This was our third time on Princess - we have sailed 20+ times mostly with RCCL. We arrived in New York the day prior to sailing and spent the day in Downtown New York City. It was a nice visit, but it began raining in the evening and continued through embarkation and sail away - making the Statue of Liberty barely visible in the rain and fog.

Embarkation was efficient and organized. We got to our room in less than one hour from the time we arrived at the port. My first impression of the ship was that is was in good shape and very pretty. Our cabin was toward the back of the ship. The aft elevator did not access all decks and only certain elevators were available to go up to Skywalkers. This made the ship seem somewhat "chopped up" to me. Our cabin was small in comparison to other lines. The closet, however, was the largest closet we have ever had. I did, however, miss a love-seat or couch. The bathroom was incredibly small - taking a shower was a challenge. There weren't enough shelves in the bathroom or shower to hold much of anything. Fortunately, I had a door hanger which helped hold most of my toiletries. Even though the size of the cabin was small, we were able to get around adequately without tripping over things and we had plenty of storage for 2 people. We had a small, empty refrigerator and flat-screen TV which was nice. I did miss the interactive TV where you could book shore excursions, order room service, and view your shipboard account in your stateroom. However, stateroom movies were exceptional. We sailed with 5 others and all 3 of our cabins were lined up in a row. Our travelling companions were told by both Princess and our TA they could get a roll-away for a third person in their room. A roll-away is impossible in this cabin category as there is no floor space other than the closet. They had to use their upper bed. It was nice that we were able to open up an access door between all 3 balconies - we would have liked full access, though, to have had more space. We all spent a lot of time on the balconies. Next time I think we'll try the mini-suite for the additional space.

Anytime dining was not up to my expectations. You could only make reservations in the anytime dining rooms for traditional hours (5:45 and 8:00 p.m.). We had sailed Princess previously and they allowed us to make reservations in between (at 7:00 or 7:30 p.m. on a previous ship) and that is what we would have preferred. For the nights we didn't have reservations, we had at least a 45 minute wait, so for us, late dining with the same waiter would have been better. We did find a waiter we preferred and asked for him the second half of the cruise. Service in the dining room was fair to excellent, depending upon the server. Read more