Crown Princess Review 7/14/2007-7/23/2007

Embarkation:

We left our house in the Bronx at about 10:45 a.m. and made it to the pier with little traffic by 11:30. We accidentally checked 2 of our carry on bags, but I chased the cart and the porter was friendly as I took them off. He said our luggage would be at our room about 2 hours later. It wasn't. We proceeded to the check in where we showed our info, got our cards from a very friendly counter agent and were directed to a holding area. We were given a number which we didn't need as we had priority embarkation as we are Captain's Circle members. We went to a little holding room where we were told we would wait until 12:00pm. We waited and watched Hannah Montana on the Disney Channel for about 10 minutes until the door opened up and they let us on. We were on the ship by 11:50am. Never got to finish the episode...sigh. Once we got on, we went right to our room, which was Caribe 210. This cabin had a very large balcony on the Port side. We have been on 3 Princess cruises before and this was our biggest balcony. It had 2 upright chairs and a table, and two lounge chairs and a little table where you could put drinks, etc. At this time, we met our cabin steward, Raul from Mexico City. He was very personable and hard working. I gave him a $20 up front and he was very appreciative. I asked for an egg crate for the bed. He said he didn't know if he could get it, but he would try his best. It was there by the second day. I had a bad back for about 1 month before we left for the cruise. By the third day, my back felt great. Thanks, Raul! After checking out the room, we went to the totally un-crowded buffet. There weren't too many other people on the ship yet, so it felt like we had the ship to ourselves. We had plenty of chairs and tables to choose from and we went outside above the Terrace Pool right behind Sabatini's to have our first meal. We overlooked the Manhattan skyline and it was very nice. We then toured the ship which we had seen the year before. We made a point of going to places we hadn't gone to last summer. We went to the gym, the spa and other deck areas. For sail-away, we enjoyed the sail-away party on the Lido Deck for a little while. A Coast Guard helicopter was buzzing around above the ship waving and putting on a show. After a few cocktails and songs by the band we then went up above Skywalker's to the mini golf course. It was very windy up here, but well worth it. When we went under the Verazanno Narrows Bridge, it almost felt like you could touch it. After sail-away we went back to our room to get ready for dinner. We had anytime dining, so it didn't matter what time we got to dinner. This was good as we still hadn't gotten our luggage after being on the ship for almost 7 hours. Our luggage arrived as we were getting ready. Being that we had anytime dining, it wasn't that big of a worry as we knew we could wait a little longer in case it didn't arrive. Our garment bag with our formal wear didn't arrive until we were almost ready for dinner and we were worried about it, but it did come. Read more