Caribbean Princess Review
3000 passengers is too many for our liking, but excellent service
Rating by category
Additional details
To make this review more useful, I'll try to write in sections.
OVERVIEW: I love cruising, in general. My room is cleaned 3 times a day, my groceries bought, meals planned, cooked, and cleaned-up, entertainment choices laid out, etc. What's not to like? Well, several things. Too many passengers means that entertainment/lectures are not available to everyone wanting to see them. Getting on and off the ship requires extra time, which shortened every port day by 90 minutes on average. But a large ship also has more offerings than is possible on a small one.
FOOD: The dining options were plentiful, and you could eat 24 hours a day, if you wanted. The quality varied. On Deck 15 are the Horizon Court and Cafe Caribe. For breakfast, they typically offered similar fare, although CC is smaller, so cannot offer as much. But they are adjacent, so if one was lacking, it was easy to go to the other. During lunch, the options were a bit different. For example, one day CC offered a sushi bar while HC had the usual variety of salads, fruit, sandwiches, hot foods, and the ever-present desserts.
Cabin Review
Balcony
C250 - roomy enough to relax in, with a desk and 2 chairs, small table, and enough drawers. Good size balcony with 2 chairs, separate foot rests, and a large table. Lighting was adequate (lamps on each side of bed, plus overhead lights and desk lights overhead). Typical tiny bathroom, but with nice soap and toiletries (and washcloths!), and adequate storage. The hair dryer is the ancient kind - loud and hot, but not much volume, and pulls your hair out. Bring your own, and bring a 4-outlet extension cord. There are only 2 outlets, both at the desk.
There is no clock in the room, but you can call for a wake-up, and it rang right on time. Bonus was the little refrigerator which easily held a 6-pack of soft drinks (which you can buy before boarding and bring on) plus 2-3 water bottles.
Bed is very hard but sags on the balcony side. Pillows are a joke - bring your own (buy the Eagle Creek large compression bag - a std pillow and case will fit and squish down to nothing. Really)
The laundry is close enough (takes $2 per load for wash, $2 to dry), and not noisy. The cabin was not noisy at all, really, but ours was an adult cruise.
If you are in the far north, traveling west and hope to see the northern lights, they will be on the Starboard side. If traveling east, they'll be on Port (in the north - duh!).