Embarkation: The embarkation process was fairly quick, even though the lines were long. There was a duty-free store inside the area where you embark that sold all sorts of liquor, wine, water, soft drinks, and beer. Although Princess advertises that passengers can only bring on a bottle of wine or champagne, this is was not the case at all. It is perfectly acceptable to buy your spirits in the duty-free store and take them on the ship. You do have to put liquor in your carry-on bag but can walk right on with your wine and anything else purchased in the store. Apparently this is because the security and scanners are owned by the port, and not the cruise line. It's a good idea to buy your soft drinks and water there because it's quite expensive on the ship.Ship: The ship was nice but the layout is rather unusual. There are only two decks that go all the way through so we often found ourselves going up and down stairs and then crossing over to the decks that went all the way through. Overall, the ship is nice and clean. We thought that Princess could have done a better job of posting all the amenities the ship has to offer. Our friends found the Sanctuary by wandering around on the ship but it wasn't posted anywhere. This is a place that you can go and read or nap, as it is an adults-only area. There's a nice breeze because it's located at the top of the ship. The drawbacks are that it cost $10 extra and there is no restroom on that floor. Passengers have to go down the steps to the spa area where the restrooms smelled like mildew. There is also no sign posted in the spa area about adults-only in the Sanctuary so some people wander in there with children. The attendants do no readily inform people that children are not allowed in this area, but will do so if asked. There weren't enough restrooms around the pool areas and one or the other was usually closed for service. All the public areas were kept clean and tables were promptly cleared. There are designated areas on the ship where passengers can smoke, but these are not marked and non-smokers tended to unknowingly hog these areas, making it difficult for smokers to have a place to sit. We also noticed a lot of boat motion in the aft area (We were on the Baja deck which is 11). When the ship docked, it was also quite noisy and there was significant vibration, but again, this may have been because our cabin was located nearly at the end of the boat.Service: This is the one area where I think Caribbean Princess could do a better job. We sailed with Princess to Alaska in June 2008 and found the service to be impeccable. For this reason, we chose Princess again for our Caribbean cruise, but were disappointed overall. Our room steward, Arnel, was very good and kept our cabin clean at all times. The main lack of service occurred in the Horizon and Caribe dining areas. We ate many of our meals in these dining rooms because the food was good, plentiful, and readily available; however, the service was sorely lacking. Most mornings, I was never offered coffee or juice and had to flag somebody down or get it myself. At times, the servers seemed annoyed when asked for condiments (that should have been on the buffet but weren't always there). I once asked for some ketchup and thought the guy might not speak English because of the way he looked at me. The wait-staff was much better in the Island dining room, and the food was very good.Embarkation: The process was chaotic at best. We were at our designated area on time, but our "color" had already been called. There was no attendant to tell us where to go, but when we asked over and over we were directed. Once we got to where we needed to be, we had to stand in a line that was not moving. Our luggage was hard to find but at least there were plenty of porters to assist once we found it. We were taken to the airport around 9:30 but our flight didn't leave until 2:20 PM. Princess needs to have a hospitality area for passengers with flights that aren't leaving in the morning (The Alaskan cruise had this and it was very nice. They would hold your bags so that you could walk around the town too.)

Summary: Overall, this was a nice cruise but I will consider other cruise lines for my next cruise.