Very sorry to say after many Princess cruises we have seen the quality deteriorate the last couple years. This recent cruise on Emerald was the icing on the cake and will be our last with them. The food in the MDR has become competitive with the buffet which you long time cruisers know is as bad as it gets. As great as the staff was they couldn't hide the poor food quality and tried to shove as many dishes at us until perhaps we liked one.The famous lobster night which almost all cruisers look forward will now become infamous. In this review I have attached a picture of the lobster and I can assure you the pic is authentic. The lobster tail really was that size and grey in color. When we tried to eat it the experience was close to what we can only believe would be chewing on a rubber lobster tail toy for your dog from Petco. In most cases the food was bland and had very little taste even the sauces which typically should add taste to a dish but sadly not on this boat. We actually felt sorry for the servers as they frantically tried to please the diners but terrible food cannot be overcome by service. Princess as part of Carnival has suffered in recent times due to the stock's poor performance. The accountants now are clearly running the show and cost cutting goals were not met in 2018 and I can assure you 2019 will get ugly as the year goes on. The saving grace was the International cafe which has tasty sandwiches, salads, and deserts 7X24. There were a few moments of greatness in the buffet at lunchtime with the food but spending a lot of time roaming the 15th floor for a seat is no picnic.

The comedian and ventriloquist in the Explorers lounge were fantastic and a great surprise. The queen bed which is really two beds pushed together was terrible! The mattresses were in such bad shape you had to sleep on the outside or you'd be sucked into the middle canyon area and sleep on the steel frame (I kid you not). The staff is the only thing that has kept us returning to Princess but that can only last so long and enough is enough. Note to Princess: WAKE UP! Your platinum and Elite customers are jumping ship and you can cut costs all you like but scaring customers away is a bad business model hoping to load up the boat with new blue card cruisers who don't know the difference. Other companies have tried this and it doesn't exactly build brand loyalty.