Panama Canal - Island Princess Review - Oct/Nov 2025

We did a 16 night Panama Canal cruise through the old locks from Los Angeles to Port Everglades. This is our first cruise on Princess, where we tried the oldest ship first, for probably not as good of a representation of Princess, but we wanted the old locks that only Island and Coral are small enough for. This is our 21st cruise overall with the most others on NCL. Warning -- long review.  

Embarkation

We had a little trouble with the porter luggage collection system. Each porter seemed to have a horde of people around them, and cart that looked like they would run out of space before we got to the front of the pack. The San Pedro port needs a more organized system. We were in the blue line because I did not want to pay to have the Medallions pre-shipped. It felt like nickeling and diming on something that was supposed to get you excited about your cruise. There was a line for the blue line, but it moved pretty quickly. Travis was having trouble logging on to the app, that he tested beforehand, to get his boarding pass up, so we let people around in line until he got in. I had a screenshot, but that would have had to be emailed to him too that would also take time. They scanned our boarding passes, passports, brought over our Medallions, through security, and we were onboard.   

Buffet 

The buffet always seemed open, which was a big plus, when others have reduced hours. Though I never checked in the middle of the night. There were lots of interesting healthy food choices for each meal. However, there were some times limited food choices for me since I do not eat very healthy. There were more flies than I like to see on a buffet (I don't remember seeing flies on other buffets, but maybe I have just forgotten), but I guess it was a hot, humid fly friendly area that we were visiting. 

Breakfast: They needed more good pastries options for me. A couple of mornings was chocolate pastry day, and this very good. But there are only so many chocolate pastries that one needs on a particular day, so I would have preferred a chocolate option everyday, instead of all on one day though it made for a nice display. I could get salmon, bagel, and cream cheese on the buffet, which was very good. Travis would have liked a bran flake cereal. There were lots of cereal choices but only raisin bran or bran sticks. There was all the normal hot foods, crispy bacon could be requested, smoothies, cheeses and cold cuts, fruits, etc. I found a new favorite -- that did not seem breakfast-y at all, but very good -- some days which was called Beef Tapa with rice. They did not have hot chocolate packets to make your own with hot water like I have always found on other lines that we have tried, but they sent me to the bar. It was $4 there. It may have been the fancy one like I was served the last day in the MDR; other days the MDR served a little tea pot and regular coffee cup. I feel like this charge in the buffet was due to them selling the Princess Plus or Premier packages (we did not have a package) to have something to only be included in the package. They had coffee, tea, juice, and ice water. Some people seemed to expected to be served drinks at the buffet while sitting at their table; maybe Princess used to do this more. I was asked twice and served once, but I did not expect it. Just too many people to the number of people serving. It was annoying to wait in line to get my ice water when the servers were making up multiple drinks for a table. We were offered someone's omelets one morning because they ordered on the Medallion, and it is hard for the waiters to tell exactly where the person who ordered is. I saw a stressed  server trying to find the person who ordered different sodas and drinks on the pool deck. From what we saw in the MDR, I think that it does show them the customer's picture. From our usage, it does not seem to have the precise location.   

Lunch: In addition to the buffet, there was a pizza place on the pool deck and the Salty Dog with hotdogs, hamburgers, chicken sandwich, and fries one deck above. The pizza was really good, though I got four cheese which had no pizza sauce. I preferred having the red sauce. My favorite was the Salty Dog hotdogs. I tried the burger but did not like it as much; I never managed to try the chicken sandwich. All were served with a very nice bun. The buffet, Salty Dog, and pizza were all forward, but it was hard for me to get a hotdog and Travis get the buffet and us meet and eat together. The buffet had some fancy lunch foods that we are not used to in buffets like sushi and seafood day. They had different on demand prepare station each day. I tried a Caesar salad one day but did end up with the last prepared salad. He added chicken for me, but I had leftover shrimp. Luckily, Travis liked it but seems to fall out of the spirit of the offering. Travis got a crepe there one day that was very good. Cookies were well stocked at lunch and into tea time, not just at tea time. I ate way too many cookies. Besides cookies, I did was not too impressed with the desserts, which is normally true for me. However, Carnival (same owner) has the best cakes! Here the premium cakes cost extra unless you had a package. 

Tea: They offered daily tea time with teas, scones, and cookies with some items that had also been on offer during lunch. We also tried a tea time in the MDR one day. It was very nice, but takes longer than Travis's normal tea in the buffet. 

