Having been on many cruises, my daughter and son-in-law wanted us to book with them since they had already booked on this cruise. Having never cruised with Princess we decided to do so to be with our kids. I specified we wanted a balcony and when we arrived at the port we were given an "unassigned" status, which ended to be a balcony we a walkway underneath which was hardly a private balcony... We had people talking right outside our balcony and laughing most hrs of the day and night. The beds were hard, like sleeping for a week on a cot. There were no comfortable chairs in the room to relax in so we ended up on our beds most of the time when we were in the room. The not-private-balcony was above the Theatre which had loud music etc until well after 11:00 p.m. most nights.

We had requested anytime dining and instead got assigned table which they refused to change new weren't able to sit with our kids the entire time for dinner as they held firm on that! We were seated with two other couples which were friends and our server couldn't speak English well and none of us understood what he was saying most of the time. Me insisted on serving all of us I sequence and hence it took up to we hours a night to finish the evening meal.

The ship is very poorly laid out......there is a center hub called the Piazza, and the shops, center court entertainment and lounges spring off of there. They had lovely string quartet music but it was so crowded there were no seats to listen leisurely to the besutiful music. One day they were boarding passengers froma day out on the same level at the same tine as the String Quartet was playing making it virtually impossible to hear their music. Very disruptive to say the least. There were too many people on that ship period! It was packed everywhere you went, lines and like going to the mall at Christmastime. All week long! The one place of refuge was called the Sanctuary. It was on top of the spa on Deck 15. The problem was it was not used by but a handful the entire week due to an extra charge of $40 a day per person to be there. A complete waste of needed space on an overcrowded ship! My he fitness room was way to small for the size of the crowd on the ship and the whirlpools in the adult area didn't hardly work and were always crowded. Not he library was small, in fact very small, and located next to a piano bar. Nyes, you got that right! So there was virtually nowhere to go to get a place of quiet for the entire week on that ship. It catered to the early 20-40's and certainly not to the older crowd at all! The buffet up on the top level always crowded and noisy as well. The food was not very tasty either. The last night we opted to do that instead of the two hr long ordeal in the dining room. It wasn't very good food either. Read more