We chose this cruise primarily as it fitted in with our daughters school holiday dates and we wanted to do a cruise to celebrate my wife’s birthday. The itinary suited us perfectly as we love cruising the Caribbean but also we had never been to the Panama Canal before. In recent years we have done a couple of cruises with NCL which we have thoroughly enjoyed but on this occasion there was no suitable option with them, thus we opted for the Caribbean Princess.

At this point i should point out that my wife and I are just into our 50’s, my daughter is 12 and we were also joined by my 81year old Mother-in-law and my parents both in their 70’s (elite princess members). The first thing that struck us was the average age of the passengers were considerably older than those that we had encountered on our recent NCL cruises. Although this didn’t detract from our enjoyment at all, it did mean that my daughter had fewer children to interact with as there were very few children on the ship. It also meant that the skywalkers nightclub which is a stunning venue was very sparsely populated most evenings and the relatively small casino never really got busy. As someone who enjoys the odd game of blackjack and in particular the “banter” amongst the players, i found myself on a couple of occasions sitting at the table on my own. This was a first for me on any cruise.

My wife and I shared a Vista suite (C750) and my daughter and mother in law were in a club-class mini suite. Both Cabins were exceptional and suited our needs perfectly. The vista suite was very spacious and as as you would expect from Princess the bed was very comfortable. It also provided us with stunning views of the transit of the Panama canal. Read more