This 10-day itinerary is great; Princess Cays, St. Thomas, Antigua, St. Lucia, Barbados, and St. Kitts. It has a good mix of great beaches, interesting scenery, and wonderful people. My husband and I took this same cruise 3-years ago and enjoyed it more because we felt the service, food, and entertainment were better. After 81-cruises we have seen much of the same entertainment but the group of Princess singers and dancers always puts a different twist on the production shows. On the March 20 sailing we were lucky to see one of the first performances of “The Secret Silk” and it was fantastic! Never before had we seen such a terrific mix of puppetry, wonderful music, and great costumes.

Like others have mentioned in their reviews, mini suites on the Royal are unfortunately smaller than on other Princess ships. I find it ridiculous to have to move the coffee table in order to get a soda out of the refrigerator. While we had a larger, angled balcony, the limited overall balcony space requires a few gymnastics moves to get into the chairs if you plan to use the ottomans. It makes me wonder if the designers ever actually sat on the cabin sofas or balconies while the ship was being built. It is also disappointing that passengers cannot walk around the entirety of deck 7. I would have thought that Princess would have listened closer to all the customer comments about the top needs on the Royal, 1) center stairs, 2) aft pool, 3) outside walking space around the entirety of deck 7, and 4) same size mini suites as on the Ruby, Emerald, or Crown (at least they put in the center stairs). It was nice to see that Princess had installed center stairs on the Royal as the last time we sailed on her the stairs were behind closed doors and were only a available for emergency use only. Now if Princess would only add an aft pool!

All in all we had a fun and relaxing vacation and will recommend this voyage to others.