Sunday, March 3, 2019. Regal Princess Caribbean Cruise Embarkation Fort Lauderdale

Regal Princess March 3, 2019 to March 17, 2019 Caribbean Cruise Diary

Sunday, March 3, 2019:  Embarkation Port Everglades, Fort Lauderdale

Getting from our home on Whidbey Island to any destination requires a lot of lead time. We took a 5PM Whidbey Sea-Tac Shuttle from Oak Harbor, which got us to Sea-Tac Airport at 7:30PM.  There was only one other couple that were picked up by the Shuttle this trip. It was a couple that Ben had known well as patients, who are Master Gardeners and whom we had run into on the shuttle as we were departing on our Grand Canyon rafting trip.  Funny how small the world seems sometimes.  

We had no trouble checking in at the airport and breezed through security with our TSA Pre-Check status, although the Pre-Check status did not show up on our initial boarding passes, so Ben ended up having to call American Airlines to have the Known Traveler numbers added to the flight reservations, and the boarding passes were reissued with the Pre-Check status added. 

We were kind of excited to fly first class on this trip because when we booked the flights, it was only $30 more to book first class over premium economy.  We were on American Airlines, and boarded Airbus 321 aircraft, which astoundingly, had no video monitors, USB power, or even any power at the seats, even in the first class cabin.  We were also greeted with flannel blankets wrapped in plastic, but no eye masks or ear plugs.  The alcohol was free flowing, so we ended up with a little hoard of airline booze bottles in our backpacks to try to smuggle onto the cruise ship.  The seats were roomy and more comfortable, but it’s still hard to get much sleep on these overnight flights.  The flight left a little late at 10:40PM Pacific time, arriving at 6:30AM Eastern time with about 5 hours of flight time.  They did offer a sandwich and snacks, but most of the flight was spent in the dark.  We arrived in Charlotte, North Carolina, and had to take a second 2 hour flight to end up in Fort Lauderdale.  

We had the luxury of two included checked bags with the first class tickets.  However, we were disappointed with our experience flying first class on American Airlines.  We especially couldn’t get over the fact that there were no USB chargers or any facility for charging personal devices during the flight.  It was so third world.  

The Princess airport to cruise terminal transfers are so nice and stress-free, we recommend them to anyone.  

This was our first cruise with the new Princess Ocean Medallion system.  We had received our Medallions in the mail a week earlier.  These are silver dollar sized disks containing RFID chips that allow the Ocean Medallion system to identify us and manage data regarding our cruise.  The staff at the check in counter seemed to be still working out the bugs.  The first agent we encountered failed to get Janet’s medallion to scan, immediately blaming the system, but he was not placing the medallion on the right spot on the scanner.  Ben put his medallion on the right spot and all the data sprang up on the screen as it should.  Then it was pretty much a straight walk onto the ship.  We were amongst the first to hit the Horizon Court Buffet, and ended up hitting the Taco Bar section for lunch.   Then we were able to enter our stateroom early- just a little after noon, even though we were told to expect our room to be ready by 1:30PM when we boarded.  We were eager to get in a nap, and zonked out until our first official activity at 3PM, which was the mandatory Muster drill.

Our stateroom B108 is situated far forward on the port side of the ship.  It is just below and behind the ship’s bridge.  It is a long walk back to the forward main elevators that lead to the Princess Theatre.  During the Muster Drill, we were directed through a set of emergency stairs located halfway between the forward elevator bank and the bridge.  This took us through the non-public part of the ship that normally only crew members can see.  It was interesting to see the wiring and plumbing behind the scenes.  It looked super tidy and orderly.  We ended up entering the theater through some emergency evacuation doors that flank the front of the theater.  Now we know where those doors go if you try to sneak out through them.  

After the Muster drill, we watched the sail away through Port Everglades from our balcony, sipping on our wine that we brought aboard.  It was interesting that the Coast Guard had a fast patrol boat maintaining a buffer between us and all the other busy boat traffic in Port Everglades, zooming back and forth with a man at the 50 Caliber machine gun on the bow.  That seemed like a bit of security theater, but they seemed to be having some fun burning gas at tax payers’ expense.  

We made a brief appearance at the Elite lounge, which is hosted for Captain’s Circle Platinum and Elite members.  This features some snacks and discounted cocktails.  Today, they featured some smoked salmon.  Then we got in line for an early dinner.  We had planned on having dinner at 5:00PM so we could attend the first Trivia of the cruise at 7:00PM.  When we got to the dining room, there were no tables for 2, so we ended up getting seated with a young couple who turned out to be lawyers from Ohio.  The man was a bit odd, and excused himself to wash his hands.  His friend said he as a bit OCD, but that he gets it from his mother.  He apparently has a 1 and 3 year old children by another woman, and the woman he was on the cruise with has her own 11 and 13 year old daughters.  There were no wedding bands on their hands, so it appeared they were dating.  It was a little awkward, but to make matters worse, the food service was very slow. We ended up leaving shortly after the entree came out, and just made it to the trivia game.

We ended up pretty much playing alone on the first general trivia, which had all new questions that we had never encountered before.  We ended up scoring only 10/20, with the winning team scoring 16/20.  That was a bit humbling, but our next activity was a Motown trivia, which we teamed up with two other couples on.  One was from Portland, and the other was from Michigan.  We ended up winning with 19/20.  This music trivia only required the title of the songs and not the artists or year of releases.  

We finished our trivia for the first day with a famous faces quiz with pictures of famous people, including baby pictures, pictures from “before they were famous” and some sports celebrity pictures.  We pretty much bombed the sports celebrities, and baby pictures, but ended up just a little off the lead with 33/50 points.  The winners had 36/50.  We had teamed up with the Michigan couple from the Motown trivia, and another anonymous couple that joined us at the last second.  

The first showing of the Production Show “Sweet Soul Music” turned out to be standing room only, but we went to the 10PM last show, which apparently is past many peoples’ bed times, and was much less crowded.  The singers and dancers put on a great show featuring songs by Tina Turner, the Four Tops, Temptations, and other Motown and Soul acts.  The Princess production shows are so much bigger and better than what they managed on the Viking Star that there was really no comparison.  This production crew has some very talented lead singers and the dancers were first rate.  

We arrive at Princess Cay tomorrow morning where we will go ashore via tenders due to the size of the Regal Princess.