Cabin
So, I mentioned that we got an inside cabin. I failed to mention that we had 4 people in said cabin. That made it quite a spectacle as we had to have the "double bunks" layout in our cabin. When I first got there, it was a bit horrifying. I thought "how in the world is this going to work"!
Fortunately, upon getting used to the cabin, it really worked out nice. So, in the Princess cabin, there is no sofa. It makes the room look smaller than it is IMHO. However, what Princess uses that space for is a HUGE closet facing the bath (think of it as the back wall of the closet was the front wall of the sleeping area). There was also shelving and a safe adjacent to that area. Additionally, there were shelves in the two end tables between the beds. We were able to easily store all of our clothes and not use all of the cubbies on the side of the closet, as our steward brought us about a zillion hangers. So, it looked like a bad situation upon entering, but we all enjoyed having the huge closet area. Plus, the closet doesn't have doors, so that space between the closet and the bath feels very open and it doubles as a dressing area.
The bath was nice, but the shower was just as small as the one on the Serenade and perhaps even smaller than the one on the Sunshine.
DCL wins the bath category almost every time...
Lastly, like DCL, there is a refrigerator in each stateroom. That was very nice to have as we kept our bottled water that we brought on nice and cold.
Food
So... Food is a subjective topic and Princess was very hit and miss. So, I'll just summarize it that way:
Hits:
Pizza - Princess makes it's pizza from a hand-tossed dough and is far superior to DCL, Carnival, and especially RCCL (at least the Serenade), where the Pizza was in the Windjammer Cafe
Grill - The poolside grill was very good and would also serve additional items from day to day like chowders, ribs, wings, etc.
Dining Room - With the glaring exception of the lobster, the Dining room food on Princess was excellent. On a couple of nights, the head waiter would additionally make up some concoction right there in the dining room al fresco for diners. He did Bananas Foster one night and a spicy pasta dish one night that may have been the best Dining Room meal at sea that I have had.
Pub Lunch in the Wheelhouse Bar - So, on sea days, Princess turns it's Wheelhouse Bar into a British Pub lunch eatery. The pub lunch is complimentary and very good. I had a serving of Fish and Chips and Prawns and Chips. Both excellent.
International Cafe - This was the coffee and 24-hour salad/sandwich place in the Piazza. We all thought it was really good. In addition, we had the Princess coffee cards and enjoyed daily lattes from here.
Cokes - Yes, you have to buy the coke package (or Drink Package) to get them, but it's the first line where the diet coke from the gun actually tasted like diet coke (Sorry DCL - yes it's included, but the taste is off...)
Misses:
Buffet - Granted most cruise buffets are misses, but the Buffet on the Emerald, with one notable exception, was nearly inedible. It may have been the worst buffet I've had at sea (either this or the Serenade). I actually thought Carnival's was OK and DCL's is generally pretty good. Neither Breakfast or lunch were very good. They burned the bacon regularly and had an odd mix of things to choose from (no grape jelly?). I missed the donuts from DCL (fortunately, you could get donuts at the International Cafe). We never ate at the buffet, rather choosing to eat at the other venues with the notable exception of Victoria night. So, we are docking in Victoria at 7pm for a 5-hour visit and we didn't want to hurry a Dining Room meal, so we were going to get pizza, but the back elevators put you out in the buffet and we found that it was Mexican night. So we tried it and it was fantastic. I have no idea where the people that cooked this came from, because they weren't there anytime prior during the week...
Ice Cream - The ice cream itself was fine, however, on Princess, it's next to the pizza place and you go to the counter and a crew member makes it for you. This would be fine if the crew members could make a soft serve cone that was over 1/2 inch above the cone. It was almost comical. I understand the hygiene and all, but give me the self-serve machines on the other lines...
We did not do either of the specialty dining venues as our opinion is that specialty dining is a waste of money (YMMV).
Service
Service was generally good. Our steward was excellent. Also, the people in the International Cafe were really good. I am not sure what it is about assistant servers, but our head server and main server in the dining room were excellent whereas our assistant server was boorish, teetering on obnoxious. On one occasion, our friends did not make it to dinner. They have a 6 year old that would order apple juice each night. So we told our asst. server that they weren't coming and my wife mentioned that she would be happy to take the apple juice. "NO! Apple juice is just for the children", and with that he took it off of the table and went off. We did not write him a good review...
I will also say that the buffet servers seemed a bit taxed. One thing I like, but I don't like on Princess is that they will get your drinks for you at the buffet. While this is a nice thought, a couple of times, I ended my breakfast (usually just a waffle as that was all that I really liked at the morning buffet) before my drink ever got there. Sometimes, I think it's just easier to get your own. (Note: I did find that I could hit the bar outside the buffet at the rear of the ship and get diet coke in a large plastic cup. That became my go-to for the whole ship...
Kids Club
This is just limited to what my DD (15) tells me. She says that this was her favorite cruise. I asked her if it was the club, and she said that club was OK, not bad, not great, but that it was the mix of other teens onboard that they all had a blast. I specifically asked her about the Vibe on DCL and she said that the Vibe is nicer as far as the area, but this was her favorite because of the other kids on board. It probably helped that she took one of her best friends with her...
Entertainment
Since it had been so long since we had sailed with Princess (2005), we weren't really sure what to expect. I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised by the entertainment offerings. We only went to a main show one night (Broadway @ Sea) and it was meh... However, there were tons of things going on all around the ship. Up to this point, one of my favorite things about our Carnival trip was the cruise director, Jamie Dee, who is by far the best cruise director on any ship I've ever been on. Quite honestly, on the DCL ships, I hardly ever notice the cruise director (unless it was Brent from Australia - we all loved him). Our cruise director was Alexander and he was fantastic. If Jamie was a 100, Alex was a solid 85-90. Lots of game shows, both family and adult, which were quite good. They did one a couple of times where they tried to get a passenger to say "Yes" or "No" in a 3 minute period that was really entertaining. Also, the music was good. We particularly enjoyed one called "the Rolling Wave Duo" that played predominately Irish music. They had an "Irish Sing-a-long" night one night in the Wheelhouse Bar that was extremely entertaining.
Of course, it wasn't DCL, but it was very good and I never felt bored as I did on the Serenade. Also, it was a similar, but different feel than Carnival, whose entertainment was good as well...
