From April 3rd to April 13th 2009, I completed a 10 day cruise roundtrip Panama Canal cruise departing from Port Everglades (Fort Lauderdale Florida) aboard the Island Princess. This was the fourth ship in the Princess cruise line that I had sailed on to date—the others being the Sapphire Princess, the Golden Princess and the Diamond Princess. I shared an inside stateroom with a Captain's Circle Platinum member. Two other family members in our party shared a second inside stateroom just down the hallway from us.

Embarkation:

We decided to make independent arrangements for transfers to the ship in port from the airport. Upon retrieving our luggage at Ft Lauderdale / Hollywood International Airport we were met by a uniformed chauffeur who offered to taxi us in his oversized town car to the port for a fixed fee of $40... a bargain. Curbside at the port building we were met by porters who immediately took custody of our luggage (tagged with our stateroom numbers). We tipped them the customary $1 per bag. Thereafter we proceeded to the terminal check-in counter. There were no line-ups or wait time. Upon filling in our medical questionnaires we were immediately attended to by a CSR at the Platinum Captain Circle check in section, who took our signed sail passes (we had completed pre check in on line) our credit cards, passports and then immediately issued our dual purpose cruise cards (magnetic stripe used as an electronic stateroom entry key and for gangway access control) and also used to accumulate on board account charges (no cash required on board). Read more