Mediterranean Adventures with Princess Cruises

We have sailed with Princess Cruises twice on their Mediterranean Adventurer itinerary, which is a roundtrip from Southampton. For us as a family, we loved the balance of port days (7 days) and sea days (6 days) with this itinerary. Our first cruise was in 2016 on Emerald Princess (when 11 of us cruised! 6 adults and 5 children), and we did the itinerary again in 2017 on Crown Princess (just 6 of us this time, 4 adults and 2 children).  

The itinerary was the same each year. Day 1 was Southampton, followed by 3 days at sea, then a port-intensive 6 days starting in Barcelona and visiting Corsica*, Civitavecchia (for Rome), Livorno (for Pisa or Florence), Genoa, and Marseille. One day at sea followed Marseille, which was very welcome to recover from all the walking, then the final port of call was Gibraltar. We then enjoyed 2 more days at sea before disembarking in Southampton.

*2018 and 2019 Mediterranean Adventurer itineraries do not call at Corsica.


When we sailed on Emerald Princess, we were in Oceanview cabins on Plaza deck (deck 5), just by the Art Gallery. This was a great deck to be on with children, because they could run off to the International Cafe whenever they liked to get something to eat (all food is free, with choices of pies, paninis, cookies, and cakes). If you buy the Soda and More package too, they can get themselves a drink or mocktail from the bar. Two cabins were adjoining rooms (P315 and P317), which meant we could open the door between and share out the children! In these cabins, we had bunks on each wall, which came down at night for the children to sleep on. 

Ocean view of Barcelona

On Crown Princess, we decided we wanted to experience a balcony room, so we booked on Aloha deck, just opposite the panoramic lifts (A432). This was a great spot for us, as we could easily visit our family (who had chosen to remain on Plaza deck) and run up the stairs to the Lido deck each morning to reserve a sunlounger and have breakfast (I usually was up at 7.30 am on a lounger to read my kindle or do a puzzle, such a nice quiet way to start the morning; the kids would be up there eating breakfast and waiting for the ice cream stall to open!). 

What a 4-berth balcony cabin looks like (2 uppers)

We chose a cabin that had 2 upper bunks, rather than an upper and a rollaway, as we had read that the rollaway stays in the cabin and blocks the balcony, and since the whole point of booking the balcony was to access it, we didn't want it inaccessible! 

Our roomy balcony

The balcony was amazing, we had plenty of room for 4 adults to sit (we brought 2 additional seats) and having your own private view in the early morning or late evening was perfect.

Balconies below Aloha deck aren't so private

I will write about each port over the next couple of weeks, with details of what we did and some photos. If there is anything in particular you want to know about this itinerary, please ask!