By way of background, we are early retirees, and this was our 11th cruise, but our first with Princess. We found the Crown Princess to be a very beautiful ship, but poorly laid out. For example, to get to the Botticelli dining room (deck 6 aft) from the Wheelhouse Bar (deck 6 midships, where dancing took place), you had to go either up or down one floor, travel to the rear of the ship (only on the port side on 7, I believe only on starboard on 5), and then back down/up the stairs to the dining room. The stairwells were always jammed with people before and after dinner. There were a number of other venues that were equally as complicated to reach; many of us ended up calling it the "you can't get there from here" ship.

EMBARKATION/DISEMBARKATION: We live in Florida, so getting to San Juan was just a short flight from Orlando. We arrived around 3, and after retrieving our luggage, finding the Princess representative (we took the ship's shuttle to the pier), and getting everybody loaded, we were at the terminal a little before 4. Having sailed out of San Juan before, and getting there two hours after embarkation was scheduled to begin, we expected to be on the ship and in our cabin within 15 minutes (especially since Crown was the only ship in port). Wrong!!! Embarkation was a complete nightmare, and took nearly three hours, with long lines that barely moved anywhere. Everybody on the ship who we talked to throughout the week had a different explanation, and nobody ever did seem to know what the problem was. It was certainly not a good start. As a result, there were many grumpy cruisers before the cruise even began. Disembarkation was nearly as bad. We were scheduled to disembark at 8:30, and didn't get off until nearly 10. Again, there were long lines in the terminal, and poorly organized luggage retrieval, so I'm guessing they encountered the same problem for the next bunch of passengers coming aboard. Princess really needs to do something about this situation, and do it fast!

STATEROOM: We have sailed on Carnival, Celebrity, RCCL, and Norwegian, and we thought our stateroom on Crown Princess was one of the best we have had. We especially liked the closet arrangement; it was so easy to get your clothes without bumping into or blocking someone else. Yes, the shower was small, but We have had smaller on RCCL. As one of the comedians said, this way you didn't need to worry about falling in the shower. Based on other Cruise Critic reviews that said they could still see out of the windows, we booked a cabin with a blocked view. Believe me, it was completely blocked; so much so that we didn't even get daylight in the cabin. More than once we went on deck only to discover that it was raining. Read more