Embarkation Day is here, the day both Jerry and myself have looked forward to for quite some time. Jerry was up early this morning. He was excited to board the ship.
This page will include our days on the ship our other days when we are at an island has their own page see the links at the bottom of this page.
Friday, April 4, 2008 - Embarkation Day
Saturday, April 5, 2008 - At Sea
Sunday, April 6, 2008 - At Sea & Chef's Table Night
Saturday, April 12, 2008 - At Sea & Our Second Formal Night
Monday, April 14, 2008 - Disembarkation Day
Jerry had met some friends online and they happened to be staying at the same hotel. He met up with them and took them to the ship and then returned for me and we left to drop the car off at Budget. They were right outside the pier so that worked out well. We did have to wait for the shuttle to take us at 11am but it wasn't a long wait. Once at the pier we stood in line and made our way into the terminal shortly after arrival.
On by 12:20pm Jerry and I were onboard the Emerald Princess and in our cabin. We were excited. This is our fifth Princess cruise. When we cruise next time with Princess we will be able to board ahead of the other passengers. We are considered "Gold" members now and our room key is gold also.
We use this key which is like a credit card on the ship to purchase anything we might need or any of the extras the card looks like a credit card. We will also present this card for embarkation and disembarkation. Next time we cruise we will be classified as "Platinum" members.
Our cabin has a queen bed, a sitting area and a balcony where we can relax and enjoy the sound of the sea. There are two tvs one for the sitting area and one for the sleeping area. There is a nice size closet and shelves and drawers throughout the cabin for storage.
We unpacked our carryon items and set up our gadgets before heading out to the buffet for lunch. We were hungry by that time. After lunch we set out to explore the ship and took some pictures and video while we were exploring.
There are lots of pools on board and anything else you might want for recreation. There is a big screen by one of the pools that plays movies. They have "Movies Under the Stars" in the evening. They cover the pool and there are places to settle in and watch the movie complete with popcorn. There is a miniature golf course and a cyber one also. The kids area has a basketball court.
We have different places to eat onboard also and of course lots of bars. At the International Cafe you can enjoy some pastries. The Art Gallery has a lot of art you can bid on when they hold the auction. There is the gym to work off all the food you have eaten throughout the day and the spa is right next door where you can get a massage, pedicure, manicure, your hair fixed for formal night and a lot of other items that is on their menu at the Lotus Spa.
This ship has what is called "The Sanctuary" which you pay $20 a day to relax with no kids around. It is a really nice area. I won't be spending any time there as I have my own "sanctuary" on our balcony to do my relaxing on with no kids around.
By the time we had returned back to our cabin three of our four bags were outside our cabin door so we drug them in and started unpacking. While we were unpacking our cabin steward came by and introduced himself. Krystian from Poland will be one of our best friends for the next ten days as he cleans our room each day, turns the bed down each night while we are away at dinner and stocks our room with ice as we need it and anything else we might need. He was very nice. He told us to call him "Kris". He seems very attentive. He asked if we would like a glass of champagne we both said yes and shortly thereafter he was back at our door with our champagne.
Soon we received our fourth bag that had most of what we had bought while we were in Fort Lauderdale in preparation for the cruise. We quickly unpacked it and we were ready to start our cruise!
Speaking of champagne our cruise agent, Cappy from Cappy's Travel sent us a bottle that we have yet to have room service bring to us. Just now room service knocked at our door and there was a plate of chocolate dipped strawberries. She's the best! Jerry found Cappy after our first cruise and we have been with her ever since. She has always taken good care of us and we truly appreciate it. The strawberries were delicious!!!!
We set sail about 5:15pm on Friday, April 4th. Jerry and I headed to the back of the ship at the Horizon Terrace to join the other Cruise Critics who were on board for a sailaway party. Jerry is on the Cruise Critic and has been for years. He usually meets up with someone on there doing the same cruise at the same time. This has been the largest group that has met up apparently there are 100 on this ship who are on the forum.
The Horizon Terrace has a bar and a pool which is situated at the very back of the ship so while we did the sail away we relaxed on the lounge chairs and enjoyed the view. I met a couple from South Africa who live in England. This is their first cruise.
As we waited for the ship to leave port it got a bit warm but once we sailed away from port it was really nice. The temperature on our balcony was 77 degrees.
Since we were at the back of the ship we decided not to go to the dining room for dinner but went for the Seafood Buffet at the Horizon Court instead. We thoroughly enjoyed the shrimp, lobster claws and crab. We have what is called "Traditional Dining" which we will go to most nights for the first seating at 6pm. We will do some specialty restaurants while on board.
After our seafood we relaxed in our cabin and then went down to the Princess Theatre for the Welcome Aboard show. It was a full house there to listen to the comedian, Billy Vader.
On Saturday morning Jerry met with the Maitre d, Generoso Mazzone this morning when he went for breakfast in the dining room. We will have dinner at the "Chef's Table" only 12 people are selected from the entire ship tomorrow evening, (Sunday, April 6th). We are excited about it and looking forward to the experience.
Jerry and I did go find the future cruise desk and signed up for our next cruise which will be in the Mediterranean next year on Emerald Princess' sister ship the Crown Princess. We chose our deck and cabin for that cruise when we signed up. Jerry also signed up for another future cruise so we will receive some shipboard credits. Jerry had it all figured out and the young lady who helped us said it was the best time to visit her and set this up as the cruise goes on she gets busier and there is a line to see her.
