Panama Canal on Island Princess 10/17-11/1 Photo Review

[RRFPresident]

 

Felt like we were waiting 20 minutes to board the next round of the ride even though we were guaranteed next to ride:

 

Part of the safety video:

 

Homer happily showed you where to pick up your souveniers and maybe even some "Doh! nuts"

 

As everyone finished their rides and we were leaving the Simpsons themed area, the nuclear power plant reactors modeled after the show went off spewing smoke into the sky. These go off every 20-30 minutes Heather explains.

 

The light grey is the nuclear reactor's smoke, the dark grey is our cloudy sky:

 

Next up was the section of the park I'd been most looking forward to, Hogsmeade featuring most things Harry Potter. Tough to see but the sign says "Please respect the SPELL limits."

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Here is where we encountered several small groups with matching t-shirts that followed an employee carrying signs dedicated to different characters to the different attractions. We soon learned that they were attending the park as part of a cancer charity.

 

We visited the Owlery giving people the option of picking out stationery or a postcard for mailing.

 

Next was our first actual roller coaster, Flight of the Hippogriff. Both Dad and I elected to skip this one.

 

They do feature test seats next to the ride so you can see if there would be any physical restrictions without the embarrassment of having to be rejected in front of everyone after getting through the line.

 

Next was a visit for the other Harry Potter themed ride, Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey, which features 3-d effects and you ride with your legs dangling from the seat. Dad tried out the test seat and decided to ride. Heather led all of us through the corridors where the line queues up but it is made to look like you're walking through Hogwarts to make the wait a little more interesting.

 

We saw a mock up of Dumbledore's office and holograms of both Dumbledore and Harry, Ron, & Hermione talking to us like fellow students as we moved along. The only people who didn't want to ride was the family with the wheelchair and me so Heather had to force us past the now super long line that had come in behind us and had me stand by waiting as she escorted the family through an employee backstage exit. Was a little awkward standing there getting weird looks from people in line until finally Heather came back and led me through the same door and passageway that emptied out in the “Filch's Emporium” gift shop where everyone would end up when they came off the ride.

 

Here's what the ride looks like from the outside:

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She headed back outside to wait for everyone and I browsed the shop. We've been to the Harry Potter Studios tour in London so seeing relatively the same knickknack style gifts and toys wasn't so appealing. Plus, our cash was currently riding the ride via Dad's wallet.

 

I found Dobby!

 

As we waited this parade of characters wandered by disappearing behind a hidden door in that fence:

 

Next we hung out off to the side while Heather checked in with the woman monitoring Ollivander's Wand Shop, a tiny mockup of the place where every wizard has their wand select them. It's so tiny that they only let about 10 people in at once and waiting in the line can take at least an hour at peak times I've heard. Soon after Heather returned to us, the lady monitoring the shop waved our group over and we went right in despite the line. We, and a smattering of people from the front of the line, were led first into a somewhat small rectangular shaped room made up to look like the shop until we were allowed into the true “shop” space which was even smaller and we had to stand a couple rows deep to all fit inside.

 

Wands R Us:

 

The staff arranged all the little kids in front and the shop owner made a big show of selecting one little boy to get a wand chosen. The shop owner described the wand contents and had the little boy try out a couple different kinds. The first one he had the little boy use his wand to make a bell ring over the shop's door but instead the wand made the bell ring way too much. A second wand was tried out on moving the stack of wand boxes on the very top shelves of the shop which made all the shelves collapse and the boxes fall in on themselves. Each mishap was “fixed” by the owner's wand before moving on. By the third wand try, it was deemed the perfect one for this young wizard and a spotlight appeared on him in a true “aha” moment giving everyone a good laugh and the boy was completely engrossed in the experience. Everyone was directed to go through the door across the shop that led into the actual gift shop where everyone could buy a wand if they wanted. The young boy was asked to stay back and I'm pretty sure I heard “Accio credit card!” being directed at his parents' wallets as we left. The wand gift shop was more crowded than Walmart on Black Friday and I couldn't even stand to look around heading straight back outside.

