Steve (DOS) and I are currently sailing on a seven day Caribbean Cruise aboard the beautiful Sky Princess.
We drove down to Ft. Lauderdale from Orlando on Friday morning, and another four hours later we were checking into the Hyatt Place, near Port Everglades Cruise Port. We stayed just the one night, as we always like to arrive at the cruise port a day ahead of time, or longer if we are flying to a distant cruise port.
We were originally scheduled to be on the “Love Boat” Cruise leaving Saturday out of the port of Los Angeles, on the Majestic Princess. We were really looking forward to that “Love Boat” theme cruise as it was in memory of the TV show Captain, Gavin McCleod, who would have been 90 years old this week (he passed last year), and the original cast of the Love Boat (Julie, Doc, Gopher, Issac, and Jill) would be sailing on then as well, with special events planned during the cruise. Only a couple weeks ago, however, the theme of the cruise was canceled due to “Scheduling Conflicts”, which in this day and age probably means “COVID” conflicts.
The cruise itself wasn’t canceled, but I would imagine the TV show’s cast was a bit leery being around and up-close to so many people with potential COVID cases still going around. Who knows, but the “Love Boat” themed cruise has been changed to Oct 22, 2022, and we’re planning on going on that then, which is DOS’s birthday week as well. Want to join us? It should be a lot of fun!
Meanwhile, Princess let us cancel or change the cruise due to the change of theme circumstances, and we chose the Sky Princess for the same week as it’s close to home, and here we are now!
Cruise Embarkation: Day One
We parked the car in the Terminal Two garage, yellow level, and took a photo to jog our memory upon return of where we had parked. Then we took the elevator to floor 5, where there is a skywalk over to the terminal.
Check-in was a breeze after first going thru security. As we had changed our cruise ship a couple weeks before sailing, we had to pick up our new medallions for the Sky Princess at the port in Ft. Lauderdale. The Medallion comes with a lanyard, although we prefer wearing ours on our wristband, and it functions as your room key and charge account aboard the ship. Best of all its waterproof!
We then boarded the ship around 11 am, with no delays or waiting. We first headed up to the Guest Services to enquire about reserving the Chef’s Table one night, but it was still being determined if there would be one this cruise or not, so the agent took our names and cabin, and would get back to us. Later that evening we received a message from our Concierge that the Chef’s Table was all confirmed! We’ve only done the Chef’s Table once on the inaugural sailing of the Enchanted Princess, but enjoyed it so much we are looking to do it again on Tuesday, March 1.
As we still had our carry-on luggage we headed to our room in hopes of dropping it off, even if the room itself was not ready (a sign said rooms would be ready after 1pm.) Fortunately when we got to our room around 11:15, it was all ready, and sparkling clean.
We have a beautiful Penthouse Suite with large corner aft balcony on Emerald Deck 8. Our room has a nice floor plan to it, and the balcony, while not as deep as the one we had on deck 9 on the Enchanted, has both full size lounge chairs and two sets of table chairs as well.
Here are some photos of the room.
Full size suites come with a few nice perks, two of which DOS likes especially: Breakfast in Sabatini’s specialty restaurant, and FREE laundry service, while the third perk we both enjoy is the use of the Concierge Lounge which we like going to in the evening for drinks and conversation with some of the other passengers.
We explored the ship prior to sail-away, which is virtually identical to the Enchanted Princess we went on in November, with some differences in Decor, and a couple public room pluses and minuses, but overall very similar and easy to get around. Here are some photos we took onboard before the ship was busy with the 2,000 passengers we would have on this cruise. The 2,000 plus passengers is double what we’ve had on the last two cruises, so we’re so happy to see people starting to cruise again.
unfortunately, but it’s on all the other Princess ships.
For the sail-away from Ft. Lauderdale at 4:30pm, DOS and I went up to deck 16 which overlooks the pools down below. We especially like sailing out of Ft. Lauderdale and going past the beach-front condos there, where people are often cheering from their balconies or taking photos, as well as on ground level on the beach and by the rocks area there.
After sail-away we went back to our room to change for the Concierge Club and dinner. Fortunately all of our checked luggage had been delivered to our room, and we quickly unpacked before taking a couple sunset pics on the balcony, and then heading up to the Club for pre-dinner drinks.
Complimentary cocktails are served each evening in the Concierge Lounge, and even though we have the inclusive drink package, it’s nice to socialize for a while before dinner. We met another couple in the lounge from California, and we ended up having dinner together at the Crown Grille specialty restaurant.
Day Two: At Sea
The second day of the cruise was a sea day, which we always love as you can relax with no shore excursions to worry about, and just have a relaxing day at sea and watch the wake of the ship from our aft balcony, and occasionally another ship from afar, such as this NCL ship which we would later see the next day in port. I zoomed in a bit to see which ship it was, and it is the huge Norwegian Joy.
We did get our walking steps in though on the 17th floor jogging track. We walked for 35 minutes, and although we didn’t count the number of laps, 7 times around the track is one mile.
So as we had burned off some calories, we next had pizza at Alfredo’s! Alfredo’s is a complimentary sit-down Pizza restaurant, where you can have a salad, pizza, and even dessert if you still have room (which we didn’t).
The second night was Formal Night, and our Concierge had sent us a special party invitation for Suite Guests at 5:30pm in the Take Five Jazz Lounge, which we were happy to attend. At the door to the lounge we were met by our Concierge who then introduced us to both the Captain and Hotel Director of the ship. This was quite an honor to meet the most senior officers on the ship in a private setting, as normally you don’t have an opportunity to meet them as you could in the “old days” before ships got to big as to make this impractical.
We had a nice cocktail hour in the lounge and sat with our new friends from Southern California.
After the cocktail hour, DOS and I went to dinner in the Club Class section of the dining room. We had an excellent dinner in the more intimate Club Class section of the dining room, and our two servers were fantastic!
Raju is shorter and from India, and should have been a comedienne! Raju was really funny and made you laugh, while Winsu was from the Philippines and is taller at 6’2″. The two guys worked really well together, and the restaurant manager himself checked in with us a couple times as well. We’ve really been impressed with the Club Class Dining on all three Princess ships we’ve taken.
At 9:15pm, we went to the Princess Theater were we saw the wonderful performance of “Rock Opera”. We had seen this on both the Enchanted and Emerald, and it is definitely one of the better shows we’ve seen over the years on several cruise lines. I guess I’m partial to some of the music which comes from the epic movie “The Greatest Showman”, but the high energy show is really tops for us, and we and most of the audience gave the cast a standing ovation. Here is a gallery of some of the pics from Rock Opera.
As usual, I closed out the night in the International Cafe, a 24 hour venue located in the Piazza, which offers complimentary sandwiches as well as cookies and cakes. I had a ham and cheese croissant which complimented my Lagunitas IPA beef, before heading to bed by midnight.
We’re having a wonderful time so far, and it’s only the second day aboard the Sky Princess. More to come . . . Goodnight!