My First Princess Cruise
Sky Princess berthed at Terminal 2 Port Everglades
Oddly enough the suggestion to try Princess came from a crew member I was talking to on my last cruise with Royal Caribbean in October 2018. He suggested Princess as an upscale line that he felt would suit me well. After 19 cruises with Royal Caribbean, I was ready for a change and decided to book with Princess. After returning home, I set to the task of researching Princess and selecting an itinerary.
For me, cruising is about warm tropical weather, palm trees and the expansive blue ocean waters. When I think cruise, I think Caribbean. Overall my favorite itinerary is the eastern Caribbean especially St. Thomas and Sint Maarten/St. Martin. I do like the western Caribbean as well but mainly for the calm waters of the Gulf. Sky Princess was the new ship in the fleet so I took a look at the itineraries. As it turned out Sky Princess had a 7 night eastern Caribbean sailing, so I booked for December 2020. You can guess what happened next. In July 2020 I received this in my email:
It is increasingly clear that the world will not be ready to return to sailing as soon as we hoped. So today, Princess is announcing that we will extend our global pause of operations and as a result, your cruise vacation has been cancelled.
Princess was more than generous offering to double my deposit along with an upgrade from inside cabin (my normal booking) to a balcony. I was disappointed to have to wait but certainly glad I did.
Preparations
For me, planning a cruise is at least as enjoyable as going on a cruise. I like to be as prepared as I can be and plan out as much in advance as possible. I know there will be plenty of surprises but at least I can minimize them as much as possible. This is especially true when planning a cruise on a new ship and in this case an entirely new line with its own set of procedures and corporate culture. In addition, Princess was rolling out its new Medallion Class experience which required a lot of research to find the best way to take advantage of this new technology.
Travel Logistics
One of the first things I get sorted out after I book my cruise is to sort out the travel logistics. My wife and I were planning to be in Orlando the week before the cruise, so I needed to arrange to get from Orlando to Ft. Lauderdale to meet the ship in Port Everglades. My wife would be returning home after our Florida stay as she is not fond of being on the water but is very gracious in allowing me to sail solo.
Hotel
After traveling for years for my work, I have the benefit of having Lifetime Titanium status at Marriott along with having points left in my account. So, I decided to leverage both and book at The Renaissance Fort Lauderdale Cruise Port Hotel for the night before the cruise. This hotel was right next to the cruise port and had some shops and restaurants within walking distance. Using my points, I booked a corner room that I hoped would allow me to see the cruise port from the room.
Flights
For the flight to Fort Lauderdale I ended up booking with Southwest which had a low cost direct flight. That way I only had a short ride over to the hotel. Southwest also allows you to check two bags at no additional cost, I only needed one bag checked but nice to have the option. For the flights home I chose American Airlines as I had points on that airline.
Planning The Cruise
Now that the logistics were done, I started to plan my daily itinerary for the cruise. I’ll share this in a future post but for planning I use a Word document that I’ve used for every cruise and updated and improved for each one. The first page is a table with all my logistical information, Cruise Booking Number, Air, Hotel, etc. Then I have a page for each day of my cruise including the planning for the day before the cruise. This is critical and where I spent the majority of my pre-cruise research. I like to have all my ducks in a row as I’m not the best at logistics, so I need to be sure I have it all thought out in advance and written down. All the way down to researching the best route the taxi should take leaving the hotel to take me to the port. (by the way, from the Renaissance, you take a right as you leave the hotel, then two more rights which takes you to a traffic light. From there you go directly into the port entrance. If you go left from the hotel (the intuitive route) you will end up in a very long line waiting to enter the port. By going around the back of the hotel and arriving at the stop light, you are able to cross in front of that line. I got these directions reading a Facebook post about staying at the hotel prior to a cruise). The details that people write or show are the key to gaining the intelligence needed to plan ahead and for me, it’s fun, and adds to the whole experience. I love when I arrive in a new place and I already know so much about it that it’s almost like I’ve already been there.
Finding Information on Princess
It turns out that Princess has a large and loyal patronage so finding information about Princess was pretty easy. It helped that Sky Princess was a new ship and participated in the UK "stay-cations". There were many cruise vlogs posted on YouTube showing cabin tours and general ship tours.
Ocean Medallion
Sky Princess was built as a Medallion Class ship meaning the new Ocean Medallion technology was designed into the ship right from the start. The Ocean Medallion technology is an integrated solution combining a mobile app, passenger information systems, onboard guest interactions and location tracking.
Setting up the Medallion Class app is not always easy and here again I looked to the internet for help. (I later came across this excellent blog post (Preparing For Your Princess Cruise in 2022) on setting up the medallion class app by prof.cruise)
Resources Online
There are several "go to" sites when researching for a cruise or getting information about cruising. Here are some suggestions.
Let's Go Travel Tips (excellent information on Princess)
Conclusion
I hope you found this post to be of some value. My intention is to expand on the topics introduced in this first post and other random thoughts as they arrive in my sieve-like brain. That way I don’t forget them and possibly they may be of some benefit to you.