 

We had to wait a little bit while other group members elected to get wands so I checked out the frog choir that was performing on the nearby small stage.

 

Our youngest group member, a teenager, had picked out a wand so we stopped on the way out of the Harry Potter area to test out his wand on the shop windows that move and interact if you can trigger the mechanism built in to respond to your wand.

 

These were the symbols in the pavement to look out for which shop windows would be interactive:

 

In case you find yourself having imbibed too many potions, the "Public Conveniences" (aka restrooms) can be found here:

[RRFPresident]

Next Heather took us to their new Walking Dead attraction. Now, granted, I don't watch the show but I know the premise. Basically, it's a haunted house made to look like the abandoned hospital from the show. We walked through the opening to deal with moving to the front of the line only to find that there was no single other person in line. Heather was so shocked to see no one that she even double checked to make sure the attraction was open. Heather cautioned that while zombies will jump out, they aren't allowed to touch you and you aren't allowed to touch them.

 

I just noticed how this picture looks like Heather's orange ball dots the I in the Walking Dead sign:

 

Our non existent line waiting to get in:

 

 

Once you're fully inside it becomes super dark and confusing about where to turn. The only real light to go by is the back-lit spaces where the zombies hide out. At first everyone in our group was following behind our resident teenager who'd just happened to walk in first but he soon chickened out not wanting to be in front. The lady who had been right behind him stopped short not wanting to be first either. I stepped up more so out of a desire to get this attraction over with and led everyone through the attraction. We passed by a couple anima-tronic style setups where it looked like a zombie was crawling across the ground to get to you and a lot of silhouettes either of zombies clamoring to get out or of people being chased and shooting at the zombies.

 

Once we passed a jail cell style door with real people portraying zombies reaching out but they reached right back in as we got close. A couple times I hesitated turning a corner knowing that someone was going to jump out of the darkness so yes, the attraction even got a couple shrieks from me when they did jump. At one point we passed a stairwell with one of the zombie hunters standing at the top pretending like he was shooting at the zombies to keep them at bay while we crossed through. I stopped for a moment at this point not sure where to turn and the guy just kept yelling “come on, get out of here!” Um, okay zombie hunter guy. Every once in a while, I did encounter a staff member lurking in a dark corner that I asked which way to turn. When I finally reached the end and returned to sunlight I actually had to turn back and yell for the rest of our group to come out as it was safe now. Heather told us that one day she realized that she was missing a guy from her group after they'd been through this attraction and when she inquired, she was told that he'd reacted by hitting one of the zombies and thus was escorted away by security.

 

Where we came out:

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Next up we were led to the Despicable Me themed ride which centers around the story of being led on a 3-d journey of being made into minions. Heather described this ride as less intense than The Simpsons.

 

We did get to skip the line, received our 3-d glasses, and were directed to line up in several different rows each leading to their own door. We stood in these lines for a very long time waiting for the regular admission folks to fill up the lines being vaguely entertained by the sound effects made to give the impression of a minion being trapped behind a grate in the wall.

 

Finally, they dimmed the lights and turned on the backstory video complete with a banana scented gas being blown into the waiting area when one of the minions farted in the video. Every row's door opened at once and they all led into this big room with roller coaster style seats for 4 where lined up to correspond with the rows you followed from where you'd been told to line up. Being in the front of our line's row, we were directed to go all the way to the farthest car and the two tall adults stuck sharing the cramped “car” with us didn't hide their annoyance very well. The staff pretending to be the scientist crew instructed everyone through some silly movements ending with forcibly pushing down on the bar that came down on our laps. Ours only came down so far but enough to clear our hands and arms and one of the attendants copped a little out of character attitude when she came over repeatedly telling us to push down more on the bar. I was really picturing being told we couldn't ride as the attendant started pushing on the bar herself like we were just some insolent kids who weren't listening. Eventually she just gave up and the ride started. I was on the inside of our foursome and as a result my arms were pinned at my sides so I couldn't help but use Dad and the poor lady next to me as buffers when our cars were tossed back and forth to go along with the video.

