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.

World Cruise Day 1/152 - it's got to get better from here...

Cruise day: 1/152
Sea days: 0
Port days: 1
Ports: 1
Countries: 1

 It's cruise day and it started out with a call from our driver - she was running about 30 minutes late.  Doh! Not a big deal, really, as we had wiggle room in the schedule.  And, I appreciated her proactive communication.  We got the suitcases all lined up and ready to go.

Right before her arrival, we sealed up the remaining sinks and toilet, turned off the water to the house, the water heater, water softener, and ice maker.  We also unplugged all the TVs and the bidet.  We were ready!

Our driver, Dana, arrived in a Ford Edge.  I was a little worried about the luggage fitting, but everything did fit in the back except my carry-on and that fit in the front seat footwell.  We hit the road about 8:45 AM.

We had a comfortable ride to Port Everglades.  

We arrived about 1pm, rested and ready to board the Viking Star. Or so we thought.  Here's where the day kind of went off the rails.

This photo only shows a small part of the line, or more correctly lines that we had to endure to board the ship. With a theoretical maximum of 930 passengers, and with COVID, a subset of that number, we figured that the lines wouldn't be bad.  We were wrong.

It all started with the two lines to go through the metal detector and carry-on baggage x-ray machines.  It was slow, like really slow, but that was because the next line wasn't moving and there was nowhere to go, so they artificially slowed us down.  Once through that line, we entered line #2.

Line #2 took us to the mandatory health screening questions and COVID test results review.  We had to present a negative test result no more than two days before boarding.  We did all that and moved to line #3.

Line #3 was a mandatory nasal PCR test.  It took us well over an hour for this portion of the boarding fiasco.  Once they stuck the swabs up our noses, we sat (the first time in two hours) for a little over 20 minutes, waiting for the test results.  Our samples were all lined up sitting on a table.

Once cleared as COVID-free, we went to line #4.

Line #4 is where we were photographed, presented with our Bluetooth contract tracing disk, and room keys.

Finally, more than two-and-a-half hours later, we were allowed onto the ship.  Woo! One benefit of the amazingly disorganized and slow boarding process was there was plenty of time to get our bags to our room before we got there.  We did a basic unpacking and then headed to the Explorer's Lounge for a cocktail.

Even this was disappointed.  The lounge was understaffed, and even with a modest group of customers, service was very slow and spotty.  We decided to venture out and find another venue.

Along the way, we ran into other Central Florida cruisers, John & Bina. and wound up having a drink with them in the Viking Bar.  We also connected with Jim, a great guy who has coordinated a lot of pre-cruise communication on Facebook and Cruise Critic.  In an unusual coincidence, it turns out he was a college roommate of someone I went to high school with.  

The ship was nicely decorated for Christmas.

We opted for the World Cafe buffet for dinner as they were having a seafood extravaganza.  All in all, it was good, even though they didn't have the crab cakes that were listed on the menu.  We asked and were told that they weren't on the menu.  That was until we showed them the online menu.  The chef was a little confused.

So, day 1 was disappointing, and I trust not a harbinger of how this entire cruise is going to go.  We are hopeful that these were just a few bumps in the road, and it will all get better from here.  Of course, we were supposed to sail at 6 PM, updated to 8 PM.  As I type this, it is approaching 9 PM and we're still docked.  

With the long day, and it is Christmas Eve, after dinner, we returned to our room, turned on Elf, and relaxed.

Tomorrow is a sea day and we'll continue unpacking and organizing, finding places for our stuff in this 270 square foot mansion we will call home for the next 138 days until we reach Bergen.  Then, we will move to a different 270 square foot mansion.

Tomorrow is Christmas and another day.  We're expecting it to get better from here.

A day in Port Everglades and we're off again

We docked in Port Everglades very early this morning due to a non-COVID-related medical situation.

After all the passengers got off, the 41 back-to-backers like us gathered and waited to be taken off the ship to clear customs.

The officer handling the process approached us and said we needed to be first off the ship. Hmmm... That's odd. The others went into a line. We were taken into a room by ourselves. A customs officer came out, told us to enjoy food and drink and they'd see us after the next cruise. Wait, what?

We went and joined the others, were photographed, and then we all were escorted back into the ship.

We have no idea what's in store for us when we return, but there's nothing we can do, so, on to the ship we went.

We got our internet set up and headed up for lunch. Then, we spent time by the pool, read, hot tubbed, and relaxed.

We got a terrific table by the window for dinner for the whole cruise. It's awesome. We have the same service team taking care of us as the last cruise, so the service is amazing.

As we sailed away from Port Everglades, the Coast Guard provided an armed escort.

They were packing serious firepower.

We did catch a glimpse of the Carnival Mardi Gras heading north back to Port Canaveral. We have friends in that ship but they were in the steakhouse and couldn't come out and wave.

Tomorrow, Nassau, Bahamas.