My husband and I were on our third cruise, first with Princess. He is 66, I am 60. We flew into Ft. Lauderdale the day before departure. We made our own hotel reservations online, and opted for the Ramada, less than 2 miles from the Cruise port. Ramada picked us up at the airport and delivered us to the ship the next morning. $89.00/night, including full American breakfast. They have a pool, nice restaurant/night club, and Tiki bar. Others on the cruise chose the Plantation motel, some paying as little as $69/night, with the same amenities, but no breakfast.

We were pleasantly surprised at how easy the embarkation process was for the Coral Princess. We waited in a large hangar-type building with chairs until our group was called. Our luggage had been taken directly from the Ramada van to our suite. We had a mini-suite which had a bathtub/shower combo, so if you don't like stepping in and out of a tub, even with safety bars, you don't want this type suite. I guess the only difference with the suite is a larger closet (it's not walk-in though as claimed) with plenty of hangars. The balconies are very small. Two TVs were nice.

I read an online review by a professional cruiser who swore the Coral Princess had the best crew around. I did not find that to be the case, although I have no major complaints. Our cabin steward, Alfie, was a Filipino who was nearing the end of his contract prior to six months at home, and he was pleasant, but appeared tired. Most of the staff in the regular dining room were Romanians. I didn't care for our main server, a Romanian woman. It has been my experience that the main servers get the job because they are usually a combination of charming, witty, funny, etc. She was none of those and would interrupt lively dinner conversations to simply ask if everything was OK (yes it was, except for her interruptions). There are only 3 maitre'd for the entire restaurant and we were fortunate to have Jose, a Brazilian, and he was everything you could hope for it that position. I am not a strong walker, so I looked for non-strenuous activities. There were lots of trivia type games daily, and I played then regularly. I cannot speak highly enough about the Entertainment staff, headed up by Scott and the DJ Leon. My favorites were Rebecca and Liam from the UK and my husband flipped for Veronica from Mexico. Read more