This is one of my favorite itineraries. I love the sea days and really appreciate Princess providing 3 varied lecturers over very different topics to help occupy the sea days. I like the fact that the desserts are NOT in the main buffet area and the flow was flow of traffic was much better on the Grand than on many other Princess ships. I like the new hand wash stations in Horizon Court! Very good addition and I was surprised that crew weren't there to "encourage" more passengers to utilize it since they removed the hand sanitizer stations in HC. I felt that the crowds overall on the Grand weren't a problem at all. I'm not sure if that had anything to do with the age demographics or what, but I felt like the flow of the whole ship was good. They still have quite a lot of updating left to do and were working on it every day, such as replacing the outdoor carpet up on 15 outside (and kept it closed off some) as well as constant on-going painting and varnishing. Most passenger area halls have been re-carpeted but much of the furniture (particularly in Explorer's Lounge) is very much overused (no padding left in seats) and still needs to be replaced, The entire ship had the new beds and they were great. The staff were excellent too and this is a trip we will do again and again.