 

The Despicable Me themed ride was part of a small group of attractions and gift shop dedicated to the movie characters including the chance to pose with minions. Also at this end of the park was the rides meant for real little kids.

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We took a break from the rides to be escorted to a private dining room for a lunch buffet, included in the price. The host who greeted us asking whether we wanted to eat in or outside was made up to look like Dracula.

 

We were among the minority who elected eating inside and were shown to a small table along the windows overlooking the patio were most everyone went to eat outside as the clouds had cleared. The lunch was a real nice experience with a proper table setting right down to the logo on the cloth napkins.

 

Barely an umm filled seat in the house:

 

You of course were welcome to take as much from the buffet as you wanted and return as many times as you wanted.

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Just something about baby sized condiment bottles that I love:

 

Don't forget dessert:

 

And to wash it all down:

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Heather left our group to enjoy lunch and anything else park wise we may have wanted if we finished eating early with a plan to meet by a certain time. Once we finished eating, we wandered around a little bit checking out the shops before meeting up with the group again in the park's themed French area watching a woman on stilts pose for pictures 50 feet away from people were freaking out over the people portraying Scooby and Shaggy who also happily posed for pictures.

 

These two were hanging out of an upper level window chatting with each other. I thought they were acting out some skit until a girl yelled that she liked this girl's hair and this girl yelled back to say she liked her hair too!

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French lady on stilts:

 

Scooby and Shaggy:

 

Outside the Simpsons ride they have these characters representing the seven levels of drunkenness instead of the 7 dwarfs.

 

Now it was time for our studio tour. While anyone can partake of the main studio tour which involved riding in the trolleys through the backlot while a guide narrated what you were seeing, our tour allowed us to get off at various approved stops wandering the grounds.

 

We joined up with another VIP tour group and their guide and boarded what was pretty much the same trolley as the regular tour except that it said VIP on the side and they handed out more bottles of water. As we rode the trolley into the main backlot space we saw lots of movie posters followed by the fire station equipment used in the old TV show, Emergency! One of our first stops was to tour inside the set of a new USA network show called Colony, a show that centers around the premise that aliens have come to take over Earth and a small group of rebels are fighting to regain our planet. Heather grabbed a call sheet hanging on a door joking that she wanted to know when Josh Holloway would be there filming. We got to walk around the main house's living room set, the underground bunker and sewer set, and see how they use backdrops to simulate the outdoors when filming with a window in the background of a scene. We weren't allowed to take pictures here as it featured sets not shown on TV yet.

 

Found my birth year again:

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Passing by a couple different sound stages like the one used for The Voice and some fake facade built setting backdrops used in outdoor scenes, they stopped the trolley and let us off in front of their town square set up anchored around a building front labeled “City Hall.”

 

This courtyard space was used in TV shows like Ghost Whisperer and most famously the ending of Back to the Future with the giant clock. We were allowed to wander as long as we stayed on pavement as they were trying to make the grass grow for a future shoot.

 

I think this was used in something horror related:

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Our VIP trolley:

 

Our guides pointed out several other buildings in the square that have been used in various shows and how one such building listed a sign portraying a ice cream shop in one of its front windows and a florist in the other so that it could pass for both depending on the camera angle used.

 

Next we headed via Trolley into the Jurrasic Park area where while still in the trolley we rode along rotating tracks and saw a movie along the walls made to look like we were being chased around by dinosaurs. A couple times we got spritzed with water when the video called for a dinosaur to splash or spit at us.

 

We were driven past the lineup of famous movie and TV vehicles before stopping at an outdoor set where they showed how they make it look like it's raining on a set.

