Trip Report - Royal Princess 10 Day Eastern Caribbean November 16 - 26, 2016

I know our cruise was almost a year ago, so I am behind on getting this posted. I will try and post it on here and also on my blog which I will post a link to at the bottom. This review also does include a ship tour of almost all of the public areas of the Ship. I know this is something I could not really find when I was researching this trip. It is not the most exciting trip, and I am not the best writer, but I love taking photos and wanted to share. On my blog I am on Day 6.

Monday, November 14th, 2016

Today was our travel day and I have no photos from this day as it was pretty un-exciting. Stephanie was awesome and picked Mom and I up and drove us to the airport to catch our 10:00am flight on Westjet to Toronto. This has probably been my worst trip I have had with Westjet. When we originally booked this trip it was Direct from Calgary to Fort Lauderdale, but of course with schedule changes, they did away with the direct flight :( and we had to connect in Toronto, which was the beginning of the issues, nothing major but enough to annoy me. When we booked our trip, we had paid the extra to pre-reserve our seats, so when they changed our flights we had to change our seats. Jump forward to trying to check in for our flight 24 hours ahead of time, the system will not allow me to proceed, and is telling me that I owe more money. It thought I owed for pre-purchasing my seats for one leg of the trip. Called into Westjet and got someone who wasn't quite sure... she wanted to refund me money and have me rebook my seats... I disagreed because I may loose the seats we wanted, anyway, she put me on hold and well accidentally disconnected me. So, I have to call back in again, I get a lady who knows what the issue is, puts me on hold and in about 10 minutes comes back and tells me we are all set, there was some problem with coding, but we still can't check in on-line, and will have to wait until morning when we get to the airport.

We get to the airport in the morning and Westjet has downgraded the plane we are on going to Toronto, so guess what... we are not getting the seats we have pre-paid for. In fact they have mom in a middle seat and me in a window (which works for me, not for her), we try and get it figured with the guy checking us in, but that didn't work. So I decide to send mom on through security while I go outside to have a smoke and call Westjet. This is my 4th call to them for this trip, I never call in, I have always just been able to do what I need online. Anyway, the lady on the phone apologizes for all of the issues we have been having and refunds our pre-paid seat selections for the whole trip, and we both hope that I don't have to call in again.

I then head in and go through security, this is where the $50 I decided to spend a few years ago comes in handy. I went outside, called Westjet and had 2 smokes and when I walked in, mom was just at the front of the regular security line, me and my Nexus card walked right up and we got through security at the same time. We decided to head up to the counter and see if they could move mom to an aisle seat that will work better for her knee, which they were able to do, and since we don't really care about sitting together. I grabbed us something from Starbucks and we boarded the plane and made it to Toronto without incident.

We didn't have a whole lot of time in Toronto, we landed about 3:45 and were due to leave at 5:05, and we had to clear customs! A couple of ladies that Mom worked with were flying back from Florida to Saskatoon and were scheduled to be in Toronto at the same time as us, so they texted each other and met up for a quick chat. I left them to visit and I of course went out for a smoke. They visited for about 15 minutes before we had to keep moving. We made it through Customs, luckily with no issues, as with a very quick washroom break we were the last people on the plane!

We landed in Fort Lauderdale at around 8:30pm EST, and I couldn't wait to go outside and feel that amazing heat and humidity! We got our bags and headed over to the car rental area to pick up our rental car from Avis. I decided to use my Air Miles for this, when they announced they would begin expiring (which they changed their mind about after I booked this), oh well, the car cost us $25 for the time we would have it. Picked out our car, did our little inspection and then headed off to what would be our hotel for the next couple of nights. We decided this trip to be a little more budget aware, so we decided to stay at the Hyatt Place Ft. Lauderdale Airport & Cruise Port. We got what I felt was a good rate for our 2 nights, but I also liked that it included breakfast and parking was free.

