Background: 20th cruise, first time on Princess, married couple Cruise: British Isles June 2010, 9 ports, 12 days,

Princess transfer from Heathrow to ship appeared purposely slow. Through customs with luggage by 9:30 but did not get to the ship till almost 1 pm. Embarkation was very fast due to the on-line preregistration. Luggage arrived shortly thereafter. Spent the afternoon having lunch at the buffet and exploring the ship. Our room, E516, was well maintained but very small compared to what we have been used to with Holland America. The room was a quad with 2 drop down bunks for the just the two of us. We had to stoop over to get out of bed to avoid getting hit in the head. The beds were quite hard even with an extra foam pad. Steward did a good job maintaining the room.

We had paid for an E level flexible room, which we understood was E or better. We found out that passengers buying tickets just before sailing were given significantly better rooms and paid a fraction of what we paid. We felt we should have been upgraded not the late comers. Read more