Caribbean Princess Review -OutRunning Irene August 27, 2011

This cruise was an annual mother-daughter cruise that almost wasn't. We watched the progress of Irene for several days and felt confident that Princess would never put passengers and a ship in danger. Besides, if the cruise isn't cancelled, our cancellation insurance isn't much good to us! We forged ahead, caught our flights to Toronto and then onto New York. The majority of our stress, unfortunately, came from outrageously incorrect information. I plead with cruise critic members to check your sources before you post. Manhattan was not being forced to evacuate at 5a.m. the morning of our cruise nor had Red Hook been forced to close. These, tidbits of wrong rumours nearly convinced us to needlessly disembark from our flight in Toronto. Fortunately my husband, back home in Edmonton, was able to get thru to Princess, who encouraged us to keep our itinerary.

Having vented that, I'll begin my review. We had received notice via email and phone msg from Princess that embarkation would begin at 10 a.m. due to Irene. I called DIAL 7 and changed our car pickup time from our previously arranged time of 1pm to 8am. I wasn't taking any chances with getting out of Manhattan (where we were staying at the Holiday Inn Express) and was concerned with taxi and car availability. My fears were completely unfounded and we were at Red Hook in no time. Dial 7 is fabulous by the way. Embarkation didn't begin til around 11 but no matter, everyone was so thrilled to be actually going on this cruise that the mood was very upbeat. Read more