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Meet the Flintstones:

 

Fast and the Furious meets Jurrasic Park:

 

I'm not sure if there's a spot for "crushed by dinosaur" on the car insurance forms:

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They triggered the water cascading down a hill and made a big fuss over pretending that they'd forgotten to turn it off as the “flood” pooled at the bottom of the hill.

 

What the regular studio tour experience looks like:

 

Next we drove into this bunker of sorts where they simulated how an earthquake would be portrayed on set. Flash fireballs were set off, the ground buckled, trucks and cars and a subway train came sliding toward us and our trolley rocked.

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A quick harbor boat ride followed mimicking the Jaws shark stunt show going wrong.

 

Our trolley ride continued past various famous houses from movies and TV including Norman Bates coming out of his psycho house as we rode by. We left Wisteria Lane and the Desperate Housewives homes behind as we moved on to the plane crash remnants from War of the Worlds where they triggered smoke and sirens as if this was a current accident scene.

 

Desperate Housewives:

 

Howdy Norman, had any good showers lately?

 

War of the Worlds:

[RRFPresident]

Later, we went through the same style of ride but this time it was dedicated to being part of a mission with the team from Fast and the Furious and required wearing 3D glasses.

 

The guide narrating played it up like we were getting patched in to breaking report from the government. Dwayne Johnson appeared on the trolley's TV screens to request our help with the mission:

 

While we'd already passed the buildings representing the outside of the town featured in NBC's The Good Place TV show viewing it from the trolley, now they let us get off and walk on the grassy field next to the buildings while the group took a bathroom break.

 

Perhaps the real good place - the Everything Fits store!

 

Dad wanted proof that he should be allowed to have cake everyday:

 

Or perhaps you're more in the mood for frozen yogurt in every language:

[RRFPresident]

One of the regular trolley tours rode by as we were milling about on the grass so we all waved and let them think we were celebrities filming. One of our last stops was to go inside a prop warehouse where Heather explained how it works when shows need something for a scene whether it's just an office chair or something as wacky as a suit of armor. We were led throughout the warehouse as Heather pointed out some of the more unique items and showed us some of the items marked with tags earmarked for use on upcoming popular TV shows.

 

This phone switchboard was used in several things including an episode of Pretty Little Liars:

 

The various tags marking props chosen for shows already:

 

May not look at office furniture the same way again:

 

The Boss' chair perhaps:

 

We were allowed to take pictures posing with this guy but one of our group got fussed at by the security guard for touching ET

[RRFPresident]

We parted ways with the other VIP group and returned to the theme park to be led around the last few rides. Our first was the Jurassic Park themed River Adventure Ride for which Heather handed out ponchos. Dad elected to go but I stayed to wait for them at the exit. It's basically a 15-20 people boat ride that resembles the old style log ride with one big drop at the end with some water shooters designed to look like dinosaurs. I made quick work of browsing the gift shop and then found a little spot right in front of where the big drop comes out so I could get a picture of when Dad's boat came down.

 

As I stood there waiting, I noticed a little boy who really wanted to be able to watch but seemed hesitant to join me on the little platform by the fence. Turns out he was waiting with his exhausted looking mom and his baby sibling while his sister and Dad had their turn on the ride. Gave his mom a big smile and helped the little boy come up on the platform to stand with me where he proceeded to tell me how much he enjoyed the ride, how his sister is getting her turn now, how he wants to go on it again, and the bulk of his short life story I think by the time Dad's boat finally came down.

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Our next ride was to The Mummy which both Dad and I opted out of and were led to some benches around the corner next to where people can come view their pictures when they get off the ride. At the front entrance, a man wearing stilts and dressed to fit in with the theme of the ride posed for pictures. I guess he was feeling a bit mischievous or wanted to hang out more with our fun bench crowd because he moved to the back and because of his stilt height, no one noticed him until he swooped down at them when they walked by. It was hilarious watching the way people reacted. At one point, a guy was walking around the corner turned away from our guy talking to his female companion. Our guy held out his hand which was right at the height of this guy's face and the guy walked right into his hand and jumped a mile.

