Live from Royal Feb 22nd 10 Day Eastern Carib

[Steelers0854]

Welcome to our Live From the Royal Princess Eastern Caribbean Explorer 10 day cruise thread! DW and I are on our 7th Princess cruise and this will be our first on the Royal and our first cruise over 7 days. With work it's just so hard these days to get extended time off. So this thread will also contain our first impressions on the Royal as well as opinions on the length of the cruise. I hope that anyone else on our voyage will feel free to add on to this throughout the trip.

 

Since embarkation is on Monday we chose to fly in on Saturday. We are staying the the Hilton Garden Inn, due to the high costs of hotels the Embassy Suites was more than we wanted to pay and we are brand loyal to Hilton. The location is south of the airport and they do provide a complimentary airport shuttle and in the evenings (4-10pm) the shuttle will take you to various local restaurants/destinations. There are several chain and some local restaurants within walking distance of the hotel.

 

 

 

As I enjoy hockey I got us tickets to the Panther/Jets game last night at the BB&T center. The arena is a good 25-30 minute drive from the hotel and an UberX ride cost us about $30 each way. The arena is located across the street from the Sawgrass outlet mall, which is an absolutely HUGE outlet mall with not only a lot of shops but a lot of restaurants as well. We ate dinner at the Cheesecake Factory before the game. The arena is very nice, we got great seats and enjoyed an excellent game.

 

 

On Sunday we just hung out at the hotel and walked around the area, enjoying a relaxing leisure day before we board the ship tomorrow. We grabbed lunch at a local sandwich shop, Mr. M's. Good subs, fresh soft bread, I would recommend it.

 

We plan on taking an Uber to the port tomorrow so I will make sure to post how that goes tomorrow once we arrive.

 

Please feel free at ask questions and I will do my best to answer them throughout the cruise. I intend to post the patters and MDR menus as best I can.

 

Thanks for following along with us on our trip!

[cnd crsr]

What a great start to your Live from... We disembarked the Royal on February 8 so I am interested in reading your impressions. Although we have many cruises on Princess, this was the first for us on the new Royal. I look forward to following along. Have a fabulous cruise.

[Tjah]

Thank you for sharing! We will be going in one month, we have never cruised Princess. I will be interested to follow your posts!

[TracieABD]

I just love a good live from! This one is starting out just great! I can't wait to follow along...

 

Bon voyage!

[kimcht]

I hope you have a wonderful time. we are thinking about booking a carribean cruise on the royal, but was concerned about the fact that there was only one pool, and on sea days even on the grand class ships it can be hard to find a chair. please let us know if thats an issue. have fun

[mcordry]

Thank you so much for doing a live from right now, because we cruise on the Royal in April for 20 days. This will tide me over for the next few days, and it will definitely keep the excitement up . I do have one question, I saw that you are staying at the Hilton Garden Inn, is that the one in Dania Beach. If so, that is where we are staying too and we will be leaving our car parked there for the entirety of the cruise. Could you give me any impressions or opinions on the hotel, does it feel safe? is it relatively clean? etc. thanks in advance, and I hope you have a great cruise and I look forward to reading all about it.

[Clarea]

Looking forward to this.:)

[socaljo]

Thanks for doing a LIVE! Its off to a great start! We re counting the days, and yes, mcordry, reading a Live is a great way to spend the count down days! Just can't get enough! :p

 

Just ordered DH some new shorts online because we just got back from our Sunday walk in the park and his drawstring shorts were falling down! :D Ordered a size smaller, to leave room for the "bacon buffet" aka Horizon Court! We usually try for a mid-to-aft cabin to keep us at a nice LONG walk to get to the bacon! Next month we are next to last cabin aft! He'll really earn his bacon this time! :p

[Steelers0854]

Thank you so much for doing a live from right now, because we cruise on the Royal in April for 20 days. This will tide me over for the next few days, and it will definitely keep the excitement up . I do have one question, I saw that you are staying at the Hilton Garden Inn, is that the one in Dania Beach. If so, that is where we are staying too and we will be leaving our car parked there for the entirety of the cruise. Could you give me any impressions or opinions on the hotel, does it feel safe? is it relatively clean? etc. thanks in advance, and I hope you have a great cruise and I look forward to reading all about it.

