My wife and I've now cruised on NCL, Carnival, and Holland to Alaska, Mexico and the Caribbean. So we are actively comparing the cruise lines to see which we prefer. This is our second cruise with Princess, both out of San Francisco. The first was the Sea Princess to Alaska, which we really enjoyed, so influenced us to try Princess to Hawaii as well.

We live in the SF Bay area, so getting there is pretty easy and eliminates the headaches of flight and hotel arrangements, and the airline's baggage restrictions--a big decision as to why we also selected this cruise.

(4 of 5) Ship: The Grand Princess is clearly an older ship, well-maintained but seemingly in constant maintenance--there were constant wet paint/varnish signs posted on the various decks and public areas. And I don't know what was going on with the decks--there seemed to always be either wet carpets or wet trails of water near or in the eating areas (and of course the pools), with yellow caution plastic teepees marking some, but not all, the wet areas. Even areas that you didn't expect water to be, there was a wet deck or trail of water across our paths. Read more