Some friends of ours invited us to join their group on a Panama Canal transit cruise. My husband is retired from the shipping industry, so he was excited to go. We flew from Houston to Los Angeles and boarded the Island Princess. This was our third Princess cruise and the second time we have cruised on this ship. Several years ago, we did an Alaskan cruise on this ship.

As others have mentioned, this ship was modified to add more cabins. The cruise was a near-sell out, so we experienced some issues. We had 10 in our group and we chose anytime dining. However, on this cruise we had only two choices: 5:15 or r 8:15. Another issue is that there were several walkers in our group. When the new cabins were added, they closed off the promenade deck so when we walked we had to open two heavy doors and cut through the shop to make a circuit. Also, it was often hard or impossible to find seating in the theater.

Food in the main dining room and the Horizon Court buffet was very good. We ate once in the Bayou Cafe and felt it was not worth the money. We enjoyed the burger and hot dog grill several times, especially when we came back on board after a long shore excursion and were too tired to dress foe dinner. Read more