Emerald Princess Review
Fantastic ship and criuse...beware of sales pitches
Rating by category
Additional details
This was our third cruise, our first time on Princess. My wife and I sailed with her brother and his wife and their adult son and his girlfriend. This was their first cruise. We all had a great time. The Emerald Princess is all and more that you would want in a ship. It is elegant, extremely clean and pleasing to the eye. The food is excellent in both the dining rooms and in the extra fee restaurants. More on that later. We had fun at all the ports of call, although, we weren't that impressed with the 1st stop at Princess Cays. All in all the cruise to the Western Caribbean on the Emerald Princess is worth every penny. We highly recommend it.
We opted for the open dining and never waited more than 20 minutes for our table. The service was exceptional and the food, excuse me, cuisine was fantastic. Everything was delicious. We dined at Sabatini's one evening and had a wonderful meal there. Definitely worth the extra 20 bucks a person. We were somewhat disappointed with the Crown Grille, though. The steaks were prepared perfectly, as ordered, but all lacked that excellent steakhouse flavor.(we had rib-eye, new york strip & fillets) On the positive side, the service was excellent and the side dishes were fantastic. Be sure to try the corn casserole, very tasty. The pizza on deck 15 is excellent, betcha can't eat just one slice.
There is lots to do on board. They have a nice casino, but need more $5 minimum bet blackjack tables. There is bingo every day and lots of other activities to keep you busy on the days at sea. We saw a couple of shows, the juggling comedian was very good as was the string quartet who played almost every afternoon in the piazza. The outdoor movies were fun but the jumbotron type screen didn't have great quality but still worth going to. One note, it had rained one evening before a show and all the deck chairs were wet and passengers were drying them off themselves while we saw 4 deck hands just standing around not helping at all. Princess could be a little more on top of this type of situation.
Cabin Review
We were in cabin E408 on Emerald Deck 8. It was very quiet, clean, cozy and efficient. Whenever we sail, we always get an obstructed view cabin in the middle of the ship. It is the best value for the money. Since we don't stay in our room except to sleep & change clothes, a balcony is of no use to us. We like to be be able to look out and get some light in the room and don't mind seeing a lifeboat outside the window. It gives us a central location on the ship both up & down and forward & aft. In fact, our cabin was exactly the same as the one that my wife's brother had up on deck 10, with a balcony and paid $400 more for.