We had only been on one previous cruise, and that was an Alaskan Cruise-tour in August of 2010 on the Diamond Princess. Therefore our basis of comparison is quite limited. We enjoyed that trip and decided to leave the Indiana winter for one week in January 2012 to experience a Caribbean cruise. Since we enjoyed the Diamond Princess, we decided to stay with Princess. One of the advantages was that the layout of the ship was very familiar to us, and getting around the ship was very easy.

We flew into FLL the day before we were to start our cruise. We did not want to risk any last minute weather delays getting to the ship by flying in on cruise day. We had purchased the transfer from the airport to the Embassy Suites from Princess. The transfer went smoothly. Check in was quick and we were quickly in our room. The Embassy Suites was very similar to the one in Indianapolis, so there was no surprise for us. There were restaurants close by for eating. The morning breakfast was adequate and similar to the one in Indy.

On the day of embarkation, a Sunday, the luggage was picked up from our room shortly after 9:00. All Princess transfer passengers were to meet at 11:00 in the lobby; however, the Princess rep did not get there until 15 or 20 minutes after 11. We were given colored tags representing which bus was to take us to the terminal; we were on bus #1. We had to view and identify our luggage in the holding area or it would not be marked for transfer to the ship. I guess this was so that we could ensure our picked up luggage was actually in the holding area and not in some other place in the hotel. We had attached the Princess luggage tag to each piece of luggage; so we did not see our luggage again until it had been delivered to our stateroom. Read more