First of all I would like to state that I have done several cruises before. We have sailed the cruise from Quebec City to Fort Lauderdale twice before with Princess, since we llike the slow change from winter in Canada to summer in Florida very much. I have sailed once with Royal Carribean a long time ago and liked it. So we looked forward to this one a lot. This ship seemed completely run down. The worst I have ever experienced on a cruise. The first days on the St Lawrence were freezing and the heating in our cabin did not work. It took us 5 days and 7 calls and personal complaints to the guest service until it was finally repaired. We always heard lot of "I am sorry" and "We get the maintenance to repair it", but nothing happened for 5 freezing days. The policy of the guest service staff seemed to apologize very politely, but no results. The emergency loud speakers in our cabin were not working the whole cruise in spite of our complaints. One day the toilet quitted working with a full load - very embarassing. Fortunately that was repaired after 2 hours. The entertainment on board was a horror. I have sailed with Princess and Holland America before. The night shows there were fabulous sometimes. On the Legend of the Seas I saw one English comedian which was hillarious. The rest was awful. First of all there were no shows after the late dinner seating - at 10 pm they seemed to close the whole boat down. There was not even a movie at night, which would have costed RC almost nothing. On the second half of the cruise I fell ill with a horrible cough and a strong fever - as a lot of other passengers with me. From one day to the next almost half the boat was coughing and sneezing. I got it so bad that I could not leave our shabby cabin for 3 days. All I could do was watching TV. On the way to Bermuda the satelite TV broke down and the technicians were not able to repair until the end of the cruise - for 5 days. Instead there were constant repeats of the same Royal Carribean programs every day - telling me how wonderful this company (Royal Carribean) is, showing beautiful boats with incredible entertainment - the same programs every day over and over again. There were channels with C or D (or worse) class movies - some of them too horrible to watch once, which returned every day. The worst one was the ship's own program showing the cruise director of the Legend of the Seas, who was violently trying to be funny all the time, making a cake with 2 other guys. The whole show was so embarrassingly stupid and unbearable to watch, but it was repeated again and again. Is it asking too much of a cruise company that size to deliver different reasonable class movies and TV series every day? Especially being sick, where I had no other choice but to watch what was offered - that was a torture. To say some good things about this cruise - the food on board tasted very good to me. Especially the dinners in the Romeo and Juliet Restaurant were very nice, the service very obliging. The service staff generally was very helpful and friendly. Our room steward was wonderful, especially during my sickness. The embarkment and disembarkment procedures went smoothly. The only problem at the disembarkment was that we had to wait for an hour in a lineup under the burning Florida sun for a taxi in Fort Lauderdale port. This is a problem of the city that claims to have the biggest cruise port in the US, but no public transport to and from it for the last 20 years. We wrote several reviews as letters on board and after the cruise online to Royal Carribean about the things that went wrong on this cruise. So far no reply, no excuse, nothing. The strategy of Royal Carribean to let complaints run into the empty seems to continue. I will probably not want to sail with this company again and I will certainly not sail with the Legend of the Seas again. Read Less

New ship with large cabins. Lots of food: Special menus for each day's breakfast, lunch and dinner. Also, warm cookies mid-morning, tea in the afternoon and happy hour before dinner with a variety of tasty food each evening. If you wanted, there was wine and beer at lunch and/or dinner and a full bar during happy hour which was all included. The service everywhere on the ship was tremendous from the cabin steward, the dining waiters, the tour directors, the administrative staff and the cruise director. Also the lecturer, Rae, was very informative about the ports of call and she gave lectures each day before our arrival at the next port. Getting on and off the ship was effortless with plenty of help. Bus transportation at the end was provided to the airports and/or hotels. The ports were very interesting and the tours very well planned with comfortable buses, nice drivers and knowledgeable tour guides. This was our first experience on a River Cruise as we previously have done many ocean cruises. We found this cruise to be very good and have booked another cruise with a different itinerary on this same ship. Read Less

