Love ‘em to death, but with The Current Situation, we took the opportunity to spend Christmas at Sea. Imagine, your choice of cabins in any category, at a substantial discount, just weeks from Christmas! It’s a Yuletide miracle. We backed to back this with the 10-Night California Coastal, so we were already deep in Cruise Relaxation Mode on turnaround day. Please see my review of the 12/07/2021 sailing for general impression of the ship and service.

We had a rearrangement of our Mexican ports due to “crowding” in Cabo San Lucas on our originally-scheduled port day. This crowding was largely due to other Carnival Corporation-owned vessels that would be clogging up the works, so rather than fight the siblings for space in the harbor and for tender service, Princess elected to move Cabo from the first Mexican port to the last, and adjust the other ports accordingly. This was communicated about a week ahead of departure and worked out great as it allowed us to experience Mazatlán, Puerto Vallarta and Manzanillo a little before the height of the pre-holiday rushes (Mexico takes Christmas very seriously).

It was our first time sailing over Christmas, and we really enjoyed the seasonal touches like special items in the International Cafe, holiday films on Movies Under The Stars and On Demand, and the very lovely Christmas dinner, complete with one of the best Christmas puddings I’ve ever eaten. My apologies to the fire response team - I maintain it’s traditional to flame Christmas pudding with brandy and I did not realise the fire sensors were both so close and so sensitive. A note has been made for future voyages. Read more