I have cruised with many cruise lines America West, Azamara, Disney, Holland America Mississippi Queen, Princess, Royal Caribbean and have found that the quality of service is about the same on all of them. Depending on whether you like the larger ships which usually have better entertainment and longer lines especially at the food buffets or the smaller ships which have shorter lines and do not have crowded public areas or huge excursion lines. I have found that on my cruises the food has been good, the entertainment good with Disney Cruises having somewhat better entertainment and the employees and service has been excellent on all of my cruises. The staterooms are all small but adequate with the exception of the larger suites, which are very nice but very expensive. I choose a cruise because of when and where I want to go so I do not choose a cruise line because of loyalty benefits. I usually get a balcony/verandah room but have stayed in large suites, mini-suites, outside staterooms and inside staterooms. The one thing that I require when choosing a room is a bath with a tub/shower because the showers in most bathrooms are way too small.

On the Island Princess I had to pay extra to get a tub/shower whereas on other cruise lines such as Disney, Holland America, Azamara & Royal Caribbean offer balcony rooms with the larger tub/showers. My mini suite stateroom on this cruise was # B208. Even though I paid for a mini-suite it was in no way a suite. It was about the same size as a regular outside stateroom on my last Royal Caribbean cruise and not as large as the balcony room on my last Holland American cruise so calling it a suite is misleading. I guess the operative word is Mini and it was indeed a mini room. It had a large closet with lots of storage space. It had (2) TV's right next to each other?? It also had a mini-refrigerator which was nice. The bathroom was a good size with the tub/shower combination. There was a queen size sofa and a regular size balcony which were nice. The worst thing about this cruise were the twin mattresses. These were the worst mattresses I've ever had on all of my 35 years of cruising. I can't remember ever sleeping on a worse mattress. Along with the terrible mattresses the coverlets on the beds were too short and did not fit the beds. I asked for a top sheet after the 1st night which helped otherwise I would have been very cold because the cover only came about 2/3 the way up. I asked around and with the exception on 1 person everyone thought the mattresses were terrible. Unfortunately I didn't find out until the last day that I could have asked for another mattress. The Island Princess may have recently been refurbished but they did not change their mattresses and this is a shame because it made for a very uncomfortable 10 days. Thus the below average rating for this cruise.

The entertainment on the ship was average. I especially liked the Island Princess dancers as they were quite good. the Comedians, Singers etc were ok. If entertainment is important then this may not be the ship for you. Read more