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Live from the Regal: Christmas Edition!

Nee Nee and Biddy

By Nee Nee and Biddy,
in Princess Cruises

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Nee Nee and Biddy

Nee Nee and Biddy

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Live from the Regal: Christmas Edition!

 
A trip over 13 months in the making is finally starting today! It’s just me and 12 of my closest relatives, swarming Fort Lauderdale from Missouri and Arkansas. We have traveled on Princess twice as a group before; once on Christmas 6 years ago and once for my Mom’s wedding in the Ruby in 2017. Every time we do this, I swear I will never ever travel with these yahoos again. But traveling with family is much like childbirth. You forget the pain 12-18 months later and it sounds like a good idea again. This is an actual picture of me getting off of the Princess Transfer at LAX in March 2017: 
 
 

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Nee Nee and Biddy

Nee Nee and Biddy

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Let me quickly breakdown the cast of characters: 
My family of 4: Gina (me), my husband Billy, my 12 year old son Will, and my 11 year old daughter Gemma. I’m a hospice social worker and Billy works in IT. We both have stressful jobs and are very excited to be on vacation. I’m Elite and so is my mom. Vaughn is working on it but he’s still Platinum as of this sailing. 
 
My sister’s family: Amanda, her husband Clint, my 16 year old nephew, Sam, and my 13 year old niece, Sophie. They are all Princess fans, but Sophie has 45 more traveling days than the rest of us as she has done two Hawaii cruises and one trans-Atlantic with my mom. My Gemma has also done a Hawaii cruise with my mom. Kids are not allowed to count the cruises they do before they are 18 ( or so I’ve been told) but if they did, our kiddos would certainly be close to Elite.  
 
Our mom, Ann and her husband, Vaughn
 
My amazing 86 year old grandmother, Barbara (but I will just be calling her grandma). She is more active than most 25 year olds and has some solid opinions about many things. LOL
 
My brother in law, Jason 
 
My mother in law, Connie (she is called Mimi to confuse things even more.) 
 
Next installment: our traveling day! 
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Nee Nee and Biddy

Nee Nee and Biddy

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We always try to travel the day before the cruise. When my mom took Gemma and Sophie to the 15 day Hawaii cruise a few years ago, they flew the day of the cruise and almost missed the ship due to delays. Gemma and Sophie were traumatized by the stress (the poor dears), so we now all fly in the day before. 

Because of where we live in MO, it always much cheaper to fly out of Kansas City or St Louis than to fly out of the regional airport that is closer. But since we had Grandma and there were 11 of us to worry about, we booked Princess EZ Air through Springfield, with a layover in Atlanta. The flights were on Delta, and I will say we had a smooth, stress free day of travel yesterday! It might be worth the extra money to fly out of Springfield from now on. It is not easy to travel with 11 people but we got through the day with no meltdowns. 

 

I can’t figure out how to write under the pictures once I add them, so I will just post all the pictures at the end of the posts until I figure out how to do this on an iPhone. 

 

Below are Gemma and Sophie with the sunglasses they bought at the airport, my son Will laying on the dirty floor, and Gemma and I eating Shake Shack at the Atlanta airport, which was amazing! I would highly recommend. Picture courtesy of Gemma’s iPad. 😊

 

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Nee Nee and Biddy

Nee Nee and Biddy

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We stayed at the Comfort Suites, Fort Lauderdale Airport and Cruise Port in Dania Beach. It is a newer hotel and they sent a shuttle to pick us up at the airport. I booked these rooms in July for the rate of $159, which is an amazing deal for this area on a Saturday night right before Christmas. The hotel is very clean, the rooms are huge, and the kids didn’t have to share a bed because there is a sofa bed in every room. 

My mom and Vaughn arrived before us yesterday (we didn’t get to the hotel until 11:40 last night). We all met up at the continental breakfast this morning. I am very happy with this hotel choice and I don’t feel like I paid crazy money to stay close to port. 

Gemma and I walked down the sidewalk this morning and found a giant orange. The air feels good here. It’s sunny and you can tell we are in Florida! As you can see, she loves her new airport sunglasses. 😎 We are taking the hotel shuttle to the port at 11:45. Next stop: The Regal!!! 

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tawlaw1526

tawlaw1526

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1 hour ago, CruiseLady88 said:

Can you please take some photos when you see people dancing? Mostly on the piazza floor. Thanks. I want to know if the band is good for dancing.

I’ve been on a few cruises already with the band Xcite and in my opinion, they are excellent.   Every time I saw them, the dance floor was packed. 

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hllwdcruiser Great Review Rare

hllwdcruiser

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I'm loving your review so far - embarkation day is the best! 

Thanks so much for posting the menus and Patters. 

We are traveling for the first time with two other couples and I'm feeling pretty anxious about it. Kudos to you - still smiling with thirteen of your nearest and dearest!

We changed our dining time to 7:15 but now I'm contemplating changing to Anytime because I'm not thrilled with the 7:45 time that seems to be the norm on the Regal. Please keep us updated on how that time slot works for you especially when attempting to see some of the fun game shows or Voice of the Ocean etc

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Nee Nee and Biddy

Nee Nee and Biddy

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Dinner! The older members of our party were not happy with our 7:45 dining time, so my mom  got it changed. We are now at two tables in the Symphony dining room at 5:30. The food has been amazing so far and our waiter Willie was nice too. The only hiccup was that after I ate my Shrimp appetizer (which I didn’t get a picture of! I’m sorry, I couldn’t wait) I asked for another one because it was SO good. Willie kind of laughed but never brought me more shrimp. 😞 He will get used to me soon. I tried everyone’s food and it was all good. I probably wouldn’t order the chili personally, but it did have a good flavor. I have always wanted to try the Limoncello, and we actually did tonight! Wow, it was no joke. We were really laughing and enjoying life by the time dinner was over. 

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