 

Once Heather joined us again, we asked her what else was left on the schedule. She said that they planned to visit two more roller coaster movie themed rides so we opted to leave her guidance early as by then it was already 5PM and the park was closing for the day around 6PM. We tried to make our way back to Hogsmeade for a chance to have more time to look around but they were already closing that section early. Only people who had the Horror Nights tickets were allowed inside. We worked our way out of the park and thought for sure that we'd gotten lost because it can't be that we have to ride up all these escalators. Stopped halfway through to ask a food vendor and he said yes indeed, you have to ride up them all to the top of this hill. There was stairs in between each set of escalators in case you really wanted to work off those corn dogs.

 

The view inside the covered escalators:

 

The view from the bottom before you start the ride:

 

Once back near the restaurant from last night, we made our way along the barricades to City Walk. The crowds hadn't yet gotten too bad so we ducked into Tony Romos and had an early dinner. Dad wasn't too impressed with the ribs as he went with a different style than I chose and he unfortunately had the exact seat where the setting sun shined right in at his face from the window across the restaurant. Rather than have dessert here as our service dwindled as the restaurant got busier, Dad suggested we walk over to Ben & Jerrys and get some ice cream. We walked into the shop with only two other people in line and I ordered a scoop of what was labeled peanut butter/chocolate swirl and Dad asked for a chocolate shake. My “peanut butter swirl” turned out to be chunks of peanuts mixed in so it wasn't very good. We had to step aside along with another guy who had ordered a shake and as we waited the shop became packed with people. The one girl they had making shakes would either constantly have to go in the back for something or would stop making the shake to make someone new's ice cream scoop or cone order even though there were 3 other people doing just that for the crowd. I was trying to wait to eat mine until Dad's was ready but it was already turning to soup. Gave up and tossed the rest by the time we'd gotten Dad's shake and returned to the shuttle pick up spot.

 

The shuttle came and it took a while for them to figure out how to use the lift to load in a wheelchair passenger. Then we were allowed to board and our older gentleman driver questioned whether the back of the shuttle bus was feeling the heat he'd turned on. The wind had picked up and a light rain was making things chilly. He cranked up the heat and finally those in the back said they could feel it. Shortly thereafter, the younger man who'd driven our shuttle the night before arrived and took over joking that the older man wanted to go home to bed. As soon as he hopped into the driver's seat, he exclaims “wow, why is it so hot in here?” and we all busted out laughing.

[RRFPresident]

Back at the hotel, we had to walk by the front desk to head for the elevators so we decided to stop and talk to Kevin, the manager. By now, there was only one other person being helped at the desk so we asked the lady manning the Hilton Honors side if we could see Kevin. She took our name and came back shortly to say that he'd be right out. As we waited, we watched her check in someone on the Honors line and happily handed over his welcome bag of gifts making us take notice of how we would have been treated if we'd stayed in that line, especially given that they didn't even have record of our membership. Kevin did come out a few minutes later and greeted us. He revealed that my complaints went straight to the GM and back down to him and was very apologetic blaming being short handed. He asked if we'd had dinner yet and we told him about visiting City Walk. He insisted he wanted to do something to make up for our treatment and confirmed that we'd have time in the morning for breakfast promising a voucher for the breakfast buffet. We thanked him and headed to our room to shower and repack everything to be ready for cruise day in the morning! Within the hour, a voucher for two buffet breakfasts was slipped under our door.

 

Some shots of our hotel room to close out this day:

The bottom left of this dresser/tv stand was a mini fridge:

 

Dad had the nightstand on one side of his bed and the wall on the other. I had the nightstand and loads of open space between the bed and this little table on the other. Several times I'd roll over and nearly go flying to the floor.

 

 

This toilet was not only behind the half wall in the corner but had a most likely busted flusher that you actually had to pull up to work. Maybe that's why they also had a phone mounted on the other side of this half wall.

