I'll come right out and admit, I hadn't known much about Princess the first time when I took my 10-day Panama Canal cruise on the Coral Princess in 2003, and that cruise hadn't really stood out compared with others...which had me subconsciously avoiding Princess cruise lines since (no real problems - I mean, a cruise is a cruise - better than a sharp stick in the eye! But I didn't really like the ship's layout with too much clustered on only one deck with the rest of the ship almost dead at night, and I found it to oddly be the least friendly crowd overall as far as spontaneous meetings and greetings go). With the price of the minisuite on the Emerald for this trip right where I wanted, and with the itinerary adding a few new islands which I always like, I found myself giving Princess another try. Here's how it all went on this 10-day cruise, Oct 29 - Nov 8:I'm a regular cruiser, and a local (Floridian), so my journey to the ship is rarely as dramatic and involved as you see in most reviews. My cruise departed on October 29 out of Port Everglades, a mere 20 minutes from my house, so cruise day involved sleeping in until 10:30am, having coffee, throwing the last of my carryon stuff together that I hadn't packed the night before, and jumping in the limo service for a quick ride at 1pm. Upon arrival, I was happy to see we avoided any big busloads getting on the boat, and the check-in windows were walk-up with no wait. In 10 minutes from arriving at the port, I was standing on Deck 5 of the Emerald waiting for an elevator up to my deck. Can't complain about that!I elevated up to deck 9, located my minisuite on the port side on the back 1/3 of the ship...Cabin D714. I'm a bit spoiled from Holland America's ridiculously large and well laid out SS minisuite cabins, but the Emerald Minisuite was still as spacious and comfortable as I remembered on the Coral - narrow, but very long, with a nice full bathroom equipped with tub and shower, full 'walk-in' closet area, and a bit of a separation between the bed-side of the room and the sitting side, which has a long couch, chair and table. The divider of the room, two flat-screen TVs are mounted in the rounded storage console across from the desk - one facing the beds, and one the sitting area. Large full glass sliding door led out to the decent sized balcony - with 4 chairs - though the completely exposed balcony of Dolphin deck is not nearly as usable as the covered balconies are...unless you're an exhibitionist or crave attention! Still, it's always nice to be able to step out on a balcony from your room to see a passing ship, a port, or the sunset. The closet design is great - plenty of space and more freely accommodating than ships with closed-door wardrobes...and the room had plenty of either drawer or shelf space to load everything I had.First day onboard, awaiting sailaway and the inevitable life vest drill, I like to avoid the cattle-drive herd heading off to get their first of the free food in the lido area, and instead tour the ship and get the layout a bit. Right away, I found I liked the ship's layout much better than Coral Princess. First off, one main deck doesn't get all the lounges and stuff - certainly many of them are on Promenade, but the Piazza area in the middle felt like it linked the lounges and rooms on deck 6 below very well, and with the dining rooms and casino being there, it felt like those two decks were regularly busy. Moreover, with the upper decks of lido and up providing Skywalker's, Movies Under the Stars, and an active late night eating scene with lido and pizza...those decks were always pulsing at night too. The ship didn't really have those 'dead zones' I experienced on Coral Princess.About the ship's rooms - Which did I like the most, and what if any complaints would I have? Well, I enjoyed Skywalkers both by day and night - by day it was a lovely quiet reading lounge with fantastic views...my only complaint being that Princess a little too frequently was willing to 'lease out' the lounge to private events or parties - I've never quite encountered a lounge being inaccessible as frequently on any other cruise - but usually only for a few hours here or there. Fortunately, 2 decks down was Adagio, which was a darker quiet lounge that could serve as a secondary quiet spot. I also liked the aft pool area for quiet hanging out when I wanted sun and sound but without the crowd. I liked the Movies Under the Stars area - a great concept in my opinion - and though I only ever watched two movies there, I found it to be a nice idea well executed and kept the lido lively. I found the Lido dining area to be very accommodating and well laid out - never too crowded on lines, with the 3 different service lines available as needed...and with the access to the grill and pizza joint out by the Lido pool, there was always plenty of places to get a bite to eat quickly. Inside the ship, I liked Club Fusion - a smaller lounge than the main showplace, which often held alternate and later night shows and entertainers, and daytime held Bingo. I would have liked to have seen more of Explorer's Lounge - it was really only available at night for shows, often crowded...so I never really caught any acts in there, and during the day it was filled with art for the auction, rendering it unusable. The Wheelhouse was a nice little spot - dark and publike - I liked that room which held trivia and smaller events and pub lunch. The International Cafe and Vines bars in the Piazza were nice gathering spots, even if not eating - the Piazza was always active and felt like a heart of the ship. I found the main Princess Theater to be generically accommodating, but not spectacular - it felt a little too 'theater' like with the rows of individual seats - I personally always liked the main theaters that have groups of seats, couches, etc so you can go with a group and feel like you're all together interacting...but that's a tiny niggle.I couldn't say what the main dining room was like, as I never saw it. I love traditional seatings and