My husband (31) and I (30) went on our first cruise with good friends. Hopefully it is not our last experience. We had a really really great time and are pretty impressed with the Caribbean Princess. Ft. Lauderdale: we flew in a day early because experience tells us that there is a very good chance of having a delayed/canceled flight, so we weren't taking any chances. We stayed at the Amerisuites on 17th St. It's pretty much a dump, but the room was very clean. All Amerisuites are turning into Hyatt Places by next year, so the hotel should be a lot nicer by next summer.The pool was gross, I wouldn't stick my foot in it. There is a shopping plaza behind the hotel, with a grocery store. We bought several bottles of wine/champagne to bring on board (Princess allows this). The man at the grocery store who helped us in the alcohol section was pretty knowledgeable about wines, he helped us picked out a few good ones. We went out that night to Riverwalk and 2nd Street, off of Los Olas Blvd. We had a great time partying.

Embarkation: Very smooth and quick. The line is LONG, but goes very quickly. We were impressed by how Princess has this down to a science.

Ship: We were overwhelmed by the size of the ship. It is so big, we hardly ever felt like there were 3000 passengers on board. It was fairly easy to find 4 lounge chairs together, even on days at sea. The pools are small, definitely just for cooling off. The hot tubs are nice, and surprisingly, were often not crowded. The huge TV screen is cool, although we never got a chance to do MUTS, we were always busy doing something! Maybe next time. The ship was also very clean, very few signs of wear and tear. I constantly saw crew members doing maintenance, painting, cleaning, etc. Read more