Princess Elite passengers spent pre-cruise night at LAX Airport Marriott. We found a better rate through AAA for the same hotel that Princess uses and were able to use the Princess "airport" transfer from the HOTEL to the ship. If boarding in Ft.Lauderdale a cab is the way to go...less than $20 to the ship includes a stop at "Total Wine" on the way. The Coral Princess was decorated for Christmas with holiday music playing in the atrium. Our balcony cabin E210 was ready when we boarded at 1PM. Our category "BG" was the lowest priced unobstructed balcony at the time of our booking on a "guarantee" basis seven months prior to sailing. We did not get upgraded.

The Horizon Court was well stocked for the hungry travelers. Pizza was available on deck 14 and burgers and hot dogs on deck 15. The only fault I could find with the food in general was weak coffee and watered down juice. I switched to tea which had lots of different choices. We had second seating traditional at 8:15 PM which was wonderful. The new menus are great with lots of choices. The always available steak went away (tornados still available) and the fettucine alfredo was not as good as in the past. The caesar salad is still available every night, with anchovies on request...yummy. There were three formal nights on each 14-day cruise.

You can expect lots of children on any Christmas/New Years cruise. We had 350 minors, mostly teenagers who were not very well behaved, ignoring most of the rules and roaming the ship in groups of ten or more. Our second cruise which began on 1/6 had 26 well behaved children. Read more