We boarded in St. Petersburg after a 4 day stay in town. Wonderful visit and nice, safe place, with friendly people. Lots to see and do, and cabs are cheap. The terminal experience was very unusual however. We expected the regular crush of hundreds of other passengers, but there were fewer than a dozen that we saw during our processing. The Medallion system isn't really much of a benefit under these type situations. The ship is in good condition, I didn't see any wear and tear anywhere, and the crew keeps it quite clean. The décor is a little boring except in a few spots like the central atrium. That said, the layout is peculiar in that there are parts of the ship that are difficult to reach, and not in the typical locations. For instance, the rear set of elevators ends at deck 6, but you need to go up a level to actually get anywhere except cabins on that deck. The buffet has somewhat narrow passages on each side and this causes a lot of bumping and confusion, particularly at peak meal times. Smoke from the open ceiling casino vents into the shops above and became an issue for passengers. My biggest disappointment with the entire cruise is the food in the buffet. The selection and availability is good, HOWEVER it is never hot! I mean it's barely warm. All the toasted items like bagels English muffins, French toast, etc. will not even begin to melt butter. Eggs are fried in batches and put out 20 or so at a time and also lukewarm. By the time you get to your table with your meal, everything is usually at room temp. The scrambled eggs taste like they began as powdered, and the omelets seem to be made from the same mix. The pastry selection is usually good for every meal in the buffet I must say. The highly touted "Highest Speed WiFi At Sea" was practically unusable for a full 5 days while crossing the Atlantic. Speeds typically were between 50-150kbps, similar to dialup or DSL speeds over 10 years ago. The Captain apologized, announcing it was the lack of satellite coverage, but it should have been no secret that over 25% of our 19 day cruise would encounter such poor service. The gym is sparsely equipped with basic machines like curls for instance. It's also small, and at the rear of the ship, unlike most I've seen. The main theatre does not have enough seating for anywhere near 1/2 the passengers, so you'll need to arrive 30-45 minutes before a show to get a few decent seats. Entertainment was average with the usual mix of entertainment. The dining room anytime dining is good, and we ate there about half the time. Alfredo's pizza on deck 6 is great and I highly recommend it for a quick, good individual pizza. The Calzones also looked good, but I didn't try one. I doubt I'd book this cruise again mostly because of the buffet food temps and the poor WiFi at sea, but overall, it wasn't a bad experience, just not great either. The standard balcony cabins are small compared to Celebrity and Royal Caribbean, with no couch and tiny bathrooms. The balcony was only about 4 feet deep it seemed, barely enough room to have a chair face out to sea. The Medallion feature turned into a major yawn for us. It only was used to unlock our door and check in and out in port. NO ONE used the public panels to navigate the ship or anything else that I noticed. There are at least 5 different Princess apps to download if you want to bother, but they are confusing and do very little easily. I've been on over 50 cruises, and I walked away slightly disappointed in this one. Read Less

Itinerary was awesome other then that, food was ok, shows were mediocre and staff were a little rude. Main dining waiter was rushed no interaction just took order, drop food and took off. Francesco head waiter was great. Always gave me menu for next night to make me comfortable with my food allergy. Room was clean, however, steward was not friendly. First thing out of his mouth was the hours he worked. No sure if he liked his job.. Received letter in cabin about respiratory illness on board. Was in cabin sick for 2 days, only left for steward to clean rooms. Captains messages at noontime you could hardly heard unless you opened the cabin door. Cruise staff did alittle too late Few times equipment for shows in theater didnt work. One major production show was cancelled after 15 minutes because of equipment failure. 3 computers went down. Not sure if I would cruise princess line again. We shall see. No pun intended. Read Less

We chose this cruise because it stopped in many ports in Spain where my daughter is now living. We chose a Transatlantic because for a very busy working couple it was nice to start the cruise with some days at sea where we could totally relax. We especially enjoy Princess on longer cruises because of the self serve laundry. The staff in the main dining room was very attentive as we have come to experience with Princess. The food in the main dining room was on days a little lacking in quality and choice, but as a whole was satisfactory. There were evenings of very good entertainment in the main theater. There were some issues in the main theater such a long aisles on the side sections only accessible on one side causing some hazards (there were older passengers climbing over seats to get to a row above or below. There was also a inconvenient and frustrating elevator system on the Royal and there were sets of buttons to push to summon an elevator. This lead to a passenger getting on on elevator and the other sets of elevators stopping for no reason. The limitation of stairs available in the center of the ship added to the frustration. Our only issue was that some of the venue sites were too small for a ship carrying over 3,000 passengers. This definitely applies to the computer room as far as the number of computers available. Once on ship the Princess staff was efficient. The port experience was not satisfying from the bus attempting to drop us off to the long line getting in. Port discussions in the theater were great also that they replayed on room TV. Read Less

Royal Princess ……only one year old, ship was a design mess...elevators impossible to figure out and no center stairwell.. we would often take an elevator down in order to go up...no games room..library is an embarrassment, probably the size of a small bedroom ...theatre has no outside isles, feels unsafe...restaurant food unimaginative and inconsistent ..one day the soup would be great, the next day the same soup would be not edible….nickel and dimed at every 'corner'...eg. no free coffee, except on lido deck, orange juice is free at breakfast but not so any other time of the day and if one ordered it, anyway, it would arrive three quarters full of ice cubes.... Activities on board were not to my liking..no hands-on for me..no covered pool..didn't swim once in the cold...no walking deck around ship..whirlpools were tiny, holding four people at most, if you didn't stretch your legs out..the main pool was as large as the one at our condo, which has 300 units..shows were very good for the most part..long line ups when embarking ship at a port...sometimes although two scanners were there, only one was being used...our tv rarely worked..'media error' message kept interrupting our movie watching...saw 'the hobbit' five times...and no one came out to fix it, even though i called on two separate days..we soon found that the tv problem was common throughout a section of the ship…when we initially embarked in st petersburg, our remote was dead and our phone did not work at all..that was attended to in a timely manner... It bothered me that no staff at the entrances to the buffet area held sanitizer dispensers to educate and sanitize ‘hands’ entering the food area…at one point I watched the rotisserie chicken chef check the temp of his rotating chicken and then proceed to sheath the thermometer without cleaning it…our cabin steward was excellent although others were not as fortunate… …the ship had a laundry room on each floor which was a positive, although a number of floods took place there…we had a ‘man overboard’ situation which made the ship turn around and launch a vessel only to find that it was a fishing marker..overall, it’s a beautiful ship that was ill designed and is run by accountants…we had anytime dining and sat with probably over 150 people over the period of the sailing..only one couple spoke positively of their experience on the ship…but then, this was only their second cruise, …we bought the cruise for the Baltic and north sea experience and that did not disappoint.. Read Less