My wife and I are an active retired professional couple in our 60s, who have sailed on approximately fifteen cruises, the last six of which were all 14-day cruises on three different Celebrity ships from 2003 to 2005. We have always reserved balcony cabins when available, and on this cruise we had balcony Cabin A501 which was on the Aloha Deck 12 about midships just below the Lido Deck. We don't consider ourselves fussy or demanding types, and rarely ask for special treatment from the crew and simply "go with the flow" and enjoy the cruise.

After six cruises on Celebrity, and as shareholders of Carnival Corporation, the parent company of Princess Cruises, we decided to book a cruise on Princess to see if this line might be to our liking. We have been interested in trying different itineraries and other ships, and when we learned of this 14-day cruise on the Golden Princess with three ports in Western Europe and three in the British Isles, coupled with a transatlantic sailing to New York, we booked it on rather short notice.

We had only been on the ship a short time when we reluctantly concluded Princess was a very poor alternative to Celebrity, and this opinion was continuously confirmed throughout the cruise. We also concluded that much of this is attributed to serious cost cutting by Princess in all areas of its operation, the automatic tipping policy of Princess, and the obvious attempt to appeal to the less sophisticated cruise passenger, the "McDonalds-generation" passenger, with low expectations, little experience in finer dining and proper food preparation, and one who is happy with the cruise as long as he can heap the food on his plate in the buffet on a 24-hour basis. Our feelings were shared by other passengers with whom we spoke during the cruise. Read more