We recently completed the Western Caribbean cruise on the Emerald Princess. This was the 6th cruise and 2nd with Princess and in general they continue to meet or exceed cruise expectations. I will first touch on the positives which far outweigh the few negative comments. Before even departing on the cruise its nice to report that we received a very nice upgrade about 10 days before departure. Always a nice touch!

We arrived by air in Ft. Lauderdale before 10 am and it was a very short taxi ride to Port Everglades. The taxi is by far the cheapest way to go and is really not a problem. The ride to Port Everglades was $16 and took less than 15 minutes total. We arrived at the terminal shortly after 10:30 and figured we would be waiting hours. There were several dozen people ahead of us but the staff was well organized and issued embarkation numbers. We were in group 1 and at 11:45 we were called and were onboard within 5 minutes of being called. It could not have gone more smoothly! After dropping off our carry-on luggage in our stateroom we enjoyed lunch and then still had the entire afternoon to peruse the ship and enjoy the pools.

The Emerald Princess is a very clean, spacious and comfortable ship. There are three very spacious pools -- far nicer than any Carnival ship we've cruised. And of course the entire ship has a very pleasing ambiance about it with attractive decorating and plenty of nice wood tones that you also won't see on some other lines (sorry, Carnival! Princess has you beat by miles!). There are numerous bars and lounges to suit every taste and all were very comfortable and uncrowded. Read more