Tropic5115

Thank you everyone for the great info!  Hopefully we can use EZ check but glad to hear there is a baggage storage option in case EZ check isn't available to us. 

We are sailing on the Sky Princess in a few weeks and after our cruise we must wait around for a 5:30pm flight.  I seem to recall in the past that there was a program offered where you could pay to have your luggage checked in and taken from the ship to the airport, but I can't remember what it was called (or if I am just imagining it).  Does such a thing exist? Does anyone have any other ideas for what to do with the luggage for a few hours, so we don't have to sit in the airport all day.  We are traveling with a 5-year-old, and I already know that trying to entertain him for all those hours in the airport will be a nightmare! We are flying out of FLL on Southwest.

We had that picture appear for us a couple of weeks ago for our 2/25 Regal sailing. Princess then sent us an e-mail asking us to call customer service right away. When we called they told us they just wanted to know how we wanted to receive our medallions. They will ship them to you or you can pick them up at check in. The ones at check in won't have your name on them. It doesn't make a difference to us but we did say they could mail them. We were told to expect the package a few days before the sailing.

These are great suggestions! Thank you!!

My husband and I will be spending two days pre-cruise (Feb. 23rd & 24th) in Fort Lauderdale. We usually fly in the day before and spend our time walking around Las Olas or by the beach. Now that we have two full days we are looking for something a little different. We have a rental car lined up and are willing to drive anywhere within a couple of hours. Any ideas?

We were given an up-sell offer yesterday for our upcoming 7 day Regal sailing (2/25/18). $99 per person to go from a balcony to mini suite. I was hesitant to take it because we were happy with our location and are traveling with two other couples. Called to find out what room they were offering us and to see if the others could get the same deal. Princess was great, allowed all of us the offer and worked with us to find rooms in a location we liked close to each other. Definitely worth it to ask about other rooms if you are not liking their first offer.

Just curious if the loungers were heated? We always enjoy the Thermal Suites and Enclaves on the ships but it was a little disappointing last year when the loungers on Regal were not heated for the entire cruise. That was the first time we ran into this and I'm hoping maybe it was just a technical issue and has been fixed.

Thanks!

jennymaxgirl- we asked for something around 6:30 everyday and usually got 6:45/7:00. They did give us a 6:30 one of the nights. On the formal nights we were told they would not take a reservation before 7:45.

Hi Everyone, we are just back from a wonderful week on the Regal Princess and I thought I would do a quick review in case anyone is interested. We were on the 2/26 sailing and flew down to FLL from Buffalo a day early. We usually run into nasty winter weather in the north but this year it was in the 60's when we left!

We stayed at the Hyatt Place in Plantation to save a little money. We found the hotel rates pretty high for our usual hotels in the FLL area, probably due to being the end of the President’s/winter holiday week. The hotel was very nice, we loved the room. Everything was very clean, the staff was friendly and they had a decent free breakfast.

We rented a car from the airport for the day since we arrived early (8:30am) and knew we couldn’t check in for a few hours. The car worked out great and was returned later that same evening so we wouldn't have to deal with the return in the morning . The rental car place at the airport is very nice and well organized. It was very convenient and so easy to get back to upon our return.

We spent the day driving around by the beach and then had dinner at the Downtowner right on the intercoastal. This was a fun place, very lively, great food and decent prices. It was so nice being outside, watching the boats go by and listening to the band. Would definitely go back again.

Embarkation:

We decided we wanted to head to the ship early since we didn’t have anything planned for the day. Since we were a little farther out from the cruise port we decided to arrange a shuttle service for our group of 4 adults. After contacting a couple of different services I found Howard’s Ground Transportation (from another Cruise Critic Review) and arranged a private shuttle to the cruise port and also for transportation after the cruise. Howard was very prompt at responding to my questions and setting up my arrangements. All of our drivers were wonderful, so friendly right on time. We got a call or text before each pick up time letting us know they were on the way. Would highly recommend this service and will be using them next time we need a shuttle like this.

We got to the pier at around 10:30 and there was already a pretty good line. At about 11:00 they started to let us in for check in. We have priority boarding on princess so check in was very fast and we were sitting up in the lounge within minutes. We only had to wait about 5 minutes before they told us they were ready to start letting us board. This is the first time we were one of the first on the ship and it was so nice to have beat the crowds.

