We were on the Eastern Caribbean Sept. 2nd sailing of the Caribbean Princess. Although this cruise was during hurricane season, everything went fine and we had calm seas the entire time. We are a married couple in our early 30's without children. We flew in the day of from Toronto, Canada. Although this made for a long day, we had no problems arriving to the ship on time and with all our bags. As others have given overviews of the ship and ports of call, I will try to make this review more about the fine points and details concerning the cruise.
We have sailed out of Galveston, TX four times on various ships and always had long waits for embarkation, debarkation, and customs/immigration. Ft. Lauderdale's level of port organization is amazing! We arrived via taxi from the airport. We chose not to go with the Princess shuttle and were glad. They waited until the bus was nearly full before heading to the ship. The taxi fare was $20 (with a nice tip) each way, so it was not only cheaper but faster than the Princess transfer. Upon arrival, porters were there to greet the taxi and see if we would like assistance. They were not pushy or insistent and we were glad to use them. From there we walked to the entrance of the port building and filled out health questionnaires. Once these were handed in, we went to the area marked Baja, as the check-in process is divided into ship floors making the process quick and easy. Our taxi arrived at 1:05 pm and we were stepping onboard the ship at 1:30 pm. Once you are checked in there are two entry points for the ship, one for those with a stateroom in the front and another for those with a stateroom in the back of the ship, so there wasn't the usual hike to find your stateroom. Upon arriving at our stateroom (an inside category JJ cabin) we found two yummy cookies greeting us. This has been a nice welcome every time we cruise with Princess. I had ordered chocolate covered strawberries (an $8 charge), fruit, and robes online through the Princess Personalizer prior to sailing and none were there. The strawberries arrived sometime during dinner that evening and were worth the money, but the other items never did. However, our cabin steward was happy to fill these requests and did so promptly.
We had scheduled Anytime Dining knowing we would make a standing nightly reservation so we could have the same table and waiters each night at the time that suited us. We went to Sabatinis to make the arrangements, but found that location was only for those changing their fixed dining time or making reservations for the specialty restaurants. All we had to do was call the dining number from our stateroom telephone. (The number is on the phone.) We chose the Palm Dining room and asked for Table #134 Alpha. It is a quiet table for two by the window in a small area at one end of the dining room. They happily accommodated our request for 6 pm each evening. We are big Movies Under the Stars (MUTS) fans though and should have made our reservations for 5:45 pm so we didn't have to rush to make it to the 7 pm showing each evening. I will give more details on Movies Under the Stars programming later in this review.