Recently returned from a 15 night cruise to Hawaii with my wife and friends. Taken as part of a package with time spent in Las Vegas and San Francisco prior to and after the cruise.

Grand Princess is showing her age in comparison to other ships. To be fair being approx 16 yrs old, she is not going to be as modern as recent ships, but the refits do not seem to have brought her as up to date as other ships with other lines. The staterooms are the smallest we have used although we have only been with Carnival and Royal Caribbean prior to this. The friends we were with have cruised extensively with P&O and say the overall design of the class is very similar to some of the P&O ships.

The clientele age range was very much towards the more senior end and this reflected in the virtual desertion of the public areas after about 11pm. The plus side was we never had to wait long for drinks or meal service whatever bar or restaurant we used. The outstanding features of the ship were the bar and restaurant personnel who went out of their way to supply whatever we asked for and were constantly clearing away and making sure we had all we needed. Read more