This afternoon we have a meet and greet with our fellow Cruise Critic passengers after lunch in the Skywalkers Nightclub.
Tonight is our first formal night of the cruise so we will be dressing up for dinner. We will go by get our picture taken before we actually go to dinner.
We met some of our tablemates for the first time for dinner tonight. A couple from the west coast of Florida and another couple from the east coast of Florida minus the husband. He was not feeling well.
Which brings me to the new guidelines they have on the cruise ship now. Since the bad gastrointestinal virus' that struck some of the ships and hit the news a few years back you have to sign a form prior to boarding that you have not been ill or are not now. If you do start feeling as if you have a virus you are instructed to contact the ship's doctor and they will treat you. I'm sure you are quarantined also. At the entrance to the buffets you have a motion activated hand sanitizer dispenser. I'm sure this helps a lot as long as people use it anyway.
We have another sea day today. We will attend a wine tasting this afternoon and then this evening is our "Chef's Table" dinner. We are looking forward to it. We have to sign off on another paper stating that we are not ill before we can attend this being we will be in the galley before we sit down for dinner.
Jerry signed up for the wireless internet so we have a little bit of touch with the outside world. The cost is per minute which is not too bad because some of the wireless cards the cost is per kilobyte. You have to go to the public areas to get the wireless signal.
The ship traveled along the eastern side of Cuba and then we made our way through the night between Cuba and Haiti, the Windward Passage before heading southwest toward Aruba.
Jerry and I spent the afternoon relaxing before we went to the wine tasting at 3pm. It was really nice. We had some really nice tablemates which made it even better.
After the wine tasting we got ready for the 5pm repeat show from last night. It was the "Motorcity" show where they did a tribute to the singers from Motown. The singers and dancers were really good.
Now we are back in our cabin getting ready for our Chef's Table dinner. We are excited and looking forward to a new experience.
Click here to learn more about our Chef's Table experience.
Tomorrow we will be docking at Aruba. We have an excursion scheduled so we will be off the ship before 9am.
We have our last sea day today. That means we're coming to the end of our cruise. It's always a time of winding down for us and taking some time to enjoy our cabin and balcony while listening to the sea. It is a beautiful day today. We are heading northwest toward Bahamas now. This morning we had some sun on our balcony but this afternoon there will be more shaded areas. I will go out and enjoy the shade and sound of the water this afternoon. The temperature on the balcony today is 79 degrees Fahrenheit.
Tonight is the second formal night and we passed on our photo ops since we bought the first nights photo.
I had looked for our Chef's Table picture this afternoon in the Photo Gallery but the lady there told me the photos were given to the Maitre D so I was to ask him. He so happened to meet us at the entrance to the dining room tonight. We asked for the picture and he said he would bring it to our table. Speaking of pictures we hadn't taken our tablemates picture as we usually do so we had our waiter take the picture.
Our dinner was really good tonight with lobster and prawns being one of the main courses; most everyone at the table ordered the lobster and prawns. Some ordered a second helping since they were so good. Our desserts were good tonight. We took a couple of pictures of the two favorite desserts of the evening and they were delicious!
We passed on the show tonight and came back to the cabin to relax for the night. Jerry has his Sirius Radio hooked up and has been getting coverage since this morning of the NASCAR stuff. He is listening to the race this evening.
Tomorrow we will be at Princess Cays so you can check out that page by clicking the "Princess Cays" link below.
We arrived back in Fort Lauderdale and had to disembark the ship so they could get ready for the next set of passengers who will embark today to do the re-positioning cruise over to the Mediterranean.
We did sign up for Princess to get our boarding passes and get our luggage to the airport so we'll see how that turns out.
Since we did the Easy Check through Princess we received our AA boarding passes and luggage tags on Sunday evening.
We put our luggage out just like everyone else and waited in the Casino for our turn to get off the ship. We had to be in the Casino by 7:45am. They called us to disembark and we ended up standing in the hallway and stairwell for maybe 10 minutes before they finally let us go. There was an announcement that the American Authorities were holding up everything for some reason or other.
We went through Immigration and then retrieved our luggage. I grabbed a porter as Jerry grabbed the last bag. Everything was loaded up and we were through Customs in no time. The porter took us to the Easy Check area to transfer our luggage to the airport. We wouldn't see it again till we got off the plane in Dallas.
At the airport we did have a scare as our luggage didn't come out with the few that did get off the plane. Jerry had worried about it becuase at the port I tipped the porter and neither of us thought about the other guys and apparently Jerry saw them asking the porter for some of the money I handed him.
When our bags weren't there Jerry figured the guys ripped the tags off and dumped our bags somewhere. He went over to talk to the guy at Baggage Claim. The guy didn't see that it was on the plane but said we had to wait 30 minutes after arrival before we could file a claim. As Jerry came back over to me and was telling me what happened the carosel started up again and there were our bags.
We stepped outside and waited less than five minutes for our driver....Toby. All was well!
We hope you enjoyed reading about our Southern Caribbean Medley cruise and the highlights as much as we enjoyed the cruise and telling about our highlights.
Sign our guest book here