This brief cruise to Cabo San Lucas and back appealed to my wife and me as we have reservations to sail aboard in December. We will be taking a family cruise with kids and grand kids on the Royal over New Year’s this year. We have sailed on six other princess ships and this was the largest. I will admit we were a little concerned because of her size and 3000 person capacity. However we found crowding was seldom an issue and there are some improvements over other ships that really make sailing on her fun.

Embarkation from San Pedro is from the old terminal. Very crowed there, but lines kept moving. The ship is too long to dock at the new terminal and even backs out of the harbor to the breakwater before turning around. The check in involved a lot of walking in the cavernous structure. We were given medallions even though we did not complete the medallion registration before the cruise.

Our room was to the all the way aft on deck 11, Baja, the last balcony before the suites, close to the aft elevator which runs up to the Horizon Court on deck 16. It is straight down to deck 7 where an outside sitting area is. There is no outside Promenade deck running the lengths of the ship. There are two sitting areas on each side of ship.The ride was exceptionally smooth. Everything worked and was in good shape. The beds are especially comfortable. We had a neighbor several cabins down that tried to hang an article of clothing on a hanger to dry by sticking it in the fire system nozzle on the ceiling. The glass rod sensor in the nozzle broke and the whole room had to be redone, carpet included. Ship staff did it in a day. We were very impressed by the efficiency of the staff. Read more