It was around 9 when we got to the Hotel, luckily it is pretty close to the Airport, we got checked in and went to our 2 queen bed room. I really meant to get pictures of the room but I seem to be really terrible at that. We got a high floor facing another hotel and some construction, which I guess mom did hear some, don't ask me, I never hear that stuff. The room was good, it was clean, and enough space for what we needed, nothing luxurious. When you walked in the room, there was a nice sofa, which I believe is a sofa bed. There is a counter with a fridge and a desk. Then there is a small half room wall that separates the living are from the beds, this is also where the tv is and it swivels so you can watch from either space. Then there were the 2 beds, straight from the 2 beds is the sink / vanity area. Then there is a very small bathroom that has the tub/shower and toilet. The only thing I did not like about the room is there was no safe. I also found the wifi to be very glitchy,

By this time, we were starving, as we hadn't ate since our snack in Calgary, since Westjet ran out of sandwiches on the flight from YYZ to FLL. Neither of us really felt like going anywhere so we took a look at the menu and I decided to run downstairs and order a couple of sandwiches. They weren't the best but they fit the spot and we were satisfied. We hung out and watched some tv, but after a long day of travel we were pretty tired, but we also wanted to convert to eastern time, since we would be there for a few weeks.

Here is the link to my blog: https://wordpress.com/post/ohtheplacesiwillgoblog.wordpress.com/172

I will try and post the other days on here as well, but this will be a work in progress, since I have not posted very much in here, and I have lots of pictures, so I need to figure this out as well and a place to host my pictures.

Day 2 - Tuesday, February 15th, 2016

After a somewhat slow start, me actually, we got dressed and headed downstairs for breakfast, it wasn't bad, it wasn't great. They had fruit, yogurt, some eggs, pastries, cereal, etc. It would meet our needs and start us on our way.

We had a few errands we need to run today, in preparation for boarding the ship on Wednesday. The first thing we wanted to find were some self laminating luggage tags. I had found them back home the last time we went on a cruise, but I couldn't find them this time. I had done some googling and we were able to find some at Office Max, which lucky for us, was in the shopping complex across from us. But getting there was easier said then done. When you were leaving the hotel on the Main Street you could only go right or left, not straight like we wanted to. So after the round about drive we found Office Max and our luggage tags.

Next errand was for some supplies for the cabin. We decided to try the Target right there, but they didn't have the best selection, so we decided to drive over to the public, it was about 10 minutes. We picked up a bottle of wine each, that we are allowed to bring on board, and that we will never do again, as neither of us drank our wine and left it in the cabin when we left. We also picked up some water, some coke, and some snacks for the room. Not like there is enough food to eat on board, but we needed more apparently. After we had our supplies, we headed back to the hotel to drop them off, we would have to do some re-packing later to get them in our luggage.

Then, it was time to head to MIAMI! I was so excited to go to Miami Beach, just so I could see it and say I had been there. We followed the interstate there and the drive was pretty boring, and didn't take us long at all. What did take forever? Trying to find parking... don't even dream of getting close to the beach... it's not going to happen. So we parked in the Lincoln Road Mall parking lot and began our hike to the beach. We found an entrance to the beach beside the Ritz Carleton and made our way closer to the water. It was hot and humid out today (at least to us Canadians), but it was pretty grey and overcast so there were not that many people on the beach. So I went and stuck my feat in the water for a bit and then we just sat in the sand and did some people watching (one of my favourite activities).

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We then decided to walk further south towards Lummus Park, which is between the Ocean and all of the Art Deco buildings. It is a great park with a lot of different things going on, we watched one group practicing for a wedding dance, again, lots of great people watching and a great space.

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I left Mom on a bench for a little rest and some people watching, while I wandered off to take some photos of the amazing Art Deco buildings, they are so beautiful, my only regret is not going into one!

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Day 2 - continuted

Then we started making our way back towards the mall, and I couldn't stop taking pictures off all of the interesting buildings on our way back. It is definitely the image you have in your mind when you think of old Miami. Next time we will have to go back in the evening to see them all lit up!

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We headed back to the mall (which is actually just stores open along a pedestrian only road, at least going east and west, the cross streets still drove by). We ended up stopping at Sushi Samba to have a bite to eat, something to tide us over until dinner. After we were done eating, I left mom at the restaurant while I went to the Apple Store to get a case for my new phone. After my long walk they didn't have the one I wanted in stock, so I guess I was going on the trip careless, guess I better be careful. I thought it was much closed but ended up being about 5 blocks from the restaurant.

Then it was time to head back to Fort Lauderdale and our hotel, however this time instead of taking the boring I-95 back, we decided to take the A1A back, it was a great drive that followed close to the coast. A lot of time was in between the ocean and the inter-costal. I definitely recommend going this route if you have the time, the scenery isn't always the best, but you get to see a lot of interesting condos and resorts.

