This cruise was an experiment for us, in seven ways. Wed cruised before once each with Royal Caribbean, Holland America, Carnival, and Celebrity, but this was our first experience with Princess. It was our first time in the Southern/Eastern Caribbean. It was an 11-night cruise, and all our previous cruises were 7-nighters. It was the first cruise for us over a major holiday (New Years.) It was our first time in an inside cabin (which made the price virtually the same as our shorter cruises in balcony cabins). It was the largest ship wed cruised on (our previous cruises had been on ships with 2,000 passengers or less, and the Star sailed full with 2,700.) And it was the first time wed signed up for early (traditional) seating (which we did this time based on the port itinerary)  on all our other cruises wed had late traditional seating.

The bottom line: the experiment turned out quite well for us. Given the right itinerary and price, well cruise with Princess again (we bought an open booking for a future cruise while we were onboard.) We certainly enjoyed the ports in the Southern/Eastern Caribbean, so we plan to come back, but more likely on a 7-night cruise (to get a little younger crowd onboard.) We enjoyed the holiday festivities, but sailing over New Years wont be something that we either seek out or avoid. The inside cabin, at least the one we picked on this ship, was quite nice, and we wont hesitate to book another one on a cruise where there isnt a lot of interesting scenery while under way, and where price is a significant consideration. Well still gravitate towards ships with 2,000 or fewer passengers, but would gladly sail again on Princesss Grand-class ships (see below.) And, given a cruise longer than 7 days, featuring early departures from most ports (4-6pm), wed sign up for early traditional seating again. The major reason wed have for avoiding early traditional seating is that on shorter cruises, there are more young children aboard, and their families tend to want to feed them earlier, which makes for a much noisier dining experience then.

A lot of things about this cruise turned out well, based on the things Ive learned from the experiences of others on Cruise Critic. For example, we each packed half our clothes in each others suitcases, and we planned to fly into our departure port a day early, so when American Airlines succeeded in losing one of our 4 checked bags on a direct flight from Dallas/Ft. Worth to Fort Lauderdale, we were concerned but not panicked. American finally got our missing bag to us around 8pm  if that had been our departure day, theres no telling how long it would have been before we saw that bag again, since our first port was on day three, in Aruba. Digression  there was apparently something seriously amiss with Americans baggage handling that day, because there were 4 or 5 other people on our flight with missing luggage, and more than that on the next flight (which we waited for in vain to see if our missing bag would show up.) Read more