First of all this is actually 2 back to back 7 day cruises not 1ea 14 day cruise as is sold. This equates to being at sea for a large amount of the time because the ship has to return to Ft Lauderdale in order to disembark some passengers and the taking on of new passengers for which ever leg of the trip that will start anew. Alone that's a 2 day at sea trip coming and going (4 days). Now add on the days, not shown in the itinerary as "at sea". Those days would include your departure day and days between ports of call. So for example after you've experienced your first 2 at sea days you have 60 hours out there and the clock can still be running as you haven't reached your port of call yet, that's shown as an arrival day.

The con to this package is that because of the travel time some ports of call end up being rather useless. Example: San Juan Puerto Rico. We arrived at about 4:30pm local time, by the time we got clearance to disembark, port officials got there, and we were allowed to leave the ship we had just over 2 hrs of day light left and all of the historical sites close at 6:00pm local time. How much of such a wonderful place can you see under those conditions? Next time I sail I'll be looking at the 10-12 day packages where the ship doesn't have to report back to their home birth every 7 days.

No Smoking rules: While many of you will applaud the new onboard smoking rules for us smokers it's like being placed in a less then second class pier group. Yet I do agree with some of the rules and was able to abide by them but it came at a real cost in enjoyment. On the Grand Princes there were only 4 smoking areas available to less than Platinum card holders or Suite occupants (they have one more in a restricted lounge) and on at least 2 occasions all of them were closed, blocked off, clear on the other end of the ship and more often than not un-manned with no onboard services what so ever (drinks/food etc.). Another really annoying issue is that when reading their policy on Princes.com it states that permitted smoking areas are well marked. Sorry they are not. Like most of the information one can obtain aboard ship your best and most reliable source of information comes from follow passengers thru trial and error. When I asked a Senior Purser (Officer) about their "well marked smoking areas" he told me that they were marked, by ashtrays. The most centrally located smoking area was on deck 7 Portside of the ship also known as the Promenade deck. The ashtrays are hung on the bulkhead just outside of very heavy outward swinging doors but hidden from view by large equipment lockers. One can look up and down that deck and not see one of the 3 ashtrays located there. Oh yes, 5 percent of the passengers crammed around 3 ashtrays being pelted with heavy doors and knocked to the bulkhead. Did I mention there is no seating around these ashtrays? Additionally, and somewhat funny, there were ashtrays on some of the elevator landings which are definitely not located where you can smoke or anywhere close to one. Tell me again about the clearly marked smoking areas. If you're a smoker I'd look at other options as all of the Cruise Lines owned by Carnival have the same policies in effect. Other independent Cruise Lines have retracted these restrictive rules due to the loss of revenue. Read more