Being aboard the new Pearl Mist gave us a wonderful exposure to this reagon. Small ship crusing at its best. The crew was the best we have experienced in our 10 cruises. This small ship takes you to the local places the big mega ships will never see. Excellent meal choices and you are able to make special requests that the chefs can create especially for you. It is so easy to visit all the small towns and land excursions are very interesting. This continues with on board entertainment nightly and daily lectures about each area we travel thru. A free cocktail hour before dinner lets you meet and greet so many of the passengers from all over the USA. We had such a great time we booked another cruise while on board so we could take advantage of the 15% plus discounts offered. Hope to see you soon on a next cruise, you wont be disappointed. David & Luvonne, San Jose, CA. Read Less

The Quebec to NYC 10 day cruise is one of the most wonderful routes we have taken. We previously had done a 7 day Montreal to Boston cruise 5 years ago and wanted to do this route again with additional time spent in Quebec City which has to be one of the most wonderful cities to visit in the world. As always we travel to the embarcation city a day early and stayed at Le Chateau Frontenac which overlooks both the walled city and the new city. We walked around Quebec and drove around the city to many places. We boarded the Crown Princess on Friday. We booked a rear Penthouse Suite for a change in scenery. We previously had Suites mid-ship on both sides. What a grand view with less wind than a side location. The ship was wonderful. The food was superb with one exception in one of the dining rooms we had cold potatoes and corn on the cob. The specialty dining rooms were exceptional and well worth the small extra cover charge. The many bars were top notch. We did several excursions and had two cancelled. One because of rain and fog, and the other for low bookings. When they do the Champaign tower in the Atrium, do go up and pour some champaign. It is not a problem to stand there in front of 500 people, smile and get your picture taken. The only issue we had was on the WIFI system. With a Suite it was free. However, Princess blocks Cruise Critic. You can go surf anywhere you want except Cruise Critic. I told Princess in my review to them. We also hosted a Meet and Greet for 30 of our Roll Call members on our cruise. What a neat way to meet folks who come from around the world to cruise at the same time. This was one of our best high lights of the cruise. All in all almost a 10! Recommended to do in the Fall. Read Less

We cruise often: RCL, Celebrity, HAL, Princess ( previously Renaissance, Orient Line, others). Crown Princess has been one of our favorite ships, but we were never aboard when it was full (about 3100 passengers) which creates unique problems(see below): We arranged our own air and took the fixed-fee cab from the airport to a good hotel in downtown Quebec, with a $10. cab ride the next morning to the cruise terminal. Embarkation at the well-designed Quebec Cruise terminal at noon was efficient and fast, and we had lunch on the ship that day. The next day we took the Princess walking tour of Old Quebec. Several of the churches we were to visit were locked up and closed, so it was more of an outside architectural tour of the older buildings, to the guide's surprise. We sailed up the estuary to CornerBrook but the winds were so great that the Captain did not want to anchor or tender for fear that the winds would create subsequent problems, so after looking at CornerBrook from the deck we sailed out into the Atlantic. We were able to visit all of the other ports on the itinerary. The Port lecturer only talked about several ports. He said he is a former bus guide. His information was not helpful at all, incomplete, occasionally inaccurate (compared with the guidebooks in the ship's library)and misleading. The enrichment lecturer is an astronomer and presented astronomic information and observation. May have been interesting to other astronomers, but we and many others walked out due to lack of interest. The Princess walking tour of Old Sydney was quite complete and thorough, showing the older homes and churches inside and out, and the heritage of the area. In the afternoon we visited the Fortress of Louisburg, which is about an hour's bus ride outside the City. It is a largely reconstructed 17th century fortress and City originally built by the French and reconstructed beautifully by Canada Parks. The Fortress is truly spectacular, has costumed guides firing flintlocks, and showing some of the completely furnished homes and other buildings. A wonder. In Halifax NS we took the hop on/off double decker tour (Princess Tour)of the city , which was an excellent introduction to the City, and then went out to Peggy's Cove. The weather and visibility were perfect. In St. John NB we took the St. John Highlights ( showing us the circular defensive tower, the reversing falls - not reversing backwards when we were there due to tides-, and the town of St. Jon ending at the local market hall)which is what was there. There was a very large tent on the pier selling many Canadian souvenirs