Our trip aboard the Sea Princess was our first cruise and began with a flight to Gatwick airport in London, an overnight stay in the Sofitel at Gatwick and a flight the following morning with Thomas Cook Airlines to Fort Lauderdale. All of the above were excellent and it gave us a chance to have a night out in London even though we had a 5am start the following morning!

When we arrived in Fort Lauderdale it was approximately 2 hours 30 minutes before we got on board the ship, even though the airport and port are only 10 minutes apart. US Immigration was the first problem (not the fault of Princess Cruises obviously). We queued for over an hour in what seemed like a non air conditioned room just to be allowed into the country.

Then we stood outside the airport in the open for 30 minutes, carrying our luggage waiting for the coaches to arrive. This, I feel, was bad organization on the part of Princess cruises. The coaches should have been there waiting for us. It didn't help either that they guy who was loading the bags onto the coach was being abusive to some of the older passengers. Maybe it was just his nature but to us it was incredibly rude and gave a bad impression of Florida and of Princess Cruises. (My impression of both changed completely over the course of the following two weeks. See below). Read more