I hate big ship cruising but I LOVED the Fiji Princess. Embarkation and disembarkation for the 7 day cruise is from the Denaru Marina, in Nadi, Fiji and involves the crew singing both a greeting song and a goodbye song. The ship's crew is fabulous: friendly, caring, attentive, warm and entertaining (they sang to us often). They really make this cruise, but the ship itself and the itinerary are also great.
The ship has 30 cabins so 60 passengers are the max. This makes for a fairly intimate experience and one gets to know many of the other passengers, many of whom are from New Zealand and Australia. The ship has really nice and well designed cabins with lots of storage including under bed storage for your suitcases (the beds are raised platform style). Every cabin has a window and ensuite bath which is small but very functional. The shower converts to a hand held shower which makes it so much easier to shower. There is even a medicine cabinet in the bathroom to store all your essentials. Our cabin was on the Hibiscus Deck and we were so glad as this deck has the dining room and reception area (where one goes to board the tenders for trips) and the self service free laundry room that has 2 washers and 2 dryers. The lowest Orchid Deck has the bar and lounge area and the upper Orchid deck has its own sun deck.
The food on the ship is great and plentiful with several choices at every meal. Fresh fish is almost always available as is beautiful salad fixings every lunch time. In addition to the 3 meals they serve morning and afternoon tea which usually includes fresh tropical fruit of all kinds. The 7 day tour winds up and around the Yasawa Islands and includes visits to the islands where the movies Blue Lagoon and Castaway were filmed as well as an excursion to the caves featured in the Blue Lagoon movie. In addition there is snorkeling almost every day and sometimes twice per day, village visits at many of the islands and a visit to the cruise company's private beach which is really beautiful and includes a song and dance performance by the villagers of that island. The reefs of Fiji are in marvelous condition, healthy, lush, colorful and well populated with a large variety of fish and other sea creatures. We took this cruise mainly for the snorkeling and were not disappointed. In all, I whole heartedly recommend this cruise.
The ship has really nice and well designed cabins with lots of storage including under bed storage for your suitcases (the beds are raised platform style). Every cabin has a window and ensuite bath which is small but very functional. The shower converts to a hand held shower which makes it so much easier to shower. There is even a medicine cabinet in the bathroom to store all your essentials. Our cabin was on the Hibiscus Deck and we were so glad as this deck has the dining room and the reception area (where one goes to board the tenders for trips) and the self service free laundry room that has 2 washer and 2 dryers. The lowest Orchid Deck has the bar and lounge area and the upper Orchid deck has its own sun deck.