We spent some time in the hotel relaxing before we went to dinner. We were going to 15th Street Fisheries. If you are a seafood fan, I highly recommend visiting here for at least one meal. It is located right on the inter-costal, we found it when we visited last time and just knew that we had to visit again this time. On the main level is the more casual bar like level and on the upper level is the more classy dining area. We have only ever ate upstairs, but I have heard the food is good downstairs too, maybe next time. Mom and I both ordered a cocktail and decided to have the Alaskan King Crab legs each. Well that was a mistake, the portions are HUGE. Crab legs are my favourite food and it breaks my heart to say that I could not eat it all and had to leave some behind. Oh, and they give you a giant order of potatoes as well! We have already decided that next time, we will split an order and maybe get a small appetizer as well, as it is just too much food and way too good to go to waste! Oh and they serve bread to start as well.

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After we rolled ourselves out of the restaurant we made our way back to the hotel. We decided to just sit outside for a little bit and enjoy the beautiful weather. Really I think we were just too full to get all the way back to our room. When we finally went back upstairs we didn't do too much, got ready for bed and did a few preparations for boarding day tomorrow before heading to bed.

Day 3 (Nov 16, 2016) Boarding the Ship!

Had another slow start today, since we weren't in a big rush to go anywhere. Once we had gotten dressed we headed downstairs for breakfast again. Like the day before, wasn't the best, wasn't the worst, but it was enough to satisfy us until we would get on the ship. After our bite to eat, we headed back upstairs and finished packing up our bags and securing our luggage tags. We then just hung out for a while since we still had plenty of time before we needed to board the ship, we lazed around for a while and watched The Vow on TV. We didn't actually finish it before it was time to head downstairs and make our way to the ship.

After following the advise of several people on Cruise Critic we decided that I would drop Mom and our luggage off at the port, then I would return the rental car to the airport and then take a taxi back. While we were pretty close to the port, it did take us a while to get there, and we did drive through most of the port before we made our way to the Royal Princess berth. It felt like we were waiting forever in this line to get to the drop off point. This was the first photo of the ship that I could get since I was driving, she sure is beautiful (less the orange pylons).

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Once we made it to the drop off point I let mom and our luggage out and I made my way back to the airport. There was an accident on the way and it felt like it took forever to get back there. I got the car dropped off and headed back to the terminal and to look for a washroom, well it turns out there are not very many public washrooms in that area of the FLL airport. So instead of trying to find one there, I decided to just head out and grab a cab, so I could make my way back to the terminal as I knew Mom would be starting to worry. The trip back was much quicker and I actually hopped out part of the way through the loop this time, since I had no luggage. I found Mom sitting on a bench talking to some others that were waiting. I made a mad dash to the washroom (which lucky for me was right there). We then decided to head inside and begin our embarkation. We completed our paperwork about illnesses and made it through the x-ray machines quite quickly. Then we headed to the lines to receive our cruise cards and that line was long! But it really didn't take us very long, soon enough we were heading through the terminal, getting our photo taken and having our cruise card scanned for the first time.

Once we got on board the ship was even more beautiful then I could imagine, the attention to detail is just amazing. I have pictures floor by floor that I will share in later posts. We entered the ship right next to Alfredo's and I had read that they had really good pizza, so we decided to head right there and get a bite to eat. I didn't get a picture of our pizza this day, but it was so good we went back a few other times and I did get pictures then. They were not kidding that pizza was one of the most delicious I have ever had, and I believe Mom would agree.

After our belly's were full we decided to head up to our room and see if we could get settled a bit. We had a standard balcony suite on deck 12, it was room A308, which was pretty close to mid-ship. by the time we got there 1 of Mom's bags had arrived so we made our way into the room.

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It is definitely not the biggest room I have ever stayed in, but we new that going in, and it worked just fine for us. I took the bed next to the wall and relaxed a bit while Mom began unpacking since her bags had made it. Then I went out and did a bit of exploring, mostly I needed to find the smoking sections (since I hadn't quit yet). By the time I got back to the room one of my bags had arrived so I started to unpack. We also met our room steward (I am terrible with names and cannot remember his), we didn't have any complaints about him, we didn't see him much, but he did a great job and got us whatever we needed.

