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

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Day 3 - Sea Day - November 18

 

 

 

 

[riclop]

Thanks for the report.

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Day 4 - St Thomas - November 19

 

 

 

 

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Day 5 - Antigua - November 20

 

 

 

 

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Day 6 - Barbados - November 21

 

 

 

 

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Day 7 - St Lucia - November 22

 

 

 

 

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Day 8 - St Kitts - November 23

 

 

 

 

[jaycruising]

Thanks for the report.

 

 

You are welcome, thanks for coming on the ride.

[jaycruising]

Day 11 (November 24, 2016) Sea Day

 

Happy American Thanksgiving!

 

 

 

 

 

I was so looking forward to this sea day. I loved all of our ports buy I was getting pretty tired from being on the go for so many days in a row. And we had booked the sanctuary for this whole day!

 

Managed to get a big of a sleep in this morning, but not too long as I didn’t want to miss any of the time we had paid for in the Sanctuary. For the whole day it cost us $40 for the lounger.

 

I included a tour of the Sanctuary in my ship tour, but I will include it here again as this is the day we did it.

 

 

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these are the loungers, they are pretty comfortable!

 

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They have a special menu for the Sanctuary, some items that are only available in there, but they will also deliver food from pretty much any other food outlet for $3.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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I did have some lunch delivered and took it to eat on the sofa under cover, and the sun was pretty hot that day, and there is not much shade.

 

The seas also started to become rocky today, and it turns out that mom will get a bit seasick, so she went back to the cabin for a while to rest in there.

 

After eating I curled up on my lounger and had a nap. Unfortunately I did miss the tea service that they do in there every afternoon, but I did have a great nap!

 

I think we kept our loungers until 5 that day, I did really enjoy my time there, but not 100% certain that I would purchase the day again. There just was not enough sun cover for me, and I felt like I didn’t want to leave there at all, because I had spent the extra money on it.

 

Throughout the day, the weather got a little bit worse and we did have some showers throughout the day. And the ship started rocking some more!

 

Tonight was formal night and also Thanksgiving dinner. So I started to get ready, we were planning to meet up with the sisters and have dinner with them. Before I could finish getting ready Mom decided that she really was not feeling well and decided that she better just stay in the cabin for the evening.

 

So I headed downstairs to meet the girls and have dinner. Sarah had brought an ice wine and we were going to share that tonight, however we decided not to since Mom didn’t join us, and they were both actually starting to feel ill as well. We headed in and were seated at another table of lovely people. There were a few of us Canadians again, but we were happy to celebrate American Thanksgiving.

 

 

This is tonights dinner menu.

 

 

 

I decided to go with the turkey dinner, of course! It was very different then I am used to, but for the most part it was very good, aside from the stuffing, it tasted like mush.

 

 

After supper the girls decided that they were going to head back to their room as they were not feeling well either, by this point the ship was really rocking. it seems that I do not get sea sick and it doesn’t affect me at all (I also like turbulence, I’m weird). So I headed back to the room to change, as I didn’t want to wander around by myself in my nice dress.

 

When I got back to the cabin it was dark in there and mom was sleeping, so I quickly changed and headed out again. I actually wandered around the ship quite a lot this evening taking some of the pictures that I got. I also went and played Name that Tune in the Princess Live theatre, it was pretty fun, played with a couple from Australia, which was good because they knew so many more songs then me!

 

After wandering around a bit more I decided to head back to the cabin and to bed, to enjoy our last full day on the ship!

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That's it for tonight, hopefully I can finish this up tomorrow.

[SOLIVITA LADY]

Great review even if it is a bit late[emoji6]. Your photos are beautiful.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[jaycruising]

Great review even if it is a bit late[emoji6]. Your photos are beautiful.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Thank you.

[jaycruising]

Day 12 (November 25) Sea Day

 

 

 

 

 

Managed to get a little bit of a sleep in before we got up to enjoy our last full sea day on this beautiful ship. Headed up to the buffet and take our breakfast out to Horizon Terrace and enjoy that beautiful view.

 

We spent most of the day taking it easy, we finished up any shopping we wanted to do on board. We had both bought onboard credit before we got on the ship to use, because we had booked the cruise so far in advance we had locked in a pretty good exchange rate so we decided to take advantage of that. I am not big on logo’d t-shirts or things like that, but I decided to stick with my trend and bought a Christmas Decoration of Royal Princess.

 

 

She sure looks pretty on my tree!

 

I had managed to spend all of my onboard credit, between paying for excursions, my drinks and wine, a little money in the casino and my daily gratuities. Mom still had some money left on her account, so we enquired at Passenger services what would happen with this money, and they advised she would be sent a cheque. And about a month after the cruise she did receive her cheque.

