By Ellen Uzelac

updated 6:17 p.m. ET Dec. 29, 2006

It all started with an e-mail blast: Panama Canal, anyone?

Personally, I had wanted to spend a week in Paris with my husband, Gil. However, he overruled me (Nag, nag: "It's too cold there in winter"). The next thing I knew, we had invited friends and family to join us on a Panama Canal cruise.

In the end, 16 of us — ranging in age from 2 to 79, and spread across the U.S. from Massachusetts to California — took a 10-day cruise on Princess' Coral Princess. I can't say there weren't a few challenging moments. But overall, we found that our at-sea holiday presented an ideal way to spend time together.

How to explain? I had my first-ever play date in the ship's Fun Zone with my stepdaughter's 3-year-old, Eli. I spent more time with a couple of my cousins in a week and a half than I have in decades. And who in my crew could have stood to miss watching my sister perform — not once, not twice, but three times — in the Princess Idol karaoke contest (think Sister Sledge's "We are Family"!)?

Would we do it again? Absolutely. Will we benefit next go-round from lessons learned? Sure. Here's our take-away advice:

Before you go
Without a doubt, smart planning is the key to a fun and successful "friends and family" cruise. I like the idea of appointing a group leader — someone willing to handle the responsibilities of making executive decisions and keeping people informed and on track.

In our case, Gil and I picked our particular cruise because we wanted to see the Panama Canal. Additionally, our research suggested the Coral Princess was a family-friendly ship with an agreeable price point and plenty of activities to entertain our multi-generational crowd. That was the easy part.

Big Lesson No. 1: We learned that the e-blast, which we forwarded to a bunch of folks, not only helped us put together the friends and family passenger list — it also turned up our de facto group leader, Cousin Pam. A seasoned Princess traveler, Pam knows the ropes. (Me? I would have hung myself with them.) Initially, Pam spent 30 hours online: getting cruise prices, studying deck plans for preferred cabins, scoping out shore excursions, and checking out the weather forecast for that all-critical "what to wear" category.

Her exhaustive research on pricing led her to a travel agency that's one of the leading sellers of Princess cruises. Pam, who had booked her agent before, asked the firm to beat or match the lowest price she had found. They beat it — by $100 per booking — and threw in a $150 per-cabin credit.

Big Lesson No. 2: Here's where things got messy. Twelve of us booked through that travel agent but my stepdaughter Loren, her husband Nick and their two boys used an Internet agency. The 12 of us opted for the early dinner seating and I thought Loren's family had done the same. In fact, they had chosen an "anytime dining" plan, which meant we wouldn't share the dinner meal together.

I suspected there was a problem early on — and our agent tried to fix it. But when we all arrived for dinner the first night, our two tables of eight failed to materialize. An unhappy maitre d' finally acquiesced and created a 6-top and a 10-top. It wasn't a perfect arrangement but at least we got to sit together.

So, trust me when I advise you to book your group through the same agency to keep things streamlined. Also, in the case of our pick there is an added benefit: We could get one free berth for every 16 passengers who reserve double occupancy.

Big Lesson No. 3: Loren's family had a quad, and here's another heads up. Triples and quads, limited in number, tend to fill up first — so it's wise to book early if your group has a demand for them.

Pam's vigilant e-mail reminders over the few months leading up to the cruise were extremely helpful — details like the "opening day" for booking shore excursions through the cruise line, and a recommendation to fill out our passenger information forms online. The latter was a huge time-saver when we first boarded.

(Not so) Big Lesson No. 4: I wish I had paid as much attention to Princess' Web site as Pam had. Then I would have known about the laundry rooms on board — and saved myself $75 in extra fees for our overweight baggage.

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