am not a fan of freestyle anytime stuff - so I stuck with the Botticelli dining room in the back of the boat, late seating always preferred. I use the dining room for dinner, but never for breakfast or lunch. It was a small but nice dining room, not dramatically designed but comfortably laid out. One little criticism would be to a poor design consideration - the dining room is on deck 6 aft, accessible only from the aft-most stairs and elevators...immediately forward of the dining room entrance is the kitchen for the main dining room. So that meant every night, coming and going from the Botticelli meant stairs or elevators into a small lobby area until the doors were opened...nowhere to go but in or back up - crowds built thickly, and leaving the dining room usually meant a crowd hoping to catch elevators which would take a few cycles to catch. Those moving up to deck 7 Promenade could take the stairs, if able...some others going further distances might have needed the elevators. Again, small issue - I just waited until a few minutes after open to head down, and stayed late after eating before leaving.Food...everyone always likes to know how the food was. I have never been too much of a critic with food - I haven't really considered any cruise ship to have bad food, nor any to have 5-star stuff - it's always good and plentiful. Same goes here. Main dining room dinners were consistently good, variety was decent - the chef has some affinity for mushrooms which show up in a lot of dishes, and some of the 'homestyle' dishes weren't exactly on target, but overall, meats were always perfectly cooked, soups had good consistency and thickness, vegetables well prepared and fresh, and desserts were better even than usual on ships. I only had the chance to sample one of the optional dining venues, when my table all agreed to head to Sabatini's for one meal. Very high marks for excellent service and the food was notably a notch up on the dining room fare - especially with the many-course meal coming around in wave after wave of pre-course before the main meal - of which I opted for a beautiful piece of veal chop. My tablemates had gone to Crown Grill, and gave similarly rave reviews for the nice cuts of meat, and especially the onion soup. I'm probably not the best person to get judgment from on lido food - I rarely eat breakfast (the two times I did, I got an omelette from the station and nothing else), for lunch I usually grabbed a sandwich, or hit the grill or pizza place, and never had dinner there. However, selection looked good. What I did have from there was good. The pizza was what I expected from Princess - which is to say, some of the best shipboard pizza. Much better than the poor excuse for pizza on Holland America or Royal Caribbean.Another area I rarely have complaints about and find consistently good on all ships is service...every ship I've been on I've gotten fast attentive service with a smile from hardworking folks - the Emerald Princess did not disappoint. My room steward was almost preternaturally available and invisibly had the room prepared mornings and evenings. My dining room staff was friendly, quick, never got an order wrong, filled drinks regularly, and was one of the fastest in the dining room, having our section eating desserts and chatting over coffee while some other sections were still awaiting entrees. Lido restaurant staff was excellent - friendly, fast, offering drinks and cleanup quickly, and keeping the place looking good. Bar staff, lounge staff, and entertainment was all professional and very good.So how about our cruise itinerary? Well, we started with a small drama that was very well handled - Tropical Storm Tomas was heading towards the southern Caribbean, and our itinerary was supposed to take us 2 days at sea straight to Aruba...which would have stuck us in the path. So to avoid any unpleasant encounters, they quickly announced on boarding day that the itinerary had been entirely reversed - starting with Princess Cay first instead of last, and heading clockwise through the islands instead of counterclockwise. Amazing that Princess was able to work out the different port days with each island - only changing the hours of arrival on two of the islands, and having to make one sacrifice since Dominica could not accommodate them on the new scheduled day. So they replaced Dominica with St. Kitts - something that worked out just fine for me.After the boarding day at sea, the second day had us at Princess Cay. I wasn't expected to be bowled over, after all, Holland America's Half Moon Cay is a similarly pretty Bahamian Island, and Royal Caribbean's Labadee is hard to beat for dramatic landscape and action...besides, living along a Florida beach makes tropical beach stops not quite as special. But I found my stop there to be wonderful, because I zigged instead of zagging. Rather than head into the usual ship shops and food huts and squeezing onto the crowded beaches...I hung a right turn, and walked until I ran out of people. Turns out the secluded ends of the island, far from the crowds, are sublimely beautiful, wild, and unbelievably photogenic. I really enjoyed the long walk, the exposed reefs, the shaded pines reaching over the sea, the cypress trees growing in the shallows, and the numerous tropical birds calling and singing. I spent my whole day not within sight of more than a handful of people similarly minded, and upon arriving back at the public areas, I skipped all the stores and food and bars and music, and jumped the tender back to the ship for a less crowded bite to eat.Day three was another at-sea day...and day 4 put us in St. Thomas. Untypical for this island, we were one of only two ships at Havensight pier, with one other visible over at Crown Bay. Having been to St. Thomas over 20 times, what more to say - I shopped, I walked, I photographed, and we left! I love St. Thomas, but it's almost like going down the street to shop - it's so familiar.Day 5 was our alternate port day, in St. Kitts. I've only been there once before