Dinner: They had cool themed nights at the buffet. Unfortunately, Guest Services did not have a copy of the theme schedule, so that we could plan. I saw one online from a previous cruise that someone posted. It would have helped plan when we preferred the theme in the buffet vs. having an MDR dinner and eating too much later wanting to try an item off the buffet theme. The day that we chose the buffet was Indian night; good for Travis, but not for me. On Italian night, stuffed I had to try the Sicilian ball and a pepperoni and cheese pocket. Both very good after I added the Sicilian ball's marinara sauce inside the pepperoni pocket. However, I was stuffed already because we had eaten in the MDR. There was also some interesting look food on Mexican night that we did not try. 

MDR

In this 16 day cruise, we ate in the MDR for 3 breakfasts, 2 lunches, and 14 dinners. Breakfast and lunch was no reservations, and for dinner offered reservation and no reservation. There was also a traditional dining option, but we did not try this out. We always used the reservation that I made in the app before the cruise, making some updates during the cruise. We had a private table at 5:20pm most days. Leaving the dining room, the busiest time seemed to be about 7pm. In the reservation line, they scanned your Medallion to check you in for the reservation. Despite the private table reservation, we were asked to shared a couple of nights, which is good for us, just surprising because they seemed to not look at the reservation or not have a table for 2 left. Right before leaving for the cruise, I tried to change a formal night dinner to shared table, but there were no reservations left available -- meeting new people on formal night sounded fun. Many tables were close, so we met and talked to several groups of people from our private table. Another silly sounding complain but was important to me is that some tables for 2 had a post in the middle that stair stepped down to be very wide at the bottom. I learned that I crossed my legs when I eat and centered my non-crossed leg. This wide piece in the middle of the table hurt my foot, and I could not find a comfortable position. Other tables were fine with one straight down narrow pole or 4 legs on the outside. 

Overall, I would say that the MDR food was good or fine until the last formal night on the second to last night when it was excellent. This was followed by a chef challenge show the next day with galley tour. In the show, they advertised the best cakes and big seafood grill in the buffet for the last full day. I enjoyed the show and galley tour very much, but in both, they were pushing for 10s in the after cruise survey. So, it seemed like they only did the events to ask for 10s. Nonetheless, it was cool to get to walk through the galley. The next day cakes were not as good as Carnival's. The seafood and other grill was very good. 

Service was always very good. Since I have seen other feedback on food served too cold, all the food was hot in the MDR and buffet, sometimes too hot.     

Ship

The atrium was grand and pretty. 

The crew was all very good, with a couple of exceptions -- we never got our shower fixed or any follow up from guest services and the shore excursions person was hard to understand his answers to my questions, and he only wanted to talk to Travis in response to my questions. 

The Medallion app feature to allow you to chat with and find your shipmate(s) is awesome. You could see what deck they were on and see them progressing down the hall. In the theater, the location was not precise -- related to them delivering Medallion order mentioned above. We did not pay the $14.99 to use Medallion ordering, so I do not know how well it would have worked for us. I liked the daily schedule in the app, though it took more steps to get to it than I expected. They also delivered a daily paper schedule with the nightly turn down.   

I mentioned the two Princess Panamax ships; pick the Coral instead if the dates work for you. The Island lost its aft promenade area to new balcony rooms in a drydock. When walking the promenade, you have to cut through the inside when you hit the balcony wall. We like walking the promenade. On the other hand, I picked this ship out of others sailing around the same time because it had the most promenade -- the new ships are sadly losing this feature. I immediately missed the wake from the aft. We only found the wake up on a high deck, making it far away. Toward the middle of the cruise, Travis found a viewing area on deck 8 aft, just one above the promenade, so we started enjoying the wake from here. 

This ship also has no separate jogging track on an upper deck, so when the promenade was closed for wind or construction projects, it was very missed. Also in a drydock, the gym was put in an interior space with no windows for ocean views and was hot.

I liked the solarium with pool and hot tubs. The always available towels (without checking them out) was very nice for using at the pool and on shore and not having to drag them to your room and back and not having to store them in  your room was also nice. The solarium also had gelato and soft serve served to you. 

We used the laundry self-serve twice during the cruise since this was a long cruise. It is $3 each for washer and dryer and $1.50 for laundry detergent. You scan your Medallion to pay. Another passenger sweetly taught me the process and using the machines. Once when I was there a crew member poked his head in to see if everyone was doing okay or needed any help. Laundry ran for 30 minutes and the dryer for 60 minutes. However, they had the same number of each type of machine. It very nice to have this available. They also had a reusable grocery shopping bag in the room that we used to bring our clean clothes back to the room. 

Cabin - room: C233 - Balcony, Deck 10, Starboard

Our room was just a little forward of the forward stairs. This was convenient for the buffet and MDR.  