 

The other thing we did today and spent some more money on was purchasing our Future Cruise Credit (cannot beat that deal). Since we had done it previously we didn’t need to discuss it with anyone, so we just completed the forms and put them in the drop slot. It wasn’t long after that we received our confirmation that it was done. We still haven’t booked anything with that yet.

 

Then we decided that we really needed to go to Alfredo’s and have one last pizza for this trip. Just as good this time. I think we managed to eat there 4 times during this trip!

After lunch we headed back to the room to begin some of our packing :(. Princess wants most of your luggage out before you go for dinner.

 

I decided to head up to the Retreat pool on Deck 17. While up there I found Sarah and Ruth, so I spent some time visiting with them, when I got too hot and needed to hit the pool! After visiting a bit more we made plans again to meet up and have dinner together.

 

Time to head down to the cabin and finish the dreaded packing… why oh why do I pack so much? One day I will learn. We headed down to dinner around 6:30 and met S & R and headed into the dining room. Again tonight we shared our table. After one las delicious meal we did finally enjoy some of the Ice Wine that Sara had brought along, it was quite good.

 

After dinner mom really wanted to go to String’s on Fire, in the Vista lounge. It was a show by the Liberty String Quartet. Those are some very talented ladies. They had done some current songs. I did enjoy it. After we enjoyed the show, we did a bit more visiting with S & R, this would be our good-bye tonight, they were heading home the next day. We exchanged email addresses and said our goodnights. They were a lot of fun and I am so happy we met them and spent some time with them. I owe them both an email!

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I had one more thing that I really wanted to do, that I hadn’t the whole time we were on the ship. I wanted to go to the Watercolour show on the 16th deck. It played every 15 minutes starting at 9:30, it didn’t run that late either. So I rushed back to the cabin to get my camera and tripod.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was a very beautiful show, and they coordinated what was playing on the big screen with the water show.

 

All too soon it was time to head back to the cabin and to bed because we would be waking up in Fort Lauderdale the next day.

[FishinChris]

Nice photos!

 

 

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[jaycruising]

Nice photos!

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums

 

Thank you!

[jaycruising]

Day 13 (November 26) Fort Lauderdale

 

Oh no, the day I had been dreading, time to get off of this beautiful ship. I woke up extra early and went upstairs for a smoke and this is what I saw.

 

 

 

It was a beautiful sunrise! But, this also meant we were back in Fort Lauderdale and reality was getting closer.

 

I headed back to the cabin to get ready for the day, grab our bags and take one last look around the cabin to make sure we didn’t forget anything.

 

We headed up and did our usual routine for breakfast one last time.

 

These are are the cruise summary sheets that princess provides everyone, I think they are quite a cool souvenir. Sorry about the wrinkles.

 

 

 

 

 

We had decided to disembark around 9:30, headed of the ship and began the mad dash to find out luggage. Decided to leave mom stand in one spot and I would go find our bags. Took me a while to pick them out… damn black luggage. Through customs we went and back on dry land

 

We had a car booked through Alamo at the airport, so we grabbed a taxi from the port and headed to the airport to pick up our rental car. We were staying at the Hyatt Place Ft. Lauderdale Airport & Cruise Port hotel again, so we decided to make our way there. We knew we were very early but wanted to see if by chance they could check us in, or at least check our luggage for us. We went with option 2 since our rooms were not ready.

 

We had ended up with an SUV and were heading to the mall to do some shopping and our bags were visible in the back of the vehicle, so that is why we wanted to store them at the hotel.

 

We made our way out to Sawgrass Mills shopping centre, it took us about 25 minutes to get there. Once we got there it probably took us another 15 to find a place to park! That mall is huge! We wandered around for a while and bought a couple of things, including a great deal on some Nike’s for me. Before we even made it all the way through the mall we decided to head out, we were both done!

 

Then we headed to a nearby Kohl’s store. I really like this store and it is not one we have in Canada, so I like to visit whenever I am in the US.

 

It was then time to head back to the hotel and check in. Our room was nice and identical to the last one we had. I really did like this hotel and will stay here again when in the area. By this time we were both pretty tired, so we did some napping and watched a movie. Around 7 we decided that we should probably have some dinner so we found that there was a TGI Fridays in the mall across the road so we headed there. I really liked it, they had a small plates meal which worked well for both of us since neither of us are big eaters.

After dinner we headed back to the hotel, relaxed some more and had a good nights sleep.

[jaycruising]

Day 14 (November 27) Fort Lauderdale and Naples

 

So the cruise part of our trip has ended but I will share our last full day in Florida in case anyone is looking for something different to do.

 

Woke up to another beautiful day in Florida, this was our last full day!

