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Cruises: 2-3 cruises

Review: 1

Helpful Votes: 59

Review summary

My wife and I sailed on November 5 from Port Everglades on the Carribean Princess. for those of you that drive to the port, it is just off Florida's Turnpike, very convenient on and off the highway. The port itself is easily found with little blue "ship" signs pointing you to your destination. Port everglades has excellent security in that you must show your cruise tickets and I.D. just to enter past the main gate. immediately I felt at ease knowin our new truck would be sitting in their parking garage for a week. Parking is $12.00/day. No security patrol there, but a reasonable sherriff's dept. presence. We arrived at the port and walked a short distance to the elevator down to the main level, accross one road and directly on to the embarkation building ramp. very speedy and easy access. those wanting even easier access can drop off their luggage curbside, where a porter will eagerly accept $1.00 per bag at your discretion, and then continue on to the parking garage. We waited approximately one-half hour from the time we arrived at the ramp until the doors opened to accept us. Another twenty-five minute wait did not seem unreasonable as we were probably 800th in line. Princess does a good job of routing cruisers to the proper staging area, and within 15 minutes of entering the building we were up the ramp and on the Ship. Pacific Princess is 952 ft long and 18 levels of cruising heaven. We were escorted to our stateroom on Caribe level 10 and opened the door to c406 to find a reasonably sized stateroom and huge balcony (approx 8'x8'). We noticed that not all levels shared this balcony size, so Caribe is a good choice if presented with the option. The ship departed Ft. Lauderdale promptly at 5:00PM and we followed one ship out of the mouth of the port and led out another. (busy day) Time for a quick tour of the ship: (at this point in most seasoned cruisers first hour on the ship, it is a mad dash to the excursion desk. Not so for us with Princess.com online excursion reservations.) we found our way to 15th level where we found three pools, several hot-tubs, two large buffets(already in full swing) and The Princess exclusive "Movies under the Stars" an enormous 10x30 LED movie screen above the center pool. It should be called "Movies all The Time" as most days there was some form of entertainment playing as early as 8:00 AM for kids, progressing throughout the day with screenings of live concert classics and family movies with later screenings leaning more toward PG-13 type flicks. One can see the screen in the direct sunlight with no problems-very impressive indeed! Two rather rough days at sea found a few passengers, including my wife, a little queasy. A word to the sea-sick prone: most cruise lines no longer offer the "patch" as it has 24-72 hr side effects for some. If you are concerned-see a doctor before you leave on your cruise. They do sell dramamine at the ship's store, but that leaves most drowsy. My wife toook meclazine and it fixed her right up. First stop: St. Martin (St. Maarten) WOW! A new-looking pier held three very large ships including Royal's Navigator and Carnival's Triumph along with what appeared to be a 10 million dollar yacht named Sunshine with room to spare. St. Martin is well thought out as virtually everything is within a few minutes walk. Shopping is superb, the beach is gorgeous, the water is brilliant emerald and in my opinion the best shore excursion anywhere is right here: Americas Cup 12 metre challenge. Wow, you must try it! Next Day is St. Thomas, USVI. Not a nice as St. Martin, but well wort the visit, some of the best jewelry prices around, and Magan's Bay Beach makes it all worth it. Another day at sea, on to beautiful Princess Cay for another day on the beach and home the next day for a perfect 7 day cruise!

Ship experiences

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Ship Quality

Cabin / Stateroom

Ports of call

Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas