Tuesday, January 23, 2018 - Pre-cruise Flight and Overnight Hotel Transfers

We're off on another adventure.  This time, it is a 60 day cruise around South America starting and ending in Fort Lauderdale on the Island Princess.

We had to wake Price up in the middle of the night to drop us off at the 7-Eleven store in Oak Harbor at 4am to catch our airport shuttle.  We would not have been allowed to park our car for 60+ days.

We were able to check in online the day before, and were offered the ability to check in our carry on bags for free, so we took advantage of that to overstuff our carry on bags.  For a 60 day cruise that will take us from the Caribbean to Antarctica, we have to be prepared for all sorts of weather conditions, from 90 degrees and sunny to 25 degrees with driving snow.  That meant packing not only our usual carry on roller bags, but both the 21" and 26" roller bags to capacity.  It was very tricky to keep the bigger bags under 50#, but we managed it.  We'll see if we end up wearing everything we packed.

We pretty much sailed through the TSA Pre-Check line and had a bit over an hour before boarding, so we had breakfast in the food court.

Our flight was a 737-900 on Alaska Airlines.  This plane has huge overhead bins that can hold six or eight roller bags each.  Quite a contrast to the Delta Airlines 777's tiny overhead bins that won't hold more than 2 roller bags.

We encountered an odd situation on boarding.  We, like many other hopeful couples, had booked an aisle and window seat with an open seat between us, so that if the flight were not to capacity, we might end up with an empty seat between us.  However this flight was booked to capacity.  There was a couple in the row directly ahead of us that had also booked the aisle and window seats.  There happened to be a couple (2 men) who really wanted to sit together, but were situated in the middle seats between our 2 rows.  When we heard of their plight, a woman in the row across the aisle said she'd sit in our row so that the man in the aisle ahead of us would still have an aisle seat, and then the two men could sit together in the middle and aisle seat just ahead of us.  The man, who happened to be married to the woman in the window seat refused to move.  So the two men ended up being separated by the aisle and one row while the husband and wife ended up still separated by a stranger man, who really wanted to be near his traveling companion.  The woman who had given up her aisle seat to sit in our row's window seat and we just exchanged unbelieving looks at each other and the man who wouldn't give up his aisle seat to either sit by his wife, or let the two men sit together.  Some people.

The flight was only 5 hours, so it was tolerable.  The entire coach cabin was restricted to using 3 lavatories at the back of the plane, and each of these was remarkably tiny- about the same size as the head on our 27' boat.  Barely big enough to stand in, or sit on the seat with your head on the door.  Strategy was required when the beverage service carts were rolled out since it meant that no-one ahead of the cart could use the bathrooms until the beverage services were complete for the entire plane and the cart was returned to the aft galley.  There are no seat back screens on these planes, but they do stream video on wifi, and provide 120V and USB power on each seat back.

Our flights were booked through Princess EZ-Air, as was our overnight hotel stay, which includes transfers to the hotel, to the cruise ship, and back to the airport at the end of the cruise.  The airfare we got through Princess EZ-Air was hard to beat- FREE!  When we booked this cruise nearly a year ago, the offer included free airfare, free gratuities (worth $800 per person on a 60 day cruise) and $300 per person onboard spending money for excursions and what not.

I'd have to say, after nearly missing our ship for our British Isles cruise in 2016, we are total fans of using Princess EZ-Air to book all our cruise related flights.  Even on flights that we have to pay for, the fares have been very competitive, and in some cases, a great deal.  Princess apparently buys airline seats in bulk like Viking does, so they can offer competitive fares.  Anyways, it is sure a reassuring feeling to exit the terminal and be greeted by a smiling person waving the Princess Cruises sign.  While we did have to roll our suitcases down the sidewalk a ways to the waiting luxury tour bus, we didn't have to load or unload the suitcases, and had a very comfortable and quick trip to our hotel.

Fort Lauderdale obviously serves a lot of cruise ship passengers.  Instead of a bell ringing to warn people that the baggage carousel was about to start up, they used the sound of a cruise ship's horn blasting it's 5 short departure tones.  It was easy to spot other passengers who were going to board our ship by the sheer bulk of luggage required for a 60 day trip.  There are a lot of veteran cruiser's on this trip, judging by the number and variety of cruise line luggage tags evident.

The Embassy Suites, where Princess put us up, is a vastly nicer hotel than the Quality Inn we stayed at before our previous Panama Canal cruise in 2015.  As the name implies, our room was a suite, and it was a HUGE suite.  There were two queen beds in the master bedroom, and a full sized sleeper sofa in the living room.  We could have easily and comfortably put up our whole family in this room. The only thing missing was a safe in the room, which seemed like an odd omission, or perhaps we just never found the safe amongst all the cabinets and furniture.  They also have a happy hour with free beer, margaritas and Bahama Mama's.  There were also chips, veggies with humus, and popcorn.

There was a Five-Guys burger joint just around the corner from the hotel and it was surprising to walk in to find the place empty.  Either they haven't been discovered by Floridians, or the novelty has worn out.  Anyways, that was dinner.

As part of the cruise transfer/hotel package, they ask that we have our bags packed, tagged and just inside our hotel room doors by 9am for the bell men to collect.  The Embassy Suites has a free made to order breakfast starting at 7am, and cruise ship passengers are to meet at 11:45am for the bus transfer to the cruise ship port.  We had been earlier advised by Princess that the ship would be delayed because of a Norovirus outbreak on the current sailing.  We hope they really give it a good scrubbing.  That notification advised passengers not to arrive before 2:30pm, unless they were part of a Princess transfer, so we may get priority boarding.