Just off the Royal this morning. There was 7 in our group, including my wife and son, in laws and sister in law and her husband. Overall enjoyed the ship and the cruise. The food was better than expected, the ship is in lovely condition. The cruise director, Matt O is very funny and has more energy than the Energizer Bunny. We were in a mini-suite (B337) midship. The cabin was nice for three people. Our son slept on the bunk bed that came down from the ceiling. We really enjoyed the bedding. Two large screen tv’s on the wall. Lots of free movies to chose from. The bathroom was nice enough. We would prefer a nice shower over a shower/tub combo, but it was fine. Lots of storage space.

Our cabin attendant was simply adequate. He came in the first day and told us three things he couldn’t do, before we opened our mouth. We picked the cabin because it has the bunk bed in the ceiling. Our 14 year old is 6’0 and the couch was just too small. He was not happy that we asked for the bunk bed but he made it up. We asked for three towels in the bathroom as there was three of us and he told us we were lucky to have 2 towels as the machine was down. While I’m sure this was true, all he had to say was that he would get the third towel in asap. We asked that he replenish the ice bucket in the morning and at night and we failed to do that most of the time. None of these issues is major, but we have never encountered this type of average service from a cabin attendant in over 25 cruises. Usually we are making sure to tip extra to our cabin attendant who took such good care of us, but this time there was simply no “above and beyond” type of service.

We had lovely service in the Allegro dining room every night. Civil and Ariel were great waiters. The food in the main dining room was better than past cruises on Princess. The food in the Horizon Court buffet was also good. The design of the Horizon court is awful. They have “alleys” that are perpendicular to the seating areas. The ship was full and there was narrow walk ways and congestion, partly caused by the fact that there is no front/back of the lines. We had breakfast in the dining room a couple of times just to avoid the buffet. The pizza and burgers were also delicious by the pool. Read more