Caribbean Princess Day 1 of 7 - Port Everglades - Not an excellent start

Caribbean Princess cruise - Day 1 of 7

Embarkation

This is our first experience with Princess.  Suffice it to say - so far, we are not impressed.

We are sailing on the Caribbean Princess - a ship that holds around 3,100 passengers, and based on the crowds, it is sailing at full capacity.

We left the house at 7:30AM today for the roughly four-hour trip to Port Everglades.  It was actually an entertaining drive for a couple of reasons.  First, our neighbor, Brian, came along for the ride, so he could join his wife, Nancy, who was in Ft. Lauderdale for the week at her son's family's place.  That certainly made the drive more enjoyable.  Second, this was the first road trip in the new vehicle, and the first extended road experience using General Motor's autonomous driving system, Super Cruise.  Color me impressed, as Super Cruise did most of the driving for me, with me just watching.  It was pretty darn cool.

If you have ever sailed out of Port Everglades, you'll understand this. The signage sucks, plain and simple.  There are no good signs to direct you to parking.  After asking an obviously exasperated police officer where to go, he directed us to the ramp.  We parked, took the walk over to terminal #2, checked in our bags, and got in the ridiculous line.

It took nearly 30 minutes of moving up a few feet at a time before we entered the terminal.  Once in the terminal, we waited in another Disney-esque line and then transferred to yet another Disney-esque line before being asked to produce our negative COVID test letter, passport, and COVID vaccine card.  Of course, we had already submitted all of that information in Princess's app, so that we could skip all of this at the port.  OK, fine, whatever.

Once our documents were inspected, we went through the requisite metal detector and bag-ray and proceeded to...another Disney-esque line. We eventually reached the check-in where we were asked to show...our negative COVID test, our passport, and our COVID vaccine card.  Seriously - why did we waste time uploading all of this in the Princess app if we had to show it not once, but twice during the check-in process?

Finally, we were cleared after nearly an hour in line and we boarded the ship.

We opted to head to the burger joint by the pool to catch some chow.  We ordered the BLT burger - a burger with lettuce, tomato, bacon, onion jam, and cheese.  We ordered two - one for each of us.  Then, we headed next door to the bar to grab a drink.  Arlona ordered Tito's vodka, cranberry, and pineapple.  She got Tito's and cranberry - no pineapple.  I ordered gin, diet coke, and a splash of cranberry.  I got gin, diet coke, and pineapple.  OK, so the bartenders don't listen.

When our food order came up, they gave us one burger, not two.  Hmm...so only one of us gets to eat?  I told them they missed a burger.  Five minutes later, we finally had our second BLT burger.  Neither one had bacon - literally the first letter in "BLT".  So, our first, second, and third experiences on Princess were both misses in a big way.

We headed for the room.  My bag was waiting for us.  Yea!  Arlona's, however, was nowhere to be seen.  I unpacked and we hung out for about 90 minutes.  This gave us time to connect our phones to the included internet service.  This was yet another poor experience.

At least on my phone, the incredibly poorly written Princess Medallion Class app failed to load content.  This made it impossible to schedule dinner reservations and excursions.  It also didn't allow us to find areas on the ship.  It was incredibly frustrating. 

Arlona's suitcase still had not shown up so we headed out to explore a bit.  We settled in at a bar and enjoyed a cocktail (or two).  We were able to book one excursion through the app (finally) but were unable to book the other that we wanted.  We moseyed to the excursion desk where a very friendly staff member got us booked. Then, we headed to a different bar, and people-watched for a while.

We finally sailed a little before 5PM so the shops on the ship could open.  We caught the opening of the Effy boutique and browsed the shops before attempting to get dinner.

Here's another shortcoming of Princess.  We were unable to make dinner reservations in the crappy app.  There are three identical restaurants on this ship.  They all offer the exact same menu.  We headed to one and it appeared to be at least a 30-minute wait.  We headed to another where the wait looked to be an hour or more.  We finally went to the third where we waited 30 minutes to be seated.  Of course, we could have headed to the buffet for instant gratification, but we wanted a sit-down meal.  On the plus side, we were seated at a group table with four other folks that turned out to be very pleasant.  We enjoyed spirited conversation and enjoyed a nice meal.

We headed back to the room where Arlona's bag was waiting for us, finally.

So, day #1 is in the books, and so far, based on today, I would never in a million years recommend Princess as a cruise line.  I am hoping that days 2-7 change that perception.

One challenge we plan to take this week is to have at least one drink in each bar on the ship.  I will now display a list of the bars.  If the name is red, we have not yet been there.  If it is green, we have imbibed at that venue.

Good Spirits at a Sea

Vine Wine Bar

Crooners Bar

Grand Casino Bar

Wheelhouse Bar

Calypso Bar

Outriggers Bar

The Mix

Tradewinds Bar

The Reef Bar

Day #1 is in the books and we're not impressed.  Let's hope that the next seven days change that impression.  Tomorrow, we headed to Princess Cay Princess's private island in the Bahamas.  We're planning on a casual day with some swimming and perhaps snorkeling.  It should be nice and low-key.