It is probably important for you to know my family and I are seasoned cruisers. Over the past 15 years we've sailed a total of 23 times on Celebrity, Holland America, Cunard, Royal Caribbean, Carnival, NCL, and MSC. This was our first sailing on Princess Cruise Lines. We picked this cruise largely because it was the only choice for this itinerary in November 2011.
Overview
The Diamond Princess is a lovely ship with a pleasant crew, good dining, great wine pricing, quiet state rooms, and good maintenance. Basically, it had everything what you would expect from a more upscale cruise line with a few significant weaknesses: their specialty dining, Internet, and hit or miss lounge entertainment. Even with those weaknesses, we would sail on the Diamond Princess again given the right itinerary. We would not sail on the Diamond Princess if it was doing a transatlantic or transpacific crossing where the emphasis is on the ship rather than the ports. For us the ship's specialty dining weakness keeps it from playing more than a supporting role in a successful cruise vacation.
This was probably the quietest stateroom we've ever had. We are not sure why, but perhaps the reason was our stateroom (P303) was across from the art collection rather than other staterooms. The cabin layout was different from other lines with a result of a little more space and privacy with a little less storage room for clothes. Our only complaint was that the bunk beds drop down lower than most other ships. This is good news for those in the top bunks and not so good news for those in the lower bunks, which in our case were the parents.