For the most part it was a nice, relaxing cruise. Our cabin steward, Norman, was very good and very friendly. We were not happy with our cabin on the Aloha deck---the balconies all have a low metal overhang above them which amplified sounds on other balconies. Also, sitting on the balcony was not very pleasant due to the loud band on the Lido deck above us. I had requested a wheelchair for embarkation due to limited mobility. There were none available when we arrived outside the terminal, nor were there any inside. When we decided to go ahead and board the ship, no one gave us directions to our cabin, and one person we asked seemed to not speak English and just smiled at us. My biggest disappointment was "Anytime Dining". Having sailed on Princess twice before, we usually waited no more than 10 minutes for a table. This time, on formal night our wait was 90 minutes, totally unacceptable. We found that if you did not arrive before 5:30 and stand in line or make a reservation, you were not going to get seated before 7:30 or longer. I don't know how you can call this "Anytime Dining". If I wanted to stick to a timed seating, I would have signed up for traditional dining, where I understand the tables were not full. They could have sent some of us over there for seating. And, the hostess who was handing out the pagers couldn't give you any estimate of the wait, and was actually rude when we inquired. We got in the habit of going to the early shows, then eating a late dinner. Might as well have done traditional dining, because the shows are arranged around those times anyway.

We only took one Princess excursion, the Atlantis Submarine in Aruba. Otherwise, we went on private tours arranged thru folks met on the boards on Cruise Critic. They were much more personalized and less expensive. Some people won't take private tours because they're afraid they'll miss the ship. However, these folks are dependent on cruise ships and they had us back to the ship in plenty of time.

We asked for twin bed configuration, but when we arrived it was in the queen configuration. We just let it go that way because it simply wasn't that big a deal. Read more