We chose this cruise for several reasons. First of course, the visit to the Panama Canal which was nearing the top of our bucket list. Secondly, we wanted to travel on another Princess ship after having such a great Alaskan cruise. This cruise aboard the Coral Princess was just the ticket. We flew in from Colorado a day early and had a transfer from the Ft. Lauderdale airport (a rather nasty airport, but that's a different review) to Embassy Suites, which are always good. We rode the bus to the ship on embarkation day, fast, easy and on the ship in less than 20 minutes.

One of the things we particularly like about Princess is that our room was ready on boarding. No lugging around the carry-on luggage til mid-afternoon. We had a couple of sea days to start and for us the production shows were great. The individual performers were good too. The magician and dance band, not so good. There were only a few children and they were well behaved. This cruise had few children being 10 nights and just before Christmas holidays. The cruisers for the most part were retired folks, but there were people of all ages represented.

We stopped at Aruba, Columbia, Panama Canal and Colon, Costa Rica and Grand Cayman. Each stop offered a different feel and flow. We only did Princess excursions and all were fun. On the ship, we had a very personable and professional steward, and dining wait staff. We elect traditional dining late. Princess has never gotten the show schedule aligned well with dining, but we worked around it. The buffet was clean and food very good. We did not eat in the pay-extra dining rooms. The casino is quite small, but large enough for one to lose money, The only annoying sales pitches were those for wine tasting. All the rest was pretty much in the background. Read more