This is our fourth cruise with Princess, and there is no doubt that it was the best ever! We are both in our 60s, myself 61 and still working, and my travel companion (hereafter referred to as AJB) is 69 and retired. We chose this itinerary after after been on two one-week Caribbean cruises to the western and eastern Caribbean, and a two week cruise to Hawaii last year, to escape from the Canadian winter and relax completely. We were not disappointed.

Pre-cruise we stayed at our usual hotel, the Fort Lauderdale Grande (see review on trip advisor). It is close to the cruise port, but since that hotel no longer offers a shuttle service we had to take a taxi over and ended up at the Royal instead of the Emerald Princess! We almost went to the Amazon! But the porter had noticed the tags, kept our bags aside, hailed down a van, and convinced him to transport us over to the Emerald so it all ended well.

We embarked remarkably quickly given the number of people in line--I was very impressed! Before we knew it we were up in the Horizon Court having a delicious lunch with four other people and a great discussion of what we all hoped to get out of the cruise. By the time we got back to the room, the luggage was already there and we were able to get unpacked and ready for fun. Read more