Recently returned from the Crown Princess Grand Mediterranean Cruise 10/23-11/3/18 Barcelona to Rome

Booked this cruise about 6 months out with free gratuity sale. This was our 17th cruise on various cruise lines (NCL, Princess, Celebrity and Royal Caribbean). First time to this dream destination Mediterranean Cruise! We are two couples. Used Princess EZ Air for the first time and was happy with the prices which were lower than anything we checked directly with the airlines. It’s a bit confusing to choose flights, and it’s like playing the slots as different prices would come up. Anyway, the best for us ended up being ticketed by British Airways, but flying American one way and Aer Lingus coming back. And even though both couples booked at the same time, we couldn’t get the same price. The Princess EZ Air desk said it was just an allocation issue. Once we booked, we didn’t keep checking for anything better, as we were too busy researching and booking all the other tour components for the trip with only 6 months to do it. Had looked at many itineraries, but this one seemed perfect to us! And this would be our longest cruise to date at 11 nights.

I tend to over-research, but always find valuable info here on CC. So thank you to everyone here that offers tips and advice. We had inside cabins and used anytime dining with short waits with a pager some nights and no wait others for a table of 4. Bedding was extremely comfortable, and cabin was as I remembered with plenty of space for storage and a nice large closet, and large safe. Bathroom is smallish, but nice, with the exception of the clingy fabric shower curtain. I prefer a glass door, like the Celebrity Silhouette offers. Enjoyed having Princess robes. We had one large, mostly non-English speaking Asian group booked on our cruise. They had translated announcements and their own Mandarin Patter. Our room steward Cristian, from Romania was excellent with twice daily room refreshers and kept our ice bucket full. Read more