Then it was time for muster, the one thing I don't like about Princess is that you have to take your life jacket down with you, but this is for safety so we will roll with it. Our muster was in Club 6 and lucky for us we headed down there early so we managed to get a seat. We probably were there for about an hour, they cover all kinds of scenarios, so I felt pretty safe. Once we were released I took both of our life jackets up to the room and left mom sitting in club 6 for a while (since it takes forever to get anywhere after the muster).

Once it had calmed down a bit, we headed up to Deck 15 so we could take part in the sail away celebration, I got one of the cocktails of the day. I can't remember what it was called, just that it had tequila in it, but it was really tasty.

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While we waited for sail away I took some pictures of the waterways, I love watching the drawbridge and managed to get a great set of progression shots of that.

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Day 3 Continued

It is also just fun watching all of the nearby action, especially the 2 tugs pushing the giant freighter.

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Day 3 Conclusion

Before long it was time for Royal Princess to blow her horn (which happens to be the theme from The Love Boat") and we were on our way, I believe we were slightly delayed but not by much.

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We stayed on deck for a while longer and then headed back down to our room so that we could finish unpacking, relax a bit and then get ready for dinner. By the time we got back to our room all of our suitcases had arrived, so we could go ahead and finish getting unpacked and settled into the room, however because the room is so small we could only really do this one at a time, so it took a while. Once we were all settled and ready we decided to head down to the dining room. We like to eat dinner in the dining room and do "anytime dining" so we are not stuck to a schedule. We also like sharing the table with others, as you get to meet a lot of interesting people, and on this trip, we had excellent table mates each night. We also learnt on our last cruise that when you are in the dining room if you want wine (and don't have the drink package), you can order yourself a bottle of wine and they will cork it for you and store it for you until you finish the bottle, a much better deal then buying by the glass, and especially great if you like different kinds of wine, which Mom and I do. For dinner tonight I had a Pina Colada Soup and the Fettuccine Alfredo (there's is delicious even if it is no longer served in the parmesan bowl. I didn't take a picture of my dessert so unfortunately I don't remember what I had.

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After dinner we sat in the Piazza for a little while, before heading up to our cabin and calling it an early evening. We had had a long day and tomorrow we would be in the Bahamas!

That is it for tonight, I will try and post tomorrow, but it may not happen until Friday, due to a busy couple of days coming up, but please feel free to ask any questions you may have.

A little late :). Thanks for sharing the photos are great.

Tony

Thank you

Stunning photos!

Hoping for more !! :cool:

Srpilo

Nice review and photos!

Following along...

Thank you all, I will get another day published tonight.

DAY 4 – PRINCESS CAYS, BAHAMAS

We woke up after our first night on the ship. The beds are very comfortable, but it is a little different sleeping in a twin instead of my usual queen size bed, luckily I don’t move much at night, otherwise I may have fallen out of my little bed. After packing our bags and getting ready for our beach day in the Bahamas, we headed down to the Horizon court to get some breakfast. There are so many great choices for breakfast to meet everyone’s needs. Filled up our plates and headed to what would become our breakfast table, at the aft of the ship you will find Horizon Terrace, which is a lovely outdoor space where you can eat, there is also a bar out there. We found a little 2 person table and that became our spot every morning.

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After breakfast we headed back to our rooms for a bit while the ship settled into the spot we would be anchoring at for the day. Princess Cays is a tender spot, which can take some time to get to shore. Once you are ready to go ashore head down to the dining room and get your tender ticket, then grab a seat and wait until they call your group. We didn’t have to wait too long this morning before we were called to head to our tender, they take you down to the 4th floor where you board the tender and they begin the short ride over to the island.

When you arrive at Princess Cays most people including us head towards the left and find a seat, as that is where most of the seating is. We headed over that way and found a seat close to the water and right by the beach volleyball court. We didn’t do too much during the day, we would go in the water to cool off or relax on the beach. A couple that we had met the night before at dinner found us and we spent some time together on the beach. I headed off to do some exploring with my camera and take a few pictures, I didn’t get pictures of all of the amenities, the scenery was so beautiful on this day, I couldn’t resist.

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I think she is a beautiful ship!

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I did get a few shots of Grill Crazy, where they serve lunch when we went to get ours. I have to say it was the most disappointing meal that we had the entire trip, which is a little surprising since it is really only burgers and hot dogs. Oh well, we decided to just head for pizza again when we got back on the ship.