The cabins had very small showers with the dreaded shower curtain. Our shower cycled from burning hot (dangerous) to freezing cold (uncomfortable), and the shower was too small to get out of the flow when the temperature jumped one way or the other. I called guest services 4 times. I never received a follow up call to give an update or to ask if the fix was good. They never fixed the shower. I have never had this problem on 20 other cruises before and asked other passengers on our one night shared table of 9 -- they did not have this problem. 

I used the App chat feature to request a lightbulb be changed (it started continuously blinking). They replied within 10 minutes and had the bulb changed before end of day. 

Our bed was too soft for our taste and visually uneven/lumpy and the comforter had flat spots and lumpy spots. This did not reduce our experience but surprising for a premium cruise line. 

The cabin was roomy with good storage -- each night stand had two drawers and a shelf plus one more set like this. There was also a desk and desk chair. Though the only places to sit was in the desk chair or on the bed. I liked the walk-in closet design on both this ship and P&O UK. It is a lot of closet space that is easy to get to with a closed shelf area with safe. The closet wall helps block light from the bathroom at night since the bathroom is opposite it. Though all ships should really put the light switch on the inside of the bathroom, but I have not seen any that have. 

Balcony was very nice. However, we did get the intense sun on our side in the afternoon for the first part of the trip (southbound). Once near Costa Rica and Panama, it was cloudy, and then turning eastward and then northeast, the sun was better. It was a great side for the full moon viewing at night. I picked starboard based on recommendations to see Panama from the canal when going from west to east. With the intense sun, I then regretted starboard since Panama Canal was only one day. Also, we went through all the righthand lanes of the canal and seeing the other lane on the port side was interesting. The balcony door became hard to open and close mid-cruise. 

Our room steward was good; we always brought ice and my extra hair towel. Princess still has twice a day service which is nice, but no towel animals. I know that towel animals are more work and more laundry, but they were a special touch when cruising that I miss not getting anymore. 

The TV had good selections and was on demand with movies and tv shows, so that you can stop and continue a show later. It was several steps to get to what you wanted though. The navigation map broke about four days before the end of the cruise where the path showed but not overlaid on the map. The most annoying thing with the TV was the "smoothing" feature, which was really bad especially for action movies. It made the real people characters look like they were gliding in CGI. It made Mission Impossible almost impossible to watch. I tried to focus on reading the closed capturing vs. watching the animation. We got to the settings and hoped to be able to turn it off, but we could not get to that setting.

Entertainment

We enjoyed the trivia with cruise director staff. We also played Bingo for the first time on a cruise. I won a card in an event for first time on Princess cruisers. This event was fun too. Bingo was happening in the same venue right after, so we cashed in my prize. It was for a $50 set that included 4 Bingo games, each with 9 Bingo cards to use per game (this is a lot of cards to keep up with even for two people), and a lotto ticket. We did not win anything from these. They sold a $3 blotter that we did not buy, and my one ink pen that I had with me was fading fast. It was fun to try, but I don't think we are Bingo converts. 

We enjoyed the first comedian on the cruise and went to two of his shows. We also enjoyed the juggler/comedian. We went to one production show -- On the Bayou. Travis has noted MSC as having the best singers. From this show, he liked 1 of the 4 singers. With my ear not as attuned for rating singers, I loved the dancing and the costumes. 

Most importantly for our cruise, we appreciated the enrichment talks on the Panama Canal, 2 before, and during the Canal. 

We went to one Movie Under the Stars. Another we picked was replaced by a sporting event, but I guess that sports were in higher demand, even though not our preference. 

The Captain's champagne waterfall and farewell events on formal nights were exciting and what I expect to be typical Princess. We had our first formal dinner late this night to attend the champagne waterfall. After the waterfall, I felt like the fanfare for formal night was very lacking and the second formal night was a non-event. The last formal night was much better with special, higher quality, and excellent food options and the Baked Alaska parade.

There was also a cute Halloween costume contest, and they decorated the ship for Halloween.    

Disembarkation

Our disembarkation was quick. We did self-assist walk off. We did not rush off since we had a later flight. It took longer than they predicted for the ship to be cleared by customs. When we went by to have our last breakfast at the MDR, there were lines of people (I guess with early flights) waiting to get off before the announcement that disembarkation can begin. It did not look fun. When we decided to get off, we joined the line from the promenade deck and got off quickly. In terminal, there was facial recognition for passport control; with someone sending people to different lines, this was quick also. Outside we found the shared ride area and looked for Uber or Lyft. The price kept going up, so we decided that the $11 per person shuttle to FLL airport was a better deal. He noted that he could not take a credit card payment or Venmo, so we planned cash. He did not seem to be charging anyone and had said before the ride not to pay then, so I just handed him cash when we got off.

We do not have any other Princess cruises planned now but are definitely willing to sail with them again.