Royal Princess Review
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This was our fourth cruise on the Royal Princess, and I do love this class of ship. The enhancements that were added in the most recent dry dock really made a difference--the main one was adding the mid-ship staircase and the side entry for seats in the Princess Theatre. They also re-wired the ship for the new Medallion experience, which will begin on the Royal in January. Other improvements to the ship included the speed of the internet connections and the enhancements to the Princess @ Sea intranet. In addition to seeing the activity schedule, your stateroom account and I-messaging, you can now order your room service breakfast online, see all locations on the ship and excursions. We found the I-message option to be very helpful since we were traveling with family and friends.
Princess has gotten new robes which are a big improvement from the small, thin robes that were in being used in 2015, which was my last cruise with Princess. The new robes are still waffle fabric, but softer and thicker, and actually fit. They seem to changing over to newer towels as we had some new ones and some old ones on this cruise. The new ones are much softer and more absorbent, so hopefully they'll be discarding the old ones soon. Unfortunately, they still have the terrible shampoo/conditioner combination in the showers, so I recommend you taking your own. The shower gel is acceptable, and they do still provide a tube of lotion. One change that was a surprise is that they no longer provide fruit in the room daily that you order through your cabin steward. If you want fresh fruit, you have to call room service. Also, we did not have success adding items to the room service menu "on request". We asked for pineapple one morning, which I have always been able to get, but it was "not available".
We were in a balcony cabin on Emerald deck midship, so the new midship stairs made everything so convenient. The midship elevators are still a mess, so we usually used the stairs or walked forward or aft to those elevators when necessary.
Cabin Review
Balcony
While our balcony was supposedly obstructed we had no obstruction. Since I had sailed Royal Princess before, I was aware of the balcony cabins on Emerald deck that are over the seating areas on Deck 7 just outside Crooners and Facets. We are on the starboard side over Facets and had beautiful views with no obstructions. It was a regular balcony cabin so we had plenty of storage with a desk and cabinet that held the refrigerator with mirrors over both, which was handy for getting ready in the morning/evening. We had an angled balcony, so it was nice to have the extra outside space. Since we were so far down from the seawalk, it didn't provide any privacy issues. Loved the convenience of this location and you can't beat the price.
Port Reviews
Kotor
We had no tour planned in Kotor, but we did pay to take a boat cruise on the Bay and go to the church called Our Lady of the Rocks. It was a beautiful day and lovely to be out on the water. We only paid 15 euros per person, and the boat held about 20 people. We also stopped briefly at the village of Perast, but there was very little to see there except a church. We then came back to Kotor to tour the cathedral on our own and took a few pictures. In retrospect, we should have just stayed in Kotor to walk the medieval walls because we had a short port time there. The sail in and sail out is not to be missed, so get up early and don't miss the sail in.