We just completed a west Caribbean trip onboard Caribbean Princess. This was our fourth cruise and third on Princess in last 7 months. We are glad to see that Caribbean Princess was almost 90% full, which should be a good sign for the financial well-being of cruise industry in general and Carnival Corporation in particular. We love cruise vacations and certainly wish all the cruise lines successful.

Let us start with the Good first. We really enjoyed the food at main dining room. Even though the menu has been the same for all our three Princess cruises recently, we feel the execution was better on Caribbean Princess than the other Princess ships that we were on. Seafood was always very high quality, particularly their escargot and lobster tail dishes were the best among what we have had in recent years. Our waiter and assist waiter, Zosimo and Ryan at Palm Dining Room, were attentive and just the best we could have asked for. The other thing we had great experience was Princess Camp Discovery Kid Center. This was the first time we were able to travel with our granddaughter, who is four years old and may not have the most ongoing personality. But, she was having so much fun at the Kid Center. Based on the number of children there and how enthusiastic they looked on their way to the Center, we know our granddaughter was not an exception.

For the Not as Good, even though it looks like passenger numbers have increased significantly, food choices at World Fresh Marketplace have not returned to pre-Covid era. Business hours also remain shorter. International Café is the only option after 10 pm. They also appear to continue to have staff shortage, so that the service can be very slow at times. During the cruise, we went for afternoon tea twice. When we were there the first time, no one served us scones for about half of hour and we had wait for another 10 minutes after our table made a request. However, it was fine the second time. We hope, as more passengers return, Princess can continue to improve its staffing and return to the service levels they had before Covid. Read more