Background: DW and I are in our mid 40s and, including this trip, have shared 19 wonderful cruises together. We have cruised on several different lines, however, lately, all things being equal (which they rarely are), we have tended to choose Princess. This was our 5th Princess cruise (finally platinum -yeah!) and second on the Caribbean Princess. On this trip we had in tow my Father in Law AKA the Grumpy Old Man (GOM), GOM's cousin (TP) and a friend of the family (TW) who travels with us quite a bit.

Getting There: Given the current state of air travel, we generally like to fly in a day early where possible and this trip was no exception. We stayed at the Best Western close to the pier, which was fine for us. Just need a room to sleep in before the real vacation starts. We were in the lobby at 9:45 am in hopes of catching the first shuttle to the port and since we were first in line we were on our way at 10:30.

Embarkation: DW likes to get to the ship early in hopes that one day we can get on early. But since that never actually happens, we sat in the cruise terminal until around noon at which time they began the process. We were in Group 3 and on the ship within a half an hour and after dropping our carry ons in the room we were off to the buffet. Read more