This was our second Princess cruise in 6 months (we usually cruise with Celebrity) and our first on the Emerald Princess. Although we’d lowered our expectations after our first Princess experience – this one week cruise was liberally peppered with disappointments.

We were excited to have booked a mini suite, and whilst my husband was happy to have a bath to use (I prefer showers), the bathroom was disappointing in that the same basic toiletries were supplied, with no extra frills. Additionally, although the ship is supposed to have had a major refit, they obviously forgot the toilet seats as ours was scratched and had dubious looking brown stains ingrained within. Needless to say, much extra paper was used in covering it on each visit! We were offered a fruit choice to be delivered to the room, but after 2 days it still hadn’t arrived and had to be re-requested. We also expected a larger balcony, and whilst the seats reclined and had footstools, there was barely enough room for two of us to sit comfortably at the same time.

Our major source of disappointment with this cruise, however, stemmed from the various dining opportunities - involving both quality of food and the service provided. We knew from our previous cruise that the Horizon Court and Café Caribe buffets were both small and overcrowded with limited choices, but we didn’t expect such poor quality of food. Whilst looking appealing, we soon became familiar with the saying ‘don’t judge a book by its cover’. The cakes and muffins were beautifully decorated, but were often dry and inedible. Toast at breakfast was mass produced in advance and resembled hard and dry floor tiles (not that I’ve ever eaten a floor tile) and the French bread could have been used as a secret weapon if we were attacked by pirates. Being vegetarian, the lunchtime options were very limited (more about this later) and in the end I settled for a sandwich and chips. Read more