such as hats, jackets, sweaters, paintings, etc. Bar Harbor was at the end of its normal season and many shops were closed or closing, some restaurants were closed, and the normal Acadia Park Explorer Bus was no longer running. We took the local Oly's Tour (bus) of the park which stopped at Cadillac Mountain and several other scenic points. It was well done. We tendered in Newport and took the superb tour of the two Vanderbilt mansions, Marble House and The Breakers, which were educational and visually stunning. There were audio earphones on each tour, but we did not have enough time to tour Newport itself, which has many historic areas. In Boston, took the ship shuttle ($15)from the ship to downtown Boston and then took a local hop on/off tour of the city, which in the excellent weather was quite good. There was a Halloween 'Best Dressed Dog' festival/parade at Quincy Market (Shuttle pick up point)which was added fun. Not enough time in Boston to tour some of the historic buildings, since the ship left at 4 p.m. New York was the major problem port: The Brooklyn Red Hook terminal is now used by Princess Cruises and is not located near any subway station or bus line. Princess had no shuttle buses at all, with varying excuses ( too costly, not available, etc.) although other cruise lines have them routinely. There were almost no cabs due to Princess not arranging it in advance, and the Limousine companies had some vehicles taking up to 4 passengers into Manhattan for $43. The return was more difficult, but I took a subway to the nearest Brooklyn point and eventually found a passing cab to take me to the terminal. Princess had plenty of notice to do this, and many were disappointed. There were tours for those who wished, but as prior visitor I wanted to visit museums. Norfolk had a shore excursion showing the huge Norfolk Navy base and some of the highlights of the city. Our Princess bus guide knew little about the city since she did not live there(she read from a printed sheet), our bus driver did not know the city and had to be told where to go from a map, and the sailor who came on board at the Navy base was diffiuclt to understand. Visually, it was interesting, Charleston was perfect as to weather, scenery, and the tour . We booked a local (Charleston Tours)tour company with a small bus, great guide, and very interesting pre Civil War buildings and homes. Food in Charleston was excellent, and inexpensive. some of the churches have graves dating from the 1700's with remarkable tombstones. The ship: clean, well maintained, excellent service and attitude from all of the staff, waiters, stewards. The scheduled Princess Passenger Service Director, James Deering, was replaced by someone else who never answered his pages or his phone. There were little things we noticed not done well, unlike the ship when Mr. Deering was aboard. There were long waits for elevators due to the full passenger capacity, and the 10-15 min. elevator wait to go to the scheduled early/late dining in the Botticelli Dining Room at the rear of the ship(only served by one set of elevators, since deck 6 is blocked from walking. The ship design precludes correction, but it was a nuisance. Dinner in the Botticelli dining room was generally good, comparable to Celebrity, RCL, other large Princess ships. The menu was varied, with some dishes better than others, as would be expected. The weakest selections consistently, were the desserts. They all looked gorgeous on the plate, but we all agreed (table for 6)that they were sweet, pretty, and flavorless. The same cakes, custards, etc. were served at the buffet. The best desserts were the Oatmeal and Peanut Butter cookies ( they often ran out). The large number of passengers created long (45 min) waits for a table between 6-8 p.m in the anytime dining rooms. The Buffet was excellent at Breakfast and lunch, with good variety and quality of selection. The Horizon buffet often was closed with dinner served in the Caribe buffet. Entertainment: There were several comedians and a puppeteer in the Explorer's lounge, which always filled up prior to the show. The production shows in the Princess Theater are the same ones we have all seen for the past two years, and we did not bother to see them again. They also had a poor magician, and an excellent musician, who played the Clarinet and Saxophone, as well as the Piano. The ship had the usual Champagne fountain in the Piazza one evening. The Piazza also offers entertainment with jugglers, musicians, etc. at varying time during the day and evening. It also has a fine snack bar with sandwiches, soups, desserts (no flavor)and a coffee and regular bar (full charges). The library book stock, except reference books, is quite limited compared to other ships, and should be replenished. The on-board shops had a limited stock, which seemed overpriced, but there were several sales of old merchandise in one of the large dining rooms, which many ladies liked. Debarkation in Ft. Lauderdale was efficient and smooth. We caught a cab to the airport which had the usual crowds from multiple cruise ships. Read Less