 

Our room view was of the outdoor pool but we never had the time to use it. I think though that the people who need a second sign like this may need to wear their own "stupid" signs:

[js4rq]

Lovely photos so far!! :D

[Woobstr112G]

With all these great pre-cruise pictures, I can hardly wait for the cruise and cruise excursion pictures which I'm sure will be just as fantastic.....:):):)

 

Bob

[JimAOk1945]

With all these great pre-cruise pictures, I can hardly wait for the cruise and cruise excursion pictures which I'm sure will be just as fantastic.....:):):)

 

Bob

Me, too. I'm sure they will be fantastic. [emoji2]

 

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N920A using Forums mobile app

[Woobstr112G]

Your Universal pictures are out of this world fantastic.....:):):)

 

Bob

[RRFPresident]

Thank you for the kinds words all! I had the part you've all been waiting for, Embarkation Day, all written up yesterday but then I had to take a break and do the actual work they pay me for before I could get around to adding in the pictures.

 

Embarkation day soon to follow...

[RRFPresident]

Monday October 17th

Two days before, once settled into the hotel we planned to leave from to head to the cruise port, we called the SuperShuttle company to schedule a transfer from our hotel to the cruise port. Dad had done the research prior to leaving home and got a quote for a “black car” to pick us up and drive us down to the port of Los Angeles. It couldn't be reserved however until closer to the date needed so we brought along the information and called from our hotel room. The lovely woman on the phone was nice and helpful but got herself totally confused about how to put in our desired locations because it was coming up as a couple different options. She finally decided to go with the option that meant a cheaper price and we gave her my cell phone as the contact number. By the next morning, I had a text confirming the reservation for this morning at 11AM. We decided on 11AM per the suggestions from fellow cruisers who said by this time the main traffic would have lightened up. We were also cautioned not to try and do any tours or the like this morning because of the crazy traffic.

 

With an open morning ahead of us, we woke up and headed down to the hotel restaurant to use our voucher for the buffet. We stood in line for a brief moment to be seated and one of the women who seemed to be a manager there rushed up and yanked the voucher out of my hand before I could finish getting the words out that we'd like to partake of the buffet. She quickly marked up the voucher and brought us to a table. We headed over to the buffet and while this might sound stereotypical, I found it interesting that a good portion of the breakfast buffet was dedicated to Chinese food. I love Chinese food so it was like getting cake for breakfast filling my plate with shrimp fried rice along with some scrambled eggs and a cup of yogurt. Service this time was great as staff was constantly offering items or asking if they could get anything else. Could have used some soy sauce for that rice though.

 

I don't really ever drink chocolate milk at home but for some reason I love finding it in my travels.

 

What our breakfast would have cost us:

 

With even more time to kill, we wandered around the main level of the hotel as we had yet found how to access the outdoor pool, aside from falling out of our hotel room window which overlooked it that is. Los Angeles had picked today to start feeling like fall and we shivered and got drizzled on when we stepped outside. Having run out of sources of amusement we returned to the room to pack up our bags for the last time pre-cruise. While we were doing that, our room phone rings and it's the front desk asking if we want a bellman to come help with our bags since they knew we planned to be checking out this morning. Aww, how nice of you to finally be helpful as we're leaving. We turned down the request and once we couldn't sit still any longer, we used the TV to check out and carried our own bags downstairs. This hotel has a little row of padding on a bench built into the front wall for people waiting on the shuttle so we pulled our bags over and grabbed a seat. We noticed a guy in a black SUV kind of hanging out on the other side of the parking lot and thought he might be waiting for us. After a short while though, he looped around the lot passing us by and left the area. A couple random shuttles showed up and met up with the groups of people who were milling around outside who'd reserved them. 11AM comes, 11:05, 11:10. No sign of our shuttle. I make sure that I didn't miss any new texts and use my cell phone to call the company only to get stuck in a litany of voice mail prompts. Finally get to where they prompt me to put in our reservation confirmation number and then I get to go from voice mail hell to never ending “please wait for the next available representative” hell.

