I start this review as a seasoned cruiser. 9 to be exact.Carnival and Royal Caribbean. First cruise on Princess. Never again. The ship is beautiful. Well maintained and clean. The crew (for the most part) was kind, helpful and caring. But thats it. We only had 2 hot meals and that was in the specialty restaurants. The buffet food was always, with out exception cool at best. Same with the dining rooms. The coffee was excellent tasting , but I could count on one hand how many HOT cups I had. it was barely warm enough to drink. The food quality was great! and a lot of choices. But it was always cold. The toast felt like it was made hours before hand and the butter was always frozen. You had to wait for it to thaw to use it. Even the hot soups were lukewarm. You never had to worry about getting burned. Lobster night was great. Until you got the food. Cold lobster is not my favorite.
I paid extra for an upgrade to a "Mini-Suite" . Compared to Carnival and Royal, the regular balcony rooms were bigger than my "Mini-Suite" They put a full size table on the small balcony. We had to move it to even look over the railing. With the 2 chairs, foot stool and full size table you couldnt move on the balcony. I got a Mini-suite on Carnival once so I know what to expect from a suite. This a NOT a suite. Oh, and the toilet smelled like a port-a-pottie. Although very clean, it was a terrible smell every time you lift the seat. And it wasnt just the room. It was the public bathrooms also. It had to be the water.
The theater was very small. Just over 600 seats. There are 3000 people on board. We got there at 7pm for an 8pm show and almost didnt get seats. One single floor for the theater. And if you didnt carry around the itinerary they gave you in your room, you would have no way of knowing what was going on around the ship. No announcements, no signs posted, No additional itineraries anywhere around the ship. We missed so much because we were never informed of what was going on. And everything is not even listed in the itinerary.
Extremely small as compared to other ships I have been on. If that was a mini-suite, I can't even imagine how small the regular balcony is. When we had mini-suites on other cruise lines, the mini-suite would include a changing area with a table and mirror. large closets. Bigger balcony. Carnival and Royal have bigger regular balcony rooms than this so called mini-suite.