My husband and I booked the maiden voyage Emerald Princess cruise without realizing it was the ship's first sailing. This was our fifth cruise and our second on a Princess ship. Overall the trip exceeded our expectations. We booked relatively late and ended up with a cabin described as "fully obstructed). We were pleasantly surprised when the "obstruction" was a life boat hung below the window - lots of light and view available at a very low price. The cabin was just fine. I particularly liked the very large closet area which gave you place for suitcases etc. keeping the main cabin area uncluttered. The cabin stewart was efficient and attentive and and the few small problems we had (burned out light bulbs and dead outlet) were quickly fixed. We chose freestyle dining and just loved it. The food was the freshest tasting I've had on a cruise. I tried some of the vegetarian options even though I'm a sworn carnivore just because they looked so interesting. I was not disappointed. The waiters were professional and we enjoyed dining with new people each night. We never had to wait for table even though we generally ate around 8:00 pm. The freestyle dining also allowed us to enjoy more of the entertainment than we have on previous cruises. We could chose our dining time around the shows we wanted to see. We did try Sabitini's one night and I was disappointed. The service was less attentive than we received in the dining room and I found it was just too much food. I was also less than impressed with the Horizon Court. The layout of the buffet was just bizarre. People kept bumping into each other and they often had half the area closed which made it difficult to get a table. We began eating breakfast and lunch (if we weren't on shore) in the dining rooms where we again got excellent food and service.
great food and service. I enjoyed tea in the afternoon as well. It was a nice substitute for lunch after a day in port.
We saw more of the entertainment on this cruise than we usually have and thought it was really very good. The young actors in the production numbers were talented and enthusiastic, Beatlemania brought back lots of memories of the 60's, Phillipa Gregory put on a dazzling performance and we found all of comedians funny, although some of our fellow cruisers from the British Isles thought the comedy "too American". My only entertainment complaint concerned our last night when the Venice Chamber Orchestra played under the stars. Their beautiful performance was drowned out by noise from the bar on deck. Surely they could have stopped shaking martini's at that particular bar for an hour. The cruise director and assistant cruise director were at the bar talking, laughing and adding to the general noise. This was a concert performance, not a night club act and it would have been nice to be able to hear it.