Our First Princess Cruise

 Our First Princess Cruise

One of the things we wanted to do while being snowbirds in Florida is take advantage of being near the cruise ports. So far, I've been booking our cruises over a year in advance because I found we get good locations and the prices are pretty low when the cruises first come out. 

Our second cruise was booked on the Sky Princess for December 15th, 2024, for seven days. It cost us about $3600 CAD, which is a pretty good price considering it was a balcony room, close to the center of the ship and it included Princess plus. Princess plus includes all gratuities and 15 alcoholic drinks per day as well as specialty coffees and premium desserts. It also included two casual restaurant bookings.

We were going to take an Uber from West Palm Beach to Fort Lauderdale but the small print in the booking for the Uber said they couldn't guarantee there would be a driver available. That was not acceptable as we wouldn't want to miss our cruise. We ended up driving there and parking at the Park N Go. It was very easy and cost just under $90 USD for the week. There were constant buses shuttling us to the cruise terminal and they knew exactly where we needed to be dropped off for our Sky Princess cruise. We're glad we went with them!

As a bonus, the little card they gave us to find our car when we got back had a little prayer for us. (Wasn't that special?)

Embarkationn was a little chaotic because they used the same area to line the people boarding as those that were disembarking and taking a bus or taxi. That was it bit dumb, in my opinion.

The atrium was very posh and they had a huge Christmas tree set up. I get up so early that it was nice that the coffee shop was open 24 hours a day.

We had some on-board credit we wanted to use up, so we bought three tickets to the Deal or No Deal game. It was a lot of fun, but we didn't win and we didn't get chosen to be a contestant on stage. At $50 for three tickets, that was a bit expensive for our tastes. 

Ship Crew Excercise

During our first stop, I think it was the Dominican Repulblic, the crew did some exercises with the life boats. It's good to see they are familiar with launching them, 'cause you never know, right? We didn't get off the boat that day and just enjoyed the ships activities.

Fancy Christmas Photos

Bruce and I are getting pretty good at taking selfies. It's fun to do and lately we aren't just taking photos up our nostrils. 

Fun Drinks we tried

There were a few favourite drinks we tried on board. I liked the really boozy ones and Bruce likes the very sweet and fruity ones. The Negroni was a favourite of mine. 

Fancy Dress Night

I bought a new dress just for the trip. I didn't wear the leather like belt that came with it because it bugged me, but I like the dress itself.

Our first Tender ride

Going to the Caymen Islands meant we needed to take a tender. We didn't get a tour for this stop and had a pretty nice time just walking around and seeing the nice beach. Next time we will definitely take our snorkel gear and swimsuits.

A view of the ship from the shore.

There were a couple ships in port that day.

From the shore we could see an old sunken ship.

It cracked me up when I saw this sign in the McDonald's restaurant bathroom that we got a drink at.

The beach was absolutely gorgeous! Too bad we didn't bring our swimsuits.

On the tender boat going back to the ship.

Bruce is enjoying his dirty banana drink. (Lots of cream and chocolate.)

Later, we had more boozy drinks. My favourite of all drinks is the Manhatten. (but the Rob Roy is good too... I love them all.)

You can see the most exquisite sunsets at sea!

Princess gives us $250 each of onboard credit, just for being military veterans. We had the drink package so we had to burn through it at the store the last night we were there. Lots of fun stuff, including a couple bottles of booze.

Total Costs in CAD:

Princess Cruise with Princess Plus package: $3,633.22 CAD includes $340 USD on board credit

Parking at Fort Lauderdale cruise port: $87 USD

Total cost of Trip: $3720.22 CAD or $265.73 per person per day.