Crown Princess Caribbean - Dec 12-19, 2009

We were on the December 12 -19th sailing of the Crown Princess for a 7 day Caribbean Cruise from Fort Lauderdale. We had sailed on the Crown in February 2008 on a 14 day Caribbean B2B but what attracted us to this itinerary was four new locations not visited and a very attractive price. We booked in July and looked forward to the December departure. We were pleased to be accompanied by two friends who were on their first cruise. Not taking any chances with winter weather, we left Halifax on Dec 11th and had no problems reaching Florida on an Air Canada flight via Toronto. We had chosen the Comfort Inn near Sawgrass Mills for an overnight which gave us an opportunity to do some pre-cruise and Christmas shopping. We rented a car at the Hollywood airport and were at our Hotel by 2:30 p.m. Off to Sawgrass until 7:00 p.m., then dinner at Cheddars which was a block from the Comfort Inn. After a complimentary breakfast on Saturday we re-packed the car and made our way to the beach at Lauderdale-by-the Sea for a stroll and to enjoy the quiet ambiance of this quaint area just north of Lauderdale Beach. The town square was nicely decorated for Christmas. We visited a few shops before heading to Port Everglades at noon to drop off our luggage. There were five ships including RCL's Oasis of the Seas departing that day. Traffic was heavy but we managed to rid ourselves of the luggage not to be seen again until we arrived in our cabin. We made a quick trip back to the Airport to return the car intending to take a shuttle back to Everglades. We were disappointed to learn that Avis didn't provide a shuttle to Everglades so we hopped a cab ($20 for 4) and were at the Crown in less than fifteen minutes.

The weather was quite nice (partly sunny and low 80's) through most of the day. As afternoon progressed, the skies began to get increasingly cloudy. Read more