This review covers the Mediterranean Transatlantic Cruise originating in Venice and ending in Fort Lauderdale, Florida in October 2007. As background, this was our 8th Princess cruise and we have done 15 cruises together.
In Venice, we chose to add a two-day Princess pre-cruise hotel stay in order to see the city. We stayed at the Hotel Saturnia, which was accessed by chartered vaporetta from Marco Polo airport. We were dropped off at a vaporetta stop several blocks from the hotel. We were told we could not use the water window at the hotel because there were too many gondolas in the area (?!?). This meant schlepping our carryons over to the hotel. Our other luggage, which was picked up by Princess at the airport, was promptly delivered to the hotel. In other cruises with Princess, embarkation began around 1:00PM and lasted into the late afternoon. Since we were staying in port overnight before sailing, it seemed reasonable that we could get three sightseeing days by embarking in the afternoon of Oct. 8. However, the Princess transfer to the ship was done only once, at 10:30AM from the hotel via chartered vaporetta. While there was a $15.00 shuttle back to St. Mark's Square from the ship available, much of the available time was taken up in the embarkation process, leaving little or no time for sightseeing on the day of embarkation.
This was our first experience with this new class of Princess ship. We've previously cruised on the Diamond Princess, which is the same size, but carries 2670 passengers compared to 3120 on the Emerald. The 450 passenger difference calculates to more cabins on the same size ship although they have made more three person cabins. The space had to come from somewhere and it seems to have been a little bit from everywhere. The Princess Theater appears to be smaller than on other Princess ships. Also, with a primarily retired passenger group on board for the Mediterranean and Transatlantic cruise, the lack of a railing up the middle of the stairs in the theater was a noticeable omission as almost everyone touched every aisle seat as they worked their way to and from their seat. The accountants saved maybe three inches there. In fact, "nickel and dime" was a common refrain heard from passengers in all areas of the ship. Admittedly, Princess refers to itself as a Mass Market cruise line providing good value for the money spent on the cruise. It does not refer to itself as a premium cruise line, as Holland America does in its literature.