We departed Houston (Bayport) on the Caribbean Princess on Feb. 8th. Between recent issues on this ship with fog in Houston and norovirus, I was a little anxious that things would go well. Turns out, I had nothing to worry about.

Embarkation went pretty smoothly. We got to the port about 1:00 pm and were on the ship within an hour. We had a mini-suite (D329) on the Dolphin deck (deck 9). Naming the decks was irritating. I wish they just went by deck numbers.

First, I would like to talk about the food. My wife and I both thought the food was very good. The main dining rooms were fine. The quality and selection of the food was generally very good. We always found something we liked. My one complaint about the main dining rooms is that the ship had two formal nights (on a seven day cruise) and did not want non-formal dress in their dining rooms. I think with three MDRs, they could have one set aside for casually dressed diners. On the other hand, the buffets were also very good. I was amazed to get hot food from a buffet. They had a good selection and we always found something we liked. Other reviewers have complained about buffet seating but we always found a table fairly quickly. One thing about the buffets were the desserts. I have been to other places that had nice looking desserts but they didn't taste very good. The Caribbean Princess (everywhere - not just the buffets) had wonderful looking desserts that tasted as good as they looked! Read more