We took this cruise since it was a great deal and fit in with our vacation schedule. Also, we'd been on several Princess cruises that we enjoyed, although not recently and on different ships. I was really looking forward to it, but felt like I didn't have the cruise experience we're used to.

For me at least, it came down to service. I enjoy great professional service (Cunard, Holland America, Celebrity) and casual-but-fun service (Carnival, Norwegian). This fell somewhat in the middle. I often felt not quite ignored, but definitely like I wasn't a priority. Our late dining room servers were great, but we had about 1/3 of the guests in our section as they did at the early seating. Our room steward was adequate and the bar waiters were alright.

The MDR food was good but not memorable. The Lido buffet was always super crowded - it was almost impossible to get a seat at breakfast and lunch. In part this was because it was cold and no one was sitting outside, but they definitely need more seating. It made the MDR more crowded than it usually is for breakfast and lunch, but we didn't have to wait long. Read more