This was our third cruise with Princess, others being on the Crown Princess (Quebec City to Port Evergreen reposition) and Royal Princess (Brooklyn to Port Everglades reposition). While reading previous reviews cruising out of Houston Bayport, I had hoped that the negative comments were inaccurate. Although this cruise was average, I could see where reviewers could go negative. The ship was clean, cabin stewardess prompt and efficient, and dining good to very good, I felt the whole cruise experience was dumbed down a bit. It wasn't what I expected from the previous 2 cruises with Princess. No extra bridge tours that I could see on Patter, cooking demos held to a minimum, yet typical selling schemes kept in the forefront.

The cruise was delayed leaving Sunday due to high winds in the shipping channel followed by rough seas which caused us to miss the Mexico stop, a sea day was inserted instead. Cozomel was substituted the next to last sea day. Belize and Roatan were fine. This was the first cruise since 1986 that we were ever subjected to a missed port. In any case, we learned from the experience and garnered enough pleasure from the cruise to make it worthwhile to have it crossed off of our to-do list. We will return to Princess, although Holland America is very close in our opinion.