 

 

This is the one we are at. The hotel is in excellent condition, the rooms are spacious and clean with Keurig's in the rooms, and the staff is warm and friendly. There are hotels that are in better areas in terms of proximity to better restaurants but it's not in a bad area and we do feel safe walking around here. The only semi issue is the seating space is limited so it can get crowded for breakfast. I would recommend coming at off times or getting there early.

[2ndsailing]

Looking forward to your live! We board on March 3rd.

[Keith1010]

Great start. Bon Voyage.

 

Keith

[EMS8]

What a great start to a "live from." Hope you have a fantastic cruise. We will be boarding Royal on March 23rd for our first Princess cruise. Here's wishing you warm sun and cool breezes.

[paul929207]

See you tomorrow at sailaway!!!

[Pam in CA]

Have a great cruise!

[riclop]

Looking forward to reading your review.

[touesns]

Have a great cruise! I will be following along as I will be boarding on the 3rd!

Enjoy your cruise!

[jcroscoe]

Thanks for starting this blog. See you on board tomorrow afternoon

[trystran72]

Happy sailing!!

[Eleanor Rigby 14]

Hey Steelers,

 

Just arrived in Fort Lauderdale airport....we are being told by Princess rep to wait here til about 10:45 before we head over to the ship by taxi as we'll be kept waiting outside if we get there too early. I don't mind waiting outside really...it is in the low 70's and so beautiful after all that awful snow and sleet this past month or so in Philly area.

 

Cannot wait to put on a pair of capris, short sleeve top and one of the many pairs of sandals/shoes my DH doesn't know I brought.

 

See you at the sailaway party or meet n greet. Look forward to meeting you!

 

Eleanor Rigby (Mo)

[hockeygal54]

We're inside terminal in group one. They even let me sign in Nancy and Johns wine since they were coming from the airport and didn't have shopping opportunities. Very nice gesture on part of crew member cause he didn't HAVE to do that.

[Steelers0854]

Embarkation Update 1

 

This was by far the most chaotic boarding process to date. The line when we arrived at 11am went down the entire outside of the terminal. The preferred line was moving but the general line was not. So check in was a breeze. We heard that the people leaving the ship were late in getting off so t delayed boarding.

 

Once we checked in no one seemed to know where to have us go. There was a large group seated downstairs and we were directed upstairs. We sat for about 5 minutes and then boarded and we're number 7 and 8 on board. So despite the chaos we did well.

 

 

The rooms are not ready but they allowed us to drop our bags and go to eat and explore the ship. The elevators were manned and easy to use at the center elevator bank. They took us to our cabin deck without issue.

 

Lunch is in the Concerto dining room and then we will explore the ship. More to come later!

[cruiseguys2009]

This is so exciting. I am so looking forward to reading about the ship and your adventures. Thank you so much for doing this. Our very first cruise with Princess is on The Royal Princess, October 29th, Ten Nights.

Edited February 22, 2016 by cruiseguys2009

[RoadTripFanatic]

I hope you have a great time. My parents just got off the Regal and loved it. I am sailing on the Royal out of Rome this summer! I can't wait to hear about the ship.

[tright]

Thank you for the live review, we will be taking our first Princess cruise on Royal this fall, so I am very interested in reading all I can about the ship and the cruise line. The pictures are nice and thank you for taking the time to post!

[Steelers0854]

I wanted to post some photos before we leave and I have to use the awesome wifi on board.

 

We had lunch in the dining room. Here was the lunch menu. DW had the ravioli and said it tasted hand made. I had the salmon and it was delicious.

 

 

 

We are in an angled mini suite, not the one with the largest balcony but the next one over. I tried to get pictures to show the size but it really doesn't do it justice.

 

Despite my best efforts the dinner menus were not posted at any dining room, only the lunch ones so I will have to post those later. Also PSD did not have MDR menus for the length of the cruise when I asked.