Rooms were ready when we boarded even though they told us they may not be ready until 1:00pm. We were in rooms M321 & M319. We took advantage of a $99 upgrade to a mini suite that was offered a few months ago. This was our first time in a mini suite and we loved all of the extra space. We usually like to be in the back of the ship but ended up in the front due to availability with the upgrade offer. We always prefer to be on one of the higher decks closer to pools and the buffet J I actually really liked our location, it was very quiet and no noise from the above deck. We had a lot of noise last year when we found our room under the buffet kitchen area.

Ship:

We love the Regal Princess, the ship is beautiful. We love the big piazza on the newer ships and some of the newer venues in there. The service all week was wonderful wherever we were. Our room steward was hardly ever seen but always did a great job. We had an issue with our toilet in the room not working and it was fixed right away for us. We had a pretty windy day that knocked our balcony divider open and it was swinging all over the place, our room steward came right away and locked it back up for us. I can’t say enough about the great service by all of the staff!

Dining:

We chose anytime dining but found ourselves making reservations every night to avoid the long waits to get into the dining rooms. I thought the food in the dining rooms was great, there was always at least one item that I wanted to order and didn’t really run into anything thing I really didn’t like. Loved having some Alfredo every night with my entree but missed the Parmesan basket a lot. Two of our group felt that they had trouble finding something every night and were disappointed in the heavily Caribbean and seafood themed menus. Our first and last nights were spent in the specialty restaurants. We always love Crown Grill but this time we were a little disappointed with Sabatini’s. We just felt that the quality was not as good as we remembered from last year on the Regal. We really enjoyed Alfredo’s but only managed to get there once for lunch on embarkation day.

Entertainment:

We normally don’t go to many production shows on board but actually went to a few this time around and thought they were very good. We missed the comedian but heard he was excellent from multiple people. We are movie people and managed to see a few this week- The Oscars was shown the first night and then later in the week we saw Bourne, Keeping up with the Joneses, Moonlight, La La Land, and for some reason I am blanking on the others. I also found myself catching more entertainers in the Piazza than I normally would. I really felt like there was a lot more to see and do than on past cruises.

Ports:

We chose this sailing for the date and not so much the ports. We have never been to Grand Cayman(has always been canceled on other cruises we were on) and have never been to Jamaica on a cruise, although have done a couple of land trips.

Grand Cayman- We chose a ship tour that included the turtle farm and the stingrays. The tour was decent but we were definitely crammed into our van which made the driving a little uncomfortable. I noticed that others from the ship on the same tour were in bigger vans and did not need to use the jump seats so I think we just didn’t luck out this time around. We loved the turtle farm and stingrays but the other stops were just typical tourists traps (Hell & Rum Cake Factory). It was a fun day and I would definitely go again, maybe a private tour next time but for a ship tour this was pretty good.

Montego Bay- We were originally scheduled for Ocho Rios but were switched to Montego Bay a couple weeks before sailing. The ship offered a Hop on Hop off bus to take you to the beach, shopping and a couple other stops.We thought this seemed like a good plan since we wanted to go to the beach and maybe grab some lunch. Instead we ended up waiting in lines for buses…for hours! We got fed up and ended up paying for taxis instead. The way they have it set up is so unorganized and the buses that come around are already full with people going on to other stops. Each time a bus would come, every 15 minutes or so, there was only room for a couple of people. The lines were at least 30 deep each time waiting for bus after bus. It was such a waste of our day, I am still annoyed about the whole thing and should have probably tried to get our money back but I just didn't want to deal with it.

One of the places we did make it to was the Pork Pit for lunch. We ended up walking to it from a bus stop at Margaritaville. We really wanted jerk and if I had known better we would have just hopped in a taxi to scotchies and called it a day. The pork pit was fine but not really jerk IMO,more BBQ. The meat was pretty dry but it was tasty and not very expensive. We never did make it to the beach due to all of the waiting.

Cozumel- Spent the day at Paradise Beach. This was our first time at Paradise Beach,very nice beach and very clean facilities. $3 to get in and use their chairs and umbrellas. You had to make a $10 minimum food/drink purchase but that was easy to do. Food was very pricey but it was still much cheaper than paying for an all-inclusive beach day since we don’t drink that much to make the higher price worth it for us. Our other option was to go to Nachi Cocom for the day but we didn’t want to pre-pay for the whole group in case the weather wasn’t great for a beach day. We may try that out next time when it’s just two of us.

Our ship stayed in Cozumel until 10pm, the latest of any princess cruise port I have been to. We loved the late time, we never felt