We just finished a cruise to the Southern Caribbean on the Caribbean Princess. This is our sixth cruise (2nd on Princess) and we did enjoy it. A few things we figured out though. We finally realized why it stopped at so many ports(5 total). On the days at sea the ship is pretty crowded because of the extra deck of staterooms compared to other princess ships (about 500 extra people). We chose not to go into port on two stops to get back the balance of fun and relaxation that we missed on the days at sea. It was wonderful, the decks and pools were a lot less crowded. We really like the movie screen by the pool. During the day we could watch movies while sunning. At night, although they advertise Movies Under the Stars, it was mostly football and concerts. I am not sure where the showing concerts on the big screen came from, but it didn't look very popular and many people seemed disappointed. The few nights that they showed movies, it was during dinner. We liked the anytime dining. It allowed us to meet more people on the cruise. The dancing was ok. We like both ballroom and Latin dancing. The band that played dance songs (rumba, waltz, foxtrot, etc) was in a lounge, the Wheelhouse Bar, with a pretty small dance floor. They had a good dance beat but it would have been more fun to dance in Club Fusion to them where the big dance floor was. We were a little disappointed that there was not a Latin band for dancing. We did go to the Musica Latina DJ, the option they did offer, and it was fun. There were a lot of people from Puerto Rico on board, so there was a good number of people on the floor. If you like to dance these places were fun. A few of our disappointments were the lack of maintenance of the ship(cracked tiles, missing tile, burned out light fixtures, sinks out of order, bathroom door in the stateroom that did not work properly). On our only day at sea when the decks and pools were the most crowded, they closed our favorite pool near the sanctuary for cleaning . The ship isn't that old compared to well maintained buildings in Europe that are hundreds of years old. Another disappointment was the friendliness of the staff. There were a few very good staff members, but compared to a few years ago, many of the staff appeared to be quite lazy. A few other things just do not make sense either. It seemed like they were not nearly as attentive as in years past. Our stateroom attendant was nice but no towel monkeys or personal treatment. In the lounges and by the pool it was pretty difficult to get the attention of the servers when you wanted a drink. It seemed like they didn't want to work. On the other hand, they are still doing annoying and interrupting sales advertising during dinner time which we still think is very tacky. The theater was not as elegant or as big as we remembered after having gone on Costa Fortuna. On Costa the seating was more like a sofa with a cocktail table. Lots of leg room. The Princess Theater was more like a movie theater and the stage was smaller. Another plus though was they had nonsmoking nights it the casino which made it much more pleasant to get from one end of the ship to another. All in all a good time though it was below our expectations as set by our previous experiences. 2005 Holland America Oosterdam 2006 Caribbean Princess 2007 Royal Caribbean Adventure of the seas 2008 Costa Mediterania 2009 Costa Fortuna