Hotel Parga Princess

I am nor reviewing a particular website... but a cruise ship. If anyone out there is planning to travel on the Royal Princess... think twice before booking an aft room as the room attendants are overworked and get careless in their job. Not only was there soot stains all throughout the room there were blood stains on my girlfriends' pillow and on my bed sheets! Disgusting! After the 2nd day we requested to have the balcony cleaned. It got cleaned, but after about two rinses with the steward's mop the water in his bucket was black. Not knowing about the soot problem on this ship I booked an aft cabin on the Marina Deck going by the brochure that I had received in September 2012. The brochure that I received displayed this deck having a partial coverage over the balcony. There was none (completely exposed balcony). This not only caused my girlfriend and I not to enjoy the balcony for breakfast, but caused the soot from the smoke stack to leave a black coating on the deck and chairs each morning. I love to star gaze on the balcony and did so for the first two nights... unaware of the soot that I was breathing in. I should have clued in because for the first two days I saw no one on their balconies. It would have been nice if our room attendant had given me advanced warning. It would also have been nice if Princess or my travel agent had given me advanced warnings so I could have made other arrangements to book a different location. Be advised about the charges at the International Cafe for specialty coffees. Besides being a new ship, what sold me on the cruise was when I read a brochure (from Sept. 2012) that all specialty coffees were now included with your cruise fare. We were shocked the first day to see that there was a price board for these coffees. We immediately went to the front desk to inquire and show the brochure to the front desk about the offer (thankfully we brought that brochure). After three days we were finally issued 2 free coffee cards. We got these cards free only because we had the thought to bring this original brochure with us on the trip to have as back up. The elevators are a joke. They claim to hold 18 people. They may support that many people if they are pigmies on a diet. Princess gave too much attention to the main atrium (which is spectacular) but they overlooked the living quarters. Unless you have a full suite (not at the back of the ship) you will find it difficult to move if more than two people are in the room. The Royal Princess is a beautiful ship on the outside and in but there are too many negatives to give this ship a rating higher than 3 out of 10. That ranking may be a little too generous. Would I go back on the Royal Princess? Only if I booked into a full suite or if Princess sends this ship back into drydock to fix the major issue with the smoke stack.