My wife and I traveled with our two sons, ages 13 and 15, on a 7-night cruise from Fort Lauderdale to St. Maarten, St. Thomas, and Princess Cays.

OVERALL RATING: A-. Overall, the cruise was great. In this review, you will find a few things here and there that could have been improved upon so I lowered the score from an A to an A-. But, overall I highly recommend this cruise.

WHY CHOOSE THIS CRUISE? In deciding which cruise to book, my wife and I had two primary objectives: (1) quality and (2) we wanted to visit nice ports with fine beaches. We got what we were after with this itinerary on the Golden Princess.

GETTING THERE. We opted not to purchase Princess airfare and ended up having a little trouble getting good fares into Ft. Lauderdale as it was Spring break. We ended up though getting pretty good rates ($120 rt pp) with Southwest Air by flying into Orlando (from Baltimore). Going through Orlando sounds like a lot to go through but it really isn’t. We then did a one-way car rental (AVIS @ $53) and drove to Ft. Lauderdale which took about 3 1/2 hours. We had purchased airport transfers from/to the cruise ship but as it turned out AVIS ran a shuttle directly to the ship so we didn’t need the airport transfers we bought as part of our package. Even if you aren’t going to rent a car, I’d recommend you not purchase the airport transfers and opt to go by taxi instead because the airport isn’t that far away from the ship and why wait at the airport. For a family of 4, it probably would be cheaper anyway.

EMBARKATION/DEBARKATION. Very smooth. We arrived to the ship at 11:15am and there were only moderate lines which moved quickly. For future reference, the first to disembark are those passengers who have early flights purchased through Princess. Debarkation started around 9:00am. After that, Princess disembarks people based on their cabin. Premium cabins go out first. For those who buy less-expensive cabins, expect not to depart until 10:30am or thereabouts. The major car rental agencies all run shuttles directly to their lots. We ran into a family on the shuttle with an evening flight who decided to rent a car for the day. This seemed to be a very good idea as the cost of renting a car for the day to see Ft. Lauderdale, with free shuttle service, was probably in-line with the cost of Princess airport transfers for a family of four.

ROOM. Inside Quad, Emerald Deck, Cabin 117 (8th floor). The Golden has 15 decks plus a few more topside (no deck #13). Most of the inside activities (dining rooms, show rooms, etc.) on the Golden are on Deck 6 or Deck 7 so being on Deck 8 turns out to be very convenient as well as inexpensive. To get on the top deck, we would have likely taken the elevator up no matter how much more we paid to stay on a higher deck. We were very impressed with the rooms which we found to be large for a cruise ship and laid out well. There was lots of closet space. The room also has a hair dryer. Television was limited to CNN, ESPN (International), and ship channels (which included a movie channel, outside ship cameras, shipboard activities, and weather/position tracker/time). I point out that the ship had ESPN “International” which doesn’t necessarily carry the same line-up as regular ESPN in the States. Except for a brief period while the ship was in port in Ft. Lauderdale, the ship didn’t pickup any of the major networks. We were on-board during college basketball’s “Final Four” and championship game and were unable to watch. This was frustrating as we were from Maryland and Maryland won the championship.

FOOD. Overall, we enjoyed the food. Our dinner meals in the dining rooms were generally very good, especially the main courses. We also enjoyed the salads. This was our first attempt at “Personal Choice (Freestyle)” dining and we didn’t care for it. With a family, I thought it was convenient because I didn’t have to worry about everyone getting ready on-time. But, I felt the service was a notch below what I’ve experienced on other Princess cruises. It was the little extras that were missing such as having your coffee along with serving dessert. We frequently had one or the other but not both at the same time and we rarely were asked if we would like a second cup. The staff seemed to disappear. Also, tips are automatically added to your bill now. With automatic tips and “Personal Choice” dining, I didn’t see the wait staff going out of their way to provide excellent service. Overall, the dining service was still good but it just wasn’t excellent. We went to dinner early (around 5:30pm) and had no wait. For those who arrived later, there was frequently a wait.

TIP: You are able to make reservations even with “Personal Choice” dining. The ship offers traditional seating and I'd recommend that instead. Elsewhere, I thought the food in the Horizon Court (buffet) was good. Much of it though was leftover from dinner in the main dining halls so variety suffered. The coffee and iced tea in the Horizon Court was not very good as they were frequently bitter. The desserts in the Horizon Court were also not all that impressive and some were somewhat tasteless. However, I really enjoyed the hot tapioca served late one night. Some additional observations:

Lobster - tasty. This is the first cruise I’ve been on (Except NCL) that the waiters didn’t go out of their way to bring you another lobster tail. I felt somewhat hurried.
Pizza (poolside) - fair at best, very greasy.
Burgers (poolside) - very good.
 Room Service - the food was good but the service was inconsistent, i.e. we’d order service for four and get only two cups; we’d order hot chocolate and get only the pot and chocolate mix but no hot water or milk in the pot.
Soda Card - $17 and appeared to be a good value for soda drinkers. My kids both had cards and had no trouble getting a soda whenever they wanted one. I noticed a lot of adults with cards as well.

