My wife and I mainly pick a cruise based on where it is going vs a specific cruise line or ship. Therefore we picked this cruise because we wanted to tour Europe on our own for two weeks and then hop on a ship coming back to the States. Overall we knew what to expect and have been to most of the ports we visited. Except for a couple of ports we plan our own exclusions and use the local hop on-hop off buses, subways or trains. We had a Balcony room on the Baja Deck and it was very nice and well appointed. The Grand Princess in my opinion is a beautiful ship. We used flexible dining and it worked very well for us. In fact it gave us the opportunity to meet some nice folks. We will never use fixed dining again. We made some friends on the ship and have kept in touch with them. The entertainment with a couple of occasions was poor but the Princess dancers and singers were great. We saw them occasionally on the ship but I didn't notice them acting out of line or behaving badly like another reviewer wrote. The male dancers were very friendly and the girls were quite attractive. Every evening in the Atrium they had a piano player that was excellent and some string trio that was outstanding. The food was good but and there was a lot of it. I like spicy foods and a cook in the Lido was kind enough to get some jalapenos for me. Room attendant Richard was Excellent also. There are a lot of sea days on a transatlantic trip and basically we entertained ourselves with exercise, reading, the pool at the aft of ship, friends, bingo and some cigars and drinks. We have been on Princess ships before and in our opinion they are Top of the Line. I didn't want to leave at the end of the cruise. On a final note the online check-in and on/off ship was easy.