 

We had trouble deciding what to do. I had left it up to Mom to plan our day, since I usually do all of the planning I thought I would share. She had decided that we would do something with the Everglades, but that didn’t happen as each tour we looked at was more then we wanted to spend for the day.

So instead we decided to head to Naples, Florida on the Gulf Coast. Naples is about 100 miles from Fort Lauderdale, it is pretty much straight east and goes through the everglades.

We had our included breakfast from the hotel, grabbed our stuff and headed out of town. It starts out as a pretty boring drive with not much to look at, but then you get further into the everglades and the scenery does get more interesting. I wish I had left the driving to mom, so I could take pictures, but oh well.

 

We got there in about an hour and 45 minutes and decided to head straight to the Pier.

 

 

I had never been to the Gulf and had only seen it while flying over it, so I was curious. I have to say that the Naples Pier is really beautiful!

 

 

It was such a beautiful day, so quite a few people where enjoying the beach.

 

 

 

 

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The views from the end of the pier were beautiful! Next time I need to stay until sunset.

 

 

 

 

 

I would love to live in that White House on the beach, I love the wraparound porch!

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All of a sudden there was some commotion on the dock, and I looked down and saw this...

 

 

 

 

I was so excited!!!! I had never seen a dolphin in the wild and since I won’t visit them in captivity (just my beliefs, and won’t debate this) this was amazing! We spent probably 30 minutes there while I tried to grab pictures of the dolphin(s). They are very had to take pictures of since you never know where they are going to pop up!

 

We headed back to the beach and grabbed a place to sit that had a bit of sun and some shade. The sand sure was different then what we had experienced in the Caribbean! I decided to go and stick my feet in the water and check the temperature. That sure wasn’t like the Caribbean either, it was so cold!

 

We decided to head back towards the car and drive around and explore the city a bit more.

 

 

 

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We drove around and gawked at all of the beautiful houses and dream and wish about what we could not have. It is a beautiful city and they seem to have some strict building codes, as the houses are mostly all done in the same style.

After a while we were hungry so we drove around trying to find something to eat, which for some reason it took longer then it should have. I spotted a Five Guys Burgers, so we decided to head there. After stuffing our selfs some more we toured around for a while more before making our way back to Fort Lauderdale.

 

On the way back I decided to stop and take some pictures, unfortunately (or fortunately) didn’t see any gators.

 

 

 

 

 

By the time we made it back to Fort Lauderdale the sun was setting so we headed out and did a little bit more shopping. Once we were done there we headed back to the hotel and just hung out for a while before crashing for the night, since we had a long day of travel ahead of us.

[jaycruising]

Day 15 (November 28) Travel Day

 

Well, the day was finally here, time to head home, back to reality and back to the cold.

 

We went downstairs and had the included breakfast again this morning. Then we headed back up to our room, finished packing up, did one last check of the room and checked out of the hotel. We had already filled the car up with gas so that was one last thing we had to take care of, so straight to the airport. We got to the airport and quickly returned the rental car. This would be the last thing that would be quick pretty much the entire day.

 

Luckily we had left plenty of time for the airport. They were doing some construction in this terminal of the airport and it is just a mess! We found the Westjet counter and the longest line I have ever seen to drop luggage (and I have flown at Christmas). It took probably 45 minutes to get our luggage checked in, fortunately we had checked in the night before, so didn't have to bother with that.

 

Once we dropped our bags off I headed outside for one last smoke and to enjoy that Florida warmth. Next was the never ending line for security. We finally made it up there and they sent my bag through the x-ray and here is where I messed up. Not only did I collect ornaments I also collected sand from each of the beaches we visited, and well... I forgot to put it in my checked luggage. Oops! They had to go through each of the bags and test them for drugs. Mom found a bench to sit on and then laughed at me as I was surrounded by 5 TSA agents. That will teach me!

 

Our flight left Fort Lauderdale on time. There were some rather long lines for customs in Toronto but we made it though in time. I remembered to transfer my sand to my checked luggage ;). Then we began the 20 minute hike to our gate, boarded the plane and waited. We didn't have any pilots! They were coming in on another flight from the US and were delayed.

 

The delay was long enough that mom missed her connection from Calgary to Saskatoon. Luckily Westjet is pretty great and they were able to easily book her on the next flight.

We said our Good-bye's in the airport, I got in a taxi and headed home and mom had one more flight and she managed to call it a night.

 

This is the end of our trip! I loved every minute of it and will do another cruise likely sometime in 2018, since we are heading to a land vacation to Mexico in about a month.

 

If you stuck around to the end I hope you enjoyed my review, and for the next cruise I will try and do another trip report and a little closer to when the trip is done.

 

Please feel free to ask any questions you may have!