SHORE EXCURSIONS. St. Thomas is upscale. St. Maarten is in the middle somewhere. Princess Cays is a private island. All are nice places to go and a definite improvement over our last cruise ports which included severe poverty-riddled Belize and Roatan. Cruisers can take one of the many excursions offered by the ship or arrange private excursions. We did two excursions arranged through the ship: “Tale of Two Cities” in St. Maarten and the “Megans Bay Beach Getaway” in St. Thomas. One convenience with Princess is that you are able to sign-up for excursions via the Internet. This makes things convenient and gives you a better idea how to budget the cost of the cruise.

In ST. MAARTEN, the “Tale of Two Cities” tour was generally good. It explores both sides of the island and makes a 45-minute stop on the French side for shopping. If you watch closely, you can see iguanas in the trees, some of which are rather large. The Golden docks pier-side in St. Maarten. You need to either walk 20-minutes to town or, for $5, can purchase an unlimited daily card for the water taxi. I found liquor and cigarette prices to be very good here and less than in St. Thomas. Cartons of cigarettes in St. Maarten around the dock area were around $8 for name-brand.

In ST. THOMAS, we went shopping in town for the morning and then went to Megans Bay in the afternoon. To get to town, people usually catch a taxi for $3 ea (although you could walk in about 15-20 minutes). There’s also nice shopping at the pier and a good spot to pick-up items from the grocery/drug store if needed. Megans Bay is beautiful, with perfectly white sand and crystal clear water. This spot offers ok snorkeling in nice gentle water. There are no waves to speak of. Even with a moderate crowd, this was a quiet restful spot. I think it would be a great spot to take kids of any age. The ship’s tours here left for Megans Bay at 12:20pm so you had to do your shopping first. I’m sure it might be cheaper to get to Megans Bay by taxi but it was very convenient arranging this through the ship and it was actually a lot of fun riding on an open-air bus of sorts up and down the mountains, stopping a few times, and taking in the scenery. Also, I didn’t see a lot of taxi’s available to take people back to town except for the tour buses. In town, there are lots of shops to visit and it’s easy to catch a taxi back to the ship.

PRINCESS CAYS was great if you enjoy a day at the beach. We left the ship around 9:30am and were tendered in quickly. We found a nice spot with lounge chairs under a small palm tree. Princess Cays offered lots of water sports which Megans Bay does not. I rented a two-seater “Water Trike” with one of my kids, one of the kids rented a kayak, and we snorkeled and swam and had a barbeque lunch. The water is calm here with very little waves. This is also a great spot for families with kids. This was a much nicer spot that I had anticipated and it made for a great day at the beach. If you want to go to the beach and relax, this is a great spot.

SHIP. Most of the other reviews will cover this area well so I won’t say anything except that the Golden Princess is magnificent. One plus worth mentioning with Princess is that the pools have fresh water as opposed to some other lines that fill their pools with salt water. There is a difference.

ENTERTAINMENT. Great. The Princess theater is the main stage for entertainment and, through its wonderful stadium seating, everyone has a good seat. Shows were also held in the Vista showroom which was smaller and a bit more tight. Various musicians played elsewhere throughout the ship.

MISCELLANEOUS. The ship offers HIGH TEA everyday (which I admit might not sound too exciting... but, it actually is a lot of fun). I highly recommend you try this activity at least once during your cruise. The kids ARCADE has a lot of different video games. The prices are reasonable at $1 each ($0.50 early in the morning). You don’t use money but instead use a pre-purchased card (which of course can have money added to it). The CASINO is large and offers a lot of choices. Table games were reasonable as well. Roulette started at $1 while Blackjack started at $5. The ship has a variety of nickel, quarter, and dollar slots. On the down side, we were somewhat dismayed by the ship’s apparent lack of consideration for SAFETY. Early on during our voyage, my wife stumbled over a chair with a broken wheel, cutting her foot. She reported the chair, which had a very sharp edge on it, to the Purser’s office and other shipboard personnel on several occasions. The chair was never removed or fixed during our stay. Also, the CABIN STEWARDS only work during certain hours. If you happen to be in the room during these periods, you miss your clean-up. We had two teen-age kids staying in our room with us and this meant we missed several clean-ups. I hadn’t run into this on other ships. But, with automatic tipping, the cabin steward will get their tip anyway!

SUMMARY. Overall, although I’ve brought up a few things that could have been improved upon, you still get good value for your money on this cruise. It’s hard to say whether the cruise industry is suffering from 9/11 fallout to the extent they are employing fewer service personnel or if we just happened to run into a few problems. In any event, I highly recommend this cruise, especially if you want a great ship and to go to nice beaches.