I coaxed my husband into watching The Prince & Me: Holiday Honeymoon and later on we watched the first installment of the movie series The Prince & Me. As far as the comparison between these two movies, I think he put it best when he said during the beginning of the first movie, “This one has more excitement in the first 5 minutes than the other one had the entire movie.”

Now, I must say I did enjoy The Prince & Me: Holiday Honeymoon. I love a good, wholesome, family appropriate, chick flick and this one measured up to that. Standing on its own it had an interesting plot, lovable characters, and the feel good storyline was enjoyable. However, it screamed “Made for TV.” The writing was acceptable but nothing above that. The “chase scene” with Prince Edward was utterly boring. However, the exciting escapade at the end was actually exciting, but a bit cheesy. The side character of Scott had an awkward resolution to his plot, logical but stiff.

What I did like about the movie was that the atmosphere of the storyline was beautiful and adventurous. It made you want to take a trip to the mountains and explore nature. The royal tie-in keeps the dream of becoming a princess/queen alive by making it look obtainable — perfect chick flick fodder. It was also great to have another glimpse into the lives of these characters, even if they didn’t get it quite right in this movie.

The Prince & Me series has been choppy, still delightful, but a rough flow. The first movie starred Julia Stiles and Luke Mably. The Prince & Me 2: The Royal Wedding starred Kam Heskin and Luke Mably. The Prince & Me 3: Holiday Honeymoon stars Kam Heskin and Chris Geere. As you can see, each movie they have lost a main actor. That’d be rough on any movie series. Their replacements have actually been pretty good and believable, but with each movie the writing has suffered and the cinematic elements have lost their wow factor (diminishing budget per film certainly has something to do with this). Yet the franchise struggles to stay alive and does so thanks to girls who love their fairy tales, and this one modern spin on a classic dream appeals to many young ladies.

The worst part about the third installment is that while they did a great job of casting a replacement for Luke Mably, since Chris Geere looks plenty like Luke, sadly the character was written as dorky and immature. However, even Chris’ body language read like a dork, so it could be that the innate cool factor that Luke naturally carries couldn’t be replicated by Chris. In Chris’ defense, the writing didn’t help him look cool at all. It was sad and I’m sure all of the girls who dream of being Paige Morgan with Prince Edward will doubt that desire when they see movie number 3. But ultimately they won’t let go of the fantasy because come on, he’s still a prince… I mean… king in this movie, and he treats his wife and queen wonderfully. It’s a fantasy worth the enjoyment, but with movie number 4 potentially in the works I sure hope they improve their staff of writers and increase the budget.

The Prince & Me: Holiday Honeymoon premieres on ABC Family this Sunday November 8th at 8/7 central. You can watch the first The Prince & Me on the same day at 3:30/4:30 central then see The Prince & Me: The Royal Wedding at 6/5 central. Catch this triple feature and live out your princess fantasy. Also watch for repeats of The Prince & Me: Holiday Honeymoon throughout November and December on ABC Family.