After 8 Carribean cruises in as many years on Carnival, Princess, and Celebrity, we took a 5 year break from cruising as everything had become same old same old. Since we've retired and relocated to Florida, cruising is easier - no flights to catch - so we decided to give it another try and chose a short itinerary on the Emerald Princess - 5 days, 2 ports.

Embarkation was a breeze and we were in our cabin just a few minutes after boarding. We watched sailaway from our balcony - I highly recommend the Caribe deck balconies - they are substantially larger than other decks.

Emerald is a lovely ship, but showing her age. We had a balcony cabin, C619, which is billed as aft, but only 1 cabin away from midship. The cabin was lovely, tight, but not unusually so for a cruise ship. The bed was comfy, and Princess has done an outstanding job on storage space, with a large rack and lots of hangers for things that need to hang, and storage cubbies for things that don't. There is a safe in this same area. There is underbed storage for bags, etc. Good job Princess. Read more