any crew member you are sick to your stomach you will get confined to your cabin until you are not. this happened to poor old Russ 1gail1 husband. This is a good precaution as they are so careful about norovirus.I will now break it down for you in sections so you can go to the sections you are most interested in. ENTERTAINMENT. The golden advertises 35 entertainers,28 musicians. the first week the had two production shows, one welcome show that was your singing and dancing thing, a couple lost dancers, i believe it was the rough water. and another singing dancing review called words and music, there were four featured singer dancers ,two girls and two boys with recorded singing in the background. the audience clapped but i did see people leave during the show, i would have but the wife said no and later said we should have, the production was below average as compared to other shows i have seen on cruise ships, the show was repeated the next day as most of them were and that was it for the production shows for the first week. they even headlined one of the princess singers in his own show one night, He can sing OK and his mother was in the audience so i will not tell you what i thought about the show my wife said he was cute but he was no headliner.There was entertainment in all areas of the ship no matter what type of music you like you can find it someplace, the piano singer next to the martini bar was far better then the princess singers and the band sol play was in the adventurer's lounge, again were better then the production show. comedy was provided by several very good stand ups and a ventriloquist from good old laugh in tv show ,Don Ware was the best thing on the cruise he was so funny but again he toned down the show for the very old groups aboard. As the cruise continued you really understood the cruise was for the over 70 folks. the hula dancers were covered in long colorful Hawaiian dresses from neck to foot and was from a local hula school. if you wanted to see real hula men and woman do the native dances with grass skirts and drums that you are used to at a lou ow you needed to go off the golden to get the Hawaiian entertainment, in honolulu we went off the ship and found hooters was next to a evening dinner boat cruise, there we enjoyed real Hawaiian men and woman and saw a great show put on by professionals. the theater played movies in the theater as well as repeated some of them on the television no r rated movie was repeated on the tv. we only saw one show of the love boat on tv and they never repeated it that i could see.The casino was "tight" i was told by several hundred passengers i spoke to and was told the slot machines paid out very little compared to what went in, we never gambled after hearing all the complaints, i spoke to one "winner" who after thinking about it said he was "even" hummmm one out several hundred was just even, hummmm.To sum it up production shows were few and not so good when they were playing but you could be entertained no matter what type of music you like but if you are over 70 you will love it love it, if you are under 50 you will have to look a little harder, look in the smaller areas of the ship and you will find good bands and professional entertainment to dance and listen to. Congratulations to cruise critic 1gail1 for winning the owners-wooden horse race for 300 bucks...go Gail go. FOOD First don't miss afternoon tea time it is awesome and the coke card was worth 68.00? for me it was, judge yourself on how many cokes you drink .We had a sit down dinner time of 5:45 in the Canaletto dinning room and this is located in the back of the ship. we discovered very quickly the service was great, the food in the dinning rooms not so great. variety was wonderful at the buffet but the Canaletto dinning room is in the rear of the ship and the food comes from mid ship so by the time the food gets to your area, plate covered with one of those hospital plastic covers the cold soup is cool and the hot food is warm to cold. taste suffers from the trip and handling, but do not worry we just left quickly and got the same food on the buffet and got it hot and i could pick the piece i wanted. everything except lobster night and crab leg night, all the food could be found on the buffet and the buffet had a better variety with many more choices, and the temperature was far better, so we suggest the buffet and stay away from the sit down rooms as the service is fantastic in the buffet, yes the buffet has great service they have cloth napkins and get your drinks for you, clean up you dirty dish's get you coffee etc. the buffet by far was the best part of the food service on the ship. there are several cost you extra areas on the ship, Sabatini's was a delight to eat at wonderful,cost 20.00 usd well worth it to some was told by others not worth the money we tried it but the food it just as good at the buffet so why pay?, desert rose steak house has steak, not so good and our waiter served the salad to my wife as i was eating appetizer so my salad came and she just sat and watched me eat, service was poor and the steak was OK if you compare it to and average steak house. not worth the extra 15usd as the buffet always had a good prime rib or roast or ham on the buffet so stay away from the steak house it isn't worth the money , we even had a pig with an apple in it's mouth on the buffet one night OVERALL the service was awesome but the food is best eaten on the buffet and avoid the dinning rooms if you can,it's the same food and better with more variety on the buffet and the service was just as good if not better in the buffet area the food was wonderful. EXCURSIONS: well we missed Kauai do to wind to high to enter the port and master foster chose safety over docking, it was very windy that day but we did get to drive around the napali coast with a narration from the naturalist that made it very interesting and educational great waterfalls on the coast side very beautiful thing to see. Maui was very nice we did the iao valley and plantation tour, the plantation gift shop was almost empty as it looks as if they are closing down soon due to the poor economy i asked an employee and they said they were down about 50 percent and have laid off employees. but the tour was fun and the girls showed us how to husk a coconut so so funny well worth the tour,iao valley is a beautiful spot where the final battle took place to unite the islands under king kamayamaya, Robert's tours did it through the princess ship and was worth the 60 each.1gail1 did a snorkel trip and she said it was wonderful she loved the turtles and fish and said it was well worth the cost HILO was a rental car day and we visited the volcano national park great great park and very nice well worth the visit, we shopped down town at joys gift shop and purchased ukulele's at the best price in town very reasonable and they sound great.wal mart had the best prices on shirts and macadamia nuts best prices in hawaii was wal-mart. did not find anyone who did not like there excursion or think there's was a bad value for the cost. OAHU great for a big city and remember the hooters across the mall at the port you can watch great Hawaiian entertainment there. we rented a car and drove to the dole plantation and around the island,very nice well worth the cost of the rental car CREW TRAINING/ SECURITY. yes they train the crew during the cruise and you can tell they are very good. but, yes the "but" is important, after docking in Ensenada they announced over the speaker they were going to do drills on the starboard side and you tried to figure out what they were saying over the muffled speakers no one understood, you could not understand much, what they tried to say was the starboard side was closed and off limits to passengers, but this is the smoking area side of the ship, we do not smoke but ,as they drilled we heard them yell time and time again at passengers as they went through he doors on the starboard side to go smoke, they lost at least 30 customers that day they all yelled back and were not happy with the way they were talked to and i don't think they will return to princess, a simple sign on the doors could have saved everyone, it was hard to sit at the martini bar area and watch it all happen. after training was over and it went on for hours while we were in ensenada the room stewards all over the ship stopped smiling and greeting you, it was strange, all the stewards looked shell shocked and very tired and never again that night or next morning at debarkation did they smile at anyone, they were tired and well all looked mad and upset. not a good end for a wonderful cruise adventure.A note on the security staff on the golden princess, when you return to the ship it is not a happy group of fellows that meet you ,they are not well organized and 5 to 6 different times they argued amongst themselves in front of the passengers, this makes for interesting conversation in the elevator as everyone said they hope we don't need the security guys for something important if they they have to work together it was embarrassing to watch them argue with each other. VALUE Yes the golden princess is a good value for the dollar and David Cole was an awesome cruise director.