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I also took some photos of the bungalows that you can rent, they are so beautiful and colourful. They are designed for 4 people and cost $199.95 for the day. You can also rent ones that are in a Sanctuary area for adults only. For the expensive price tag you don’t seem to get much, I believe it aside from the building you only get a couple of floats.

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I did a little more wandering around the island, before heading out to snorkel, I'm pretty sure I also took one of my favourite pictures of the trip in this section.

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Princess Cays is also a pretty good spot to do some snorkelling, they have a few areas with a lot of rocks around them which makes for some pretty good snorkelling. I left mom sitting on the beach while I went out for a couple of snorkelling sessions of about 45 minutes each. I could spend hours out there, it is so peaceful and such a beautiful different world down there. I really want to look into diving.

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Unfortunately I had a smudge on the lens of this camera that I didn't notice until I got home so most of these photos have a spot.

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A few more pictures from more snorkelling time, like I said before I could spend forever in the ocean.

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There are lots of other activities you can partake in while on Princess Cays, there is a lot of different equipment and things that you can rent through the excursions page, including beach clamshells, ocean bikes, you can go for a banana boat ride and a ton of other things. Some of the entertainment staff comes ashore as well and organizes some different activities on the beach as well. Our chairs were near the volleyball nets and they did organize a game. We generally stick to relaxing on the beach, doing a little exploring and spending time in the ocean. We are definitely ocean people, given the choice we will always sit on the beach instead of the pool, if I wanted to go to the pool I could do that here.

Soon it was time to make our way back to the tender and head back to the ship. We waited until the beach had cleared out some before we headed back, however the line was still quite long to get back on the tender. While waiting in line they will come by and hand out a cool cloth. Soon it was our turn and we were back on the tender heading back to the ship. We boarded the ship on level 4 again and headed up in the elevator back to our cabin. We took some time to relax and enjoy our room and our balcony. We really did make use of our balcony, I'm not sure I could sail in a room without one.

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Around 6pm we decided to head down for dinner. As usual we headed to the Symphony dining room, said we would share our table. But it was a little busy tonight and there was a bit of a wait, so we got a pager and headed out to the Piazza Bar for a drink while we waited for our table. We didn't have the drink package as we don't find that we drink that much to make it worth the while, so we will just pay for our bottles of wine with dinner and the odd cocktail that we had. I had a bottle of Moscato and it was about $20.00 and most of the cocktails were around $10.00 We were seated at a table for 8 (I believe), and we ended up with a wonderful group of people, we really did get lucky with our table mates on this trip. Tonight we met some sisters from Toronto that we ended up spending quite a bit of time with on this trip.

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We then spent a bit of time hanging out in the Piazza watching some of the entertainment. I was pretty tired after the full day in the sun and a bunch of swimming, so I was ready for bed early.

That is it for tonight, I will try and get another day done and posted tomorrow.

Following along! What camera do you use for your underwater shots?

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

Following along! What camera do you use for your underwater shots?

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

Thank you! My underwater camera is an Olympus Tough TG-870. It has a lot of great settings for underwater.

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

Day 5 - Sea Day

Today was a sea day, we took the day pretty easy, went and got our usual breakfast from the buffet and headed out to Horizon Terrace to enjoy our food and the beautiful view. Unfortunately I didn’t take any pictures or take any notes about what we did, so it wasn’t all that memorable of a day. We are not real big pool people. I do remember going out and watching a movie on the big screen around the pool and just doing some exploring. This night was our first formal night on the ship, I of course didn’t get any pictures of us or our dinner.

So to take up the space for this day, I have ship tour photos, I tried to take pictures of all of the public spaces on the ship.

Deck 5 - Plaza

Every floor on the ship has the above map when you get off of the elevators to make sure you can find what you are looking for.

We will start the tour towards the Bow of the ship and on the Plaza deck that is the Lotus Spa. I just have some pictures of the entrance and hallway. I did actually have a service here on our first sea day, Mom bought me a massage for my birthday. I did enjoy the massage, but I do not really think it was worth the elevated costs, and they very much tried to sell me all kinds of product once the massage was done, which did annoy me. Also I don’t think the facilities were that great, just my opinion.

Once you come down the hallway from the Spa, you will enter the area that has the Shore Excursion Desk, and the Guest Services Desk, there is also a computer there where you can swipe your sail card and get a print out of your account summary, which is pretty handy if you want to keep track of your account balance.