about 5 years ago, and it was nice to head back - I actually preferred the itinerary change, as Dominica would have been my 3rd visit in 4 years. The town of Basseterre is my kind of place - old buildings, lots of history, friendly people, not too touristy...as long as you get past all the shops along the port building and into the town proper. I'm often a self-tourer, rather than taking ship excursions - and I love to walk with camera in hand to photograph what I see...St. Kitts is a photographer's place, with beautiful old churches, 18th century British buildings, basements with slave quarters still untouched since they were last used, and little hints of Empire in the Anglican church and it's 18th century cemetery of British settlers and sailors, and the main town circus complete with a clock tower made by the Big Ben maker. Looming over the city is the impressive and imposing Mt. Liamuiga volcano, with Nevis' volcano visible just a few miles to the south of St. Kitts.Day 6 we made it to Grenada - one of my new islands, having never been here before. And again, right up my alley. St. Georges was only partially visible, with the large hill and Fort George blocking the view to the Carenage and historical town...and like most Caribbean ports the dock facilities have been built up into an isolated city-within-a-city with stores, restaurants, and music for anyone not interested in seeing any history or culture on the real island. Quickly walking through there as if it were poison, I got into the city proper, and decided I wanted to see some history. Fort George sits on such a tiny looking hill - but climbing the stairs and path to get up to the fort proves to be more winding in tropical heat and humidity than you first expect. The fort sits mostly in half-ruin, still used as a police training facility - it once stood guard over the Carenage of St. Georges protecting the city and ships from invasion. In later years, it became the refuge of the island's government during the 1983 attempted communist coup, and the location where the prime minister and staff were executed by Cuban backed insurgents before U.S. military responded to the island and overthrew the coup. The views from the fort are gorgeous, and walking down the other side of the hill takes you into the Carenage area. The city itself is a bit crumbing but pretty in that Caribbean way - the people were friendly, though much poverty is evident. It always felt like a safe city to wander through for me, even with an expensive camera.Day 7 we sailed over to Bonaire - by now, Hurricane Tomas had just passed by into the central Caribbean, and was hovering deciding what to do - it was losing strength but not moving much. In Bonaire, we hit mediocre weather...it was drizzling in the morning, stopped by late morning, but everything remained a bit overcast and moist. The island is flat, but feels more well-off than the last two - the constant tourism related to diving keeping them well prepared for visitors, and keeping the infrastructure in better shape. Walking through town, it's surprising how many animals are visible in the sea and the nearby trees...one need not go scuba diving to find the tropical fish - they're right at your feet standing on the sea wall.Day 8 we went over to Aruba - the morning there started similarly wet and drizzly, but cleared by around 11am to overcast...that finally broke around 2:30pm when the sun came out. I've been to Aruba before, and my main goal this trip was to head down the sea wall behind the casino and dockside, past the hotel and private beach, and wander the parks with my large lens and photograph birds and wildlife. Aruba has some beautiful birds and animals and did not disappoint. We stayed late in Aruba, so I was able to head back to the ship, unload the big lens and gear, and head back out for a walk through the shops and casino, then watch the sunset behind our ship from the dock.Days 9 - 10 were at sea days, to recover, enjoy the last of the ship, get the last of our money's worth of food, while spending yet more money at the casino and bars. Disembarkation was fairly seamless - I like Holland America's allowance of letting you stay in your cabin, rather than having to hit the common areas at 8am - noone else would care about this, since many are getting off first thing to catch flights. When all you have to do is make a call, have a ride meet you in 30 minutes, and take a 20 minute ride home, you don't want to be spending the time sitting in the hall on your luggage! But this ended up going well - I had 'brown' tags, to leave by 9:30am, so I headed to Lido for coffee and to relax a bit, until some of the crowds had thinned. I called the car service and gave them an estimate of when I'd get off. Around 9:50am, I headed down, hit no lines, blew through customs, found my luggage reasonably easily, got a baggage handler, and headed out to the limo pickup area - on walking out of the building, I got a call from my driver that she was pulling into the port and where to go. By the time the handler got to the limo area to drop off my luggage, the car pulled up, the luggage went in, and I jumped aboard. At 10:15am, I was entering my house, dropping the luggage, and coming to the realization that I had to go to work tomorrow!All in all, it was a great cruise, and a redemption for Princess in my mind - no reasons to avoid considering them for future cruises. The one thing Princess had no control over - the friendliness of the passengers - ended up being a non-issue...my table for 8 at dinner ended up hitting it off immediately, even agreeing as a table to hit Sabatini's one night and heading up to Skywalkers together. The folks I bumped into or sat next to onboard were friendly, talkative, and happy, and in general, it was a very good crowd.For my full collection of photos from this cruise, feel free to visit my Emerald Princess gallery - the photos are all labeled for location or subject, and camera & lens data is listed beneath each photo:www.pbase.com/zackiedawg/emerald_princess