Wednesday, January 24, 2018- Fort Lauderdale Embarkation

Wednesday, January 24, 2018- Fort Lauderdale Embarkation

Princess Cruises certainly appears to want its customers to feel at home, even on the land extensions for their cruises.  The atrium of the Embassy Suites has two banks of bubble elevators, not unlike the atrium of the cruise ships, and the breakfast buffet was a full American hot made to order breakfast.  You could certainly see the majority of guests fit the “Cruiser” profile, including us.  We could see the Island Princess docked at Port Everglades from the small balcony of our 4th story room.  The bell staff came and picked up our suitcases right at 9am. 

The transfer from the Embassy Suites to the ship took a while because of the number of passengers and bulk of their luggage.  The bus ran out of storage space for bags, so they had to arrange an extra bus to carry all the bags and passengers.  

This was our first cruise with Platinum status, which entitles us to priority boarding, but this particular cruise, with it’s 60 day itinerary, attracts seasoned cruisers, so probably 80% of the passengers were either platinum or elite status, so there were very few non-priority passengers.  This lead to the odd situation where the non-priority lines would be empty, while the priority lines would be jammed.  Therefore, they treated everyone the same.  We did end up sitting in the cruise terminal for a couple of hours while the ship was prepared for boarding, but they did provide snacks, bottled water and free Port Everglades Wifi.  

Once boarding started, things went pretty quick, and we were soon at our room, C301.  This is a mid-forward balcony on the starboard side.  This was a very familiar room for us, with plenty of storage for even a 60 day cruise.  We only had one unused coat hanger in the closet, but we were able to hang everything that needed to be hung.  It’s nice to have a real desk with drawers, and night stands with two drawers and a cubby each.  The balcony is a decent size and we have a direct view down the side of the ship to the waterline.  There was an odd smell in the bathroom, and the TV was missing the remote control  There used to be a shelf in the corner where the TV resides, but this was removed (torn off the walls with some unfinished damaged drywall behind the TV) to make room for the much larger flat screen TV.  

Ben found a case of bottled water and a bag of cleaning supplies stuffed under one of the beds.  At first we thought this stuff was left by prior passengers, but after we met the room attendant Jojan (East Indian), he explained the water and cleaning supplies were his.  He had hidden them in our room for some reason that didn’t make a lot of sense, but he did clean up after himself and got us a replacement TV remote control.

We toured the ship and found several unique features compared with most of the other Panamax sized Princess cruise ships we have cruised on in the past.  The most notable changes are:

1. No Skywalker’s lounge at the aft of the ship.  This looks like a aerodynamic spoiler at the rear of the ship.  This has nice views because it wraps around the stern and has wings that allow looking forward along the sides of the ship.

2. The Promenade deck does not wrap around the stern of the ship. On most other Princess ships, you can look out over the wake, but on the Island Princess, you have to cross from one side of the ship to the other through the aft elevator/stair bank.  The bow walk is an entirely enclosed hallway, so you can’t see the front of the ship.  The Promenade deck is real teak, but is showing wear in areas. 

3. The Fitness Center is buried at the aft of the ship at deck 6 aft of the aft elevators/stairs.  There are no windows, but it is well air conditioned and equipped.  

4. The main buffet is situated at the front of the ship on the Lido deck.  It seems like every other cruise ship we have been on to date has this situated at the aft end of the ship.  We had lunch in the Horizon Court buffet, but it seemed smaller and had fewer selections than on other Princess ships.  However, it never seemed crowded and there were plenty of places to sit, and excellent table service. 

5. There is no Club Fusion at the aft of the ship either.

The ship was quite late in pulling away from the dock.  We were scheduled to depart at 5pm, but it was nearly 7pm before the ship left Port Everglades.  We had dinner in the main dining room (Bordeaux) for anytime dining and shared a table with a group of 4 from Carnation, and a pair of women from Canada who didn’t know each other before boarding the ship, but were matched by a travel agent so they wouldn’t have to pay the single supplement, which essentially doubles the cost of the cruise.  One woman was from Vancouver, while the other was from New Brunswick.

The Princess Theatre had a single showing, featuring a Canadian comedian, Scott Harris, who was pretty funny.  He was actually a last minute fill in because the originally scheduled comic had the flu.  He said he was from Toronto and had a Chinese wife and two dogs.  Every evening at dinner, he would count the dogs (insert laughter).  He also joked about how in Japan they have these fancy toilets.  If you push on button the seat warms up.  If you push another button, a convenient water fountain squirts up so you can get a drink.  He also found the back scratcher kept by the toilet very handy when he had a peeling, itching sunburn on his back.

The ship was surprisingly dead by 10pm.  There was not a soul in the Explorer’s lounge, or any of the bars.  There were 3 or 4 people still in the Wheelhouse lounge, but there was no live entertainment or music going on.  I guess it’s going to be a quiet and thoughtful kind of cruise.