It seems clear from all the mixed reviews that expectations dictated the experience for People. This cruise for us was all about the destination, less about the ship so I will start with the ports and then come back to the ship.

Having never been to Asia, this was a fantastic itinerary to get a taste of a lot of places. Our goal was to see all we could and with that focus we were not disappointed. We went from Singapore to Shanghai and enjoyed each stop. My preference when I travel is private tours rather than the ship excursions, but having no experience in Asia, we decided to go with ship excursions. We prepared for the trip so knew what we wanted to see. and were able to see a significant portion. We expected some communication issues but only had a couple of guides the whole time that could not speak English well enough to be understood. Overall, we were happy with what we were able to see and do in all the ports. We learned a lot about what we would like to go back and see as well. The shore excursion staff, while friendly, were not really the most organized we have seen on other Princess ships. Very large groups were gathered in dining rooms rather than the princess theater which made the process a little more confusing. When they did use the theater, we often found the groups (by number) mixed on rows, which created issues when departing. All in all though, on the worst days, the wait wasn't that bad and once off the ship we did everything we paid to do.

Overall I found the ship staff to be very well trained and very accommodating. There were quite a few stand outs, but I actually never ran into any crew member that was less that adequate and most were quite good at their jobs. Read more