14 Nights - Mediterranean with Greek Isles, France & Turkey

Very enlightening well orchastrated

Beautiful ship, great staff. Disappointed in evening entertainment. Seemed very lacking. Food was great, room was great. Itinerary was great too.

There are a variety of booking and onboard options. Depending on ones wants and needs they can use pay-as-you-go, plus, or premium shipboard packages. Personally, I prefer the premium package due to the dining and drink options. There are also a variety of cabin packages. If one prefers the "classic" Princess options, make sure the cabin is Reserve Collection, otherwise, your food options are restricted. One major downside is the food service hours are restricted to specific hours not conducive for those who want to sleep in or enjoy a late evening meal. In other words, too regimented for the casual traveller. The Sun Princess has fewer secluded bars as the the older ships had. For example, Bellini's Bar, Crooners, and the Wheelhouse Bar are all out in the open. The former two are adjoining the Piazza, so all the loud Piazza shows prevent private conversations or a place to get away from noise. The Sun Princess is state of the art. For example, the elevators minimize waiting and whisk one to their final deck with minimal stops. A great plus! The Medallion also speeds all shipboard transactions, from entering ones stateroom, to ordering food or drinks, and when going from ship to shore.

None of the promised entertainment in the Dome and Arena happened due to the ship not being finished. Some lesser entertainment was added in the Arena, but disappointing. Shore excursion to Santorini was canceled; guide for Pompeii was awful! Disappointed that some things that were free on previous cruises (Alfredo’s, etc) now had a charge. Horizon Dining on 7 was outstanding every night - menus and wait staff at Table 338. Breakfasts on 6 were disappointing.

This cruise experience was not as good as I expected. My previous cruise on a Princess Ship in the 1990's was much better. A cruise I took in the fall of 2021 on Norwegian was much better. A short cruise that I took on Disney in the 90's was better. All the cruises that I have had on Royal Caribbean ships, with the exception of a cruise that I took in 2022, were much better than this cruise. Here are the main reasons for this rating: Food - With the exception of the 2 nights of specialty dining, the dinner meals were not as good as I have had on other cruises in the past. Food selections and quality of food at the buffet lines and the sit-down meals were average at best. At the breakfast buffet the scrambled eggs were under-cooked for at least half of the cruise. I got food poisoning from dinner I had on the evening of 2-23 (I think it was the flounder) and was up half the night in the restroom with diarrhea and a bout of vomiting. The meals on the 2 nights of specialty dining were excellent, a 10+ rating in my opinion. Seating - Most of the venues for entertainment had too little seating. This ship has a maximum capacity of 4300 passengers and in my opinion, they sacrificed the size of seating areas to enable them to have enough rooms for 4300 passengers. In some instances, you needed to get to the venue 15 - 20 minutes in advance of the show to get a seat. And if you didn't get a seat, the standing room area was so filled with people that it was difficult for short people (like my wife) to see anything. There were many things that I did like about this cruise. The medallion program was great and simplified many aspects of ordering drinks and gaining access to our room. The mini-suite we had - via an upgrade -was extremely nice. Best stateroom ever and the bathroom was the best I've ever had as well. Boarding and disembarking process was very good, best I have ever experienced, and was accomplished quickly. The availability of laundry facilities - with free soap - for passenger use was great, very much appreciated. Only comment was that the 2 washers/dryers per floor were less than what was needed and sometimes the lines were long. This comment is more a "wish it was better", instead a negative review. The laundry facilities were a big + on this cruise, especially after having the food poisoning event! All of the staff worked extremely hard to make this cruise experience pleasurable. As a comment on cruise vacations in general, I believe that the quality of cruise vacations continues to degrade as the ships get larger and hold more passengers. Cruise companies seem to want to expand the variety of entertainment they provide on each new generation of ships that they come out with and in turn, they seem to overlook other basics of the cruise experience. Having the specialty dining venues is neat, but it is a costly add-on to the cruise. I think the dining - food quality and selection - in a dining room was better before the introduction of specialty dining option. To put things into perspective, my first cruise was in the late 1980's and all subsequent cruises have been less than my 1st exposure to the cruise vacation.   All the additional arrangements (travel to the port and to the airport, hotel, etc.) that AAA made were very good. This aspect of the vacation was flawless.