Having cruised on a 10 day Princess cruise before, we tried to set our expectations appropriately for this 4 day quickie cruise out of Jacksonville. Our expectations were that the cruise would cater to a slightly different customer base. We liked our aft-view balcony very much. The room was clean, quiet and comfortable. Our cabin steward did a decent job, although we had to demand new sheets on the bed upon checkin because of hair and some "yellowing" in the middle area of the sheets. The imagination does wander about how those yellow marks were obtained....

We enjoyed our maitre d Dessi immensely. She was by far the highlight of the cruise in terms of staff. She was very nice and treated us very well. Outside the formal dining room, however, there was a sincere lack of spirit in the staff. Many of them appeared to be "going through the motions" and "soulless". They avoided eye contact, cut in front of you when in a hurry, and were generally very removed from the cruisers. Bar staff were harried and antisocial. The entertainment folks were "going through the motions" and didn't seem the slightest bit sincere in many of their public addresses or routines.

The food was not up to par. The lines at the buffet and at the pool were excruciatingly long at all hours. For example, there was a line of 50+ people just to get grilled hamburgers at all times. I don't understand why the ship couldnt grill more burgers at one time. The mongolian barbeque, although equipped to make bowls for 6 people concurrently, was always a 20-25 minute wait from the back of the line. I found this frustrating because there were no alternatives for lunch other than the buffet area and the pizza/deli area. Overall I was very disappointed in the lack of speed on food service. Room service came once after 70 minutes waiting despite a 45 minute promise. The black hair under the BLT was alarming. When you buy the soda plan, you have to be prepared to go to multiple bars to find the soda you want. I had to traverse the ship to find coke zero or club soda at times. I got some money back for that problem. Read more