 

I'm still on hold when a text comes in announcing that our driver “Jefferson” in van #820 has an ETA of 11:16AM. I hang up never having gotten to talk to a real person and sure enough we soon see the classic blue SuperShuttle van pull up. Dad says “that can't be ours, we got a black car” but sure enough, it said #820 on the front windshield. Jefferson hops out, confirms that we're the right people and helps load our bags. He plugs in the cruise port to his tablet GPS (it also keeps his schedule of who to pick up where and when that day) and starts down the road. Dad mentions that we'd been expecting a black car and Jefferson nearly stops in the middle of the road until we assure him this van is fine. Jefferson is full of questions about our cruise plans and previous trip history as he loved the one cruise he and his wife got to take. There is quite a bit of traffic for the first part of this ride prompting me to check my watch over and over but we soon hit open highway and were flying down to the port. We reach what is obviously the entrance to the port and Jefferson starts to turn in but then second guesses himself. I yelled that it is right as by now we could see the Island Princess right there before he could get out of the turn lane. We pull in circling past the parking lot for visitors of the battleship housed nearby and Jefferson lets us out right next to where a big transfer must have just let off because there's a small crowd of people wandering in hopes of finding a porter. We ask a porter who had just filled up his cart with someone else's luggage where to go to drop our luggage and he offers to pile our two bags on top of his cart. We tip him and follow the various directions from employees we passed to get inside to check in.

 

We knew that by booking a suite, we had priority boarding so we showed our suite labeled boarding passes to each employee directing people. It was nice when essentially every employee we got directions from took the time to say “welcome back frequent cruisers” or “you've cruised a lot!” Our boarding status got us in a nearly completely empty line next to the long snaking line with the rest of the passengers. We waited for the next available agent and a few opened at the same time so they pulled us and then a handful from the regular line to check in. The woman we checked in with seemed to really enjoy her job and was super perky and nice. She scanned our passes and our passports and then stepped off to retrieve our cards. We gathered our new cards and the obligatory fold up map as we've never been on this ship before, and proceeded to security as we were already being allowed to board.

 

One of the unusual things we encountered when we approached security (aside from the backup of passengers in wheelchairs, walkers, and scooters having to go through the metal detector that should have been a tip off right there of how our passenger makeup would be) was that the guards were yelling for everyone to put away their new cruise cards etc in their bags before being allowed to go through security. We weren't allowed to be holding them or even have them in our pockets so off our new pretty cards went into our carry on bag. Dad asked one of the guards why we had to do that since it's something they've never insisted on before and the guard just copped an attitude and replied “Because we asked you to.” Through security with of course no issues we were led to an outside corridor where an employee was asking each person where their cabin was so she could direct them to which gangway to use. We followed her direction based on our Caribe cabin location and into the winding gangplank we went. Once we made it to where the gangplank meets the ship, we were told to move up around the people standing there waiting for their picture and first ding as there were two lines. Once we get up there though, there was a podium blocking our path and we had to wait for a break in the original line to merge in with them. Despite a couple snotty looks from those who thought we were trying to cut in line, a nice couple stopped and insisted that we should go ahead of them and we were officially dinged in for the first time.

 

One of the pluses we will always appreciate with Princess is that our cabins are ready upon boarding so we headed straight to our new home for the next 15 days, C704. The crew was still running around restocking cabins so we only stayed long enough to use the restroom and dropped off our carry on bags.

 

Standing in the living space looking back at the door:

 

Standing in foyer looking back at living space:

 

The curtain that partitions off the living room and bedroom space. We often chose to go to sleep at different times so this was nice to lessen the noise and light when one of us wanted to stay up and watch tv.

 

Our separated beds (both the space above the couch and the space above these beds featured inset box shaped cutouts to frame the art. There was enough space in that recessed box to store stuff)