I found out a few weeks before departure that Princess Cruises was going to launch the "Club Class Dining" on this particular cruise to Mexico. In my prior experience with Princess I had felt that the main dining service was the weakest point in the overall cruise experience. That is, service in the main dining areas was less than what I had experienced on other cruise lines and was frustratingly inconsistent whether I dined during preset time or anytime dining. It wasn't a deal breaker because the ship offered so many other options for dining such as the premium restaurants or pop-ups like (Crab Shack or Gastropub) that during a 7-day cruise I could find something else. So, the "Club Class Dining" was something that might have me dining in the main dining room again.

I'm here to relay that the "Club Class Dining" was one of my best experiences on this cruise. The dining area for "Club Class Dining" was an area on the starboard side of the Da Vinci dining room. There was a separate entrance with a wonderful hostess that knew your name after the first time you dined with them. The "Club Class Dining" is an anytime dining area, but most of the people using this area seem to dine around the same time every evening and even for lunch. What happened is other that some tables right next to the windows everyone seemed to gravitate to the same table every time they dined. Also, the waiters and assistant waiters serviced the same tables every meal and got to know each diner and their preferences for drinks and pace of the meal. Simply put, the experience was like going back in time to period where the ships were much smaller and the dining staff knew you by the 2nd day. I really enjoyed the experience and talking with the head waiter who would prepare certain dishes right in the dining area. This is something that I will look to using again on future cruises because it reminds me of my first cruise in the early 1990's and how the dining experience was so much a highlight of the overall cruising experience.

My cabin a Penthouse Suite (S4) was very nice. The bed was comfortable and plush. The room was quiet except during the late afternoons and early evenings when there was lots of chair shuffling going on on the deck above. During the late evenings it was dead quiet. The experience of a Suite offers some nice amenities like free laundry, a mini-bar set-up and some take-home amenities (gift bag, shoe bag, etc.). What I enjoyed was the expanded in-suite breakfast room service complete with table clothes. A couple of mornings I had early departure times for excursions and being able to order a complete breakfast delivered to the room made those early meeting times seem less rushed. Plus, the delivery was accompanied by someone who would setup the meal on either the in-room coffee table or on the balcony's table with a table cloth and lay out the dishes of the breakfast. On those days I chose to have a breakfast outside of the suite I had a choice of using the Crown Grill for breakfast of the "Club Class Dining" area. Plus, the suites have full room service on disembarkation day. Read more