Sixteen years ago this week, my husband and I took our very first cruise. It was an incredible experience and one that got us hooked on cruising immediately. All these many years, and 6 cruises in the books, we still believe that cruising is the BEST way to vacation!

I love so many things about cruising, but one of the things I love most is you can tailor your cruise to your specific needs. For me, when I vacation, I want the #1 thing to happen is to return to regular life completely relaxed. There are plenty of options on the boat for people who want to be active and on the go, but for me, find me a cozy spot, a good book, and some time to chill and I’m happy!

My most recent cruise experience was aboard the Ruby Princess cruise ship, where I found plenty of places to relax and unwind. My only wish is that I had more time to relax, as this was a shorter cruise than normal. Either way, in case you are like me, and want a super relaxing cruise experience, I thought I’d share my favorite places to relax aboard a Princess Cruise! There are plenty of them!…

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You all know I love to take pictures, right? I mean, if you follow my Instagram account it’s pretty obvious that I can be a bit of an Instaho sometimes. What can I say? I love capturing memories “on film”…and I have for as long as I can remember!

When the iPhones came out with their great cameras, it made it even easier for me to capture moments. The only problem was, my big, wonderful Nikon DSLR was feeling a bit lonely. Sure, I would always use it for food and work photography, but when it came to taking it on the road with me or out of the house, it just became too big and bulky and my iPhone would come along instead.

Don’t get me wrong. I love my Nikon with all my heart…but realistically to take it along when I traveled was tough. It’s big and expensive… I was always nervous about it getting damaged when I traveled, so would just keep it safely at home.

So. when I went on the hunt for a smaller camera….something more sophisticated and higher quality than a point and shoot… I was so glad I came across this post by TidyMom about her Samsung NX300 Mirrorless Camera. After looking at the amazing quality of pictures on Cheryl’s blog post, I knew this camera was the one for me! You guys… I love this camera so much! I never thought I’d say that about a non-DSLR camera, but I just can’t get over how small it is, yet how packed to the brim it is with features. I’m not being paid to tell you this either… I paid for this camera myself and I absolutely love everything about it.

The Samsung NX300 camera is the camera I used to take all of my photos on the Princess Cruise I recently went on. Have you checked out those blog posts? Would you ever guess that those pictures weren’t from my “big girl” camera? Me neither! This camera delivers such high quality photos, I never once missed having my big camera with me. And I took so many more pictures because my Samsung NX300 is so portable and would fit right in my purse.

Below are some more pictures I took while traveling on the Regal Princess with Princess Cruise Lines, along with some of the things I absolutely love about my Samsung NX 300 mirrorless camera….

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Princess Cruises has an amazing experience on board their Regal and Royal Princess cruise ships…something that I don’t believe any other cruise line can compare to.

3 of the nights during a 7 day cruise, Princess offer guests the opportunity to dine at the Chef’s Table (known as The Chef’s Table Lumiere). This is a very exclusive opportunity, as they only take 8 people each night. As you can guess, 12 people out of the thousands on board means this event sells out very fast and is one hot commodity. The price per person for this event is currently $115. With that $115 you get a tour of the kitchen, time to interact with the head chef, the royal treatment, champagne, appetizers, fine wine with every course, and a more course meal than I could keep track of. The food and wine just kept coming and coming and coming.  In addition you get a fantastic Princess Cruises cookbook (ARV $50) and professional photos taken as a group and with the chef.

This is going to be a mostly photo heavy post, but the one takeaway needs to be… if you are going to vacation on the Regal or Royal Princess, especially if you are a food and wine enthusiast or you simply want to splurge on something extraordinary, head straight to the reservations desk as soon as you get on board and sign up for The Chef’s Table Lumiere. This event sells out quickly – and you don’t want to miss it! This is one impressive event – worth every penny!

Watch Princess Cruises informative video for a really good look at the entire experience, but for now, enjoy the photo tour of my experience at the Chef’s Table Lumiere on board the Regal Princess. …

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