The Emerald Princess

What can I say?  Fantastic ship, terrific staff and crew.  My parents, Agnes and I were all impressed with Princess Cruise Lines on this trip for a wide variety of reasons, but just to give you a general idea of what was so great about the cruise I wanted to post this up.

Comedy Club / Lounge

To begin with, we have nothing but good things to say about all of the Princess staff and crew we dealt with, from our cabin steward right up to the Captain of the ship himself.  No issue seemed too big or too small for them to deal with as thoroughly as possible and everyone was exceedingly friendly.  Best example: when my Dad forgot to put one of his bags out the night before we departed, the crew acted as though it was their fault for the oversight, then promptly took care of the issue without missing a beat and in the nicest, most unobtrusive way.

Aft Pool - Smallest of the Ship's Pools

As for the ship itself, even though it would be considered medium-sized by today's standards (2,100 guests, 1,200 crew), the Emerald had everything you could want and more.  Four (4) different swimming pools, half a dozen complete restaurants (phenomenal food and service--worth its own separate blog post), a theater, half a dozen different lounges and nightclubs, casino, golf center, kids area--including their own nightclub, spa, exercise room, 3-4 different full-scale shops, etc. etc. 

Part of the Ship's Galley

They also provided a very full itinerary throughout the day.  Yes, we could and did choose to just lay out in the sun a lot, but they had movies going inside and outside most of the day, you could watch juggling acts, listen to a string quartet, watch an ice sculpture be created, check out an off-off-Broadway caliber show, take part in a shipwide karaoke contest; the list goes on and on.  Every evening we would get a schedule for the next day which made it really easy to kind of pick and choose what we wanted to do.  My personal favorites were the comedians which were far better then I ever would have expected, though it was also very relaxing to listen in on the string quartet as well.

Champagne Fountain

I really could go on and on because there was so much to do and we had such a great time, but I am getting ready to put together my next post on Antigua which may be of interest to you.