My wife and I were on the maiden 12 day Mediterranean voyage of the Royal Princess, cruising from Barcelona to Venice from June 23 to July 5. This was our seventh Princess cruise having sailed previously on the Caribbean Princess (twice), the Crown Princess (twice), the Star Princess and the Sun Princess. The Royal Princess had some hits and misses as compared to the Grand class of Princess ships.

Stateroom - We had an extended balcony stateroom on Caribe deck. The extended stateroom seemed to be about 18 inches longer than a regular stateroom allowing enough room for a small sofa. We didn’t think there was any more usable space than a balcony stateroom on the other Princess ships, so we were disappointed. The balcony was only about 42 inches wide, comparing unfavorably to the balconies on the Caribe and Dolphin decks of the Caribbean and Crown Princess. The cabin had a 40" flat screen TV on the wall with an nice selection of video on demand which generally worked well, although was slow to startup. My wife thought the shower was significantly larger than on previous Princess ships. The shower has dispensers for shampoo/conditioner and body wash which pumped out small amounts at a time. As others have noted, the toilet paper holder couldn’t have been placed more inconveniently, but moving the spare roll to the counter worked as a substitute. Entering the stateroom requires putting a cruise card or similarly sized item in a slot inside the door in order for the lights to work. The bed was comfortable and the air conditioning worked well. One irritation - TV noise from the adjoining cabin, probably because of the mounting of the TV on the wall.

Elevators and Stairs - Yet another deck was added, the Marina deck, but no additional elevators were added. The Royal Princess has elevator banks forward, mid-ship and aft. Oddly, though, there are no stairs mid-ship above the seventh deck. We found that omission to be a major design flaw and made the elevators mid-ship slow and overcrowded. We often walked aft in order to take the stairs, especially down. I would suggest that those who are able bodied should avoid cabins mid-ship and my personal preference would be to choose an aft cabin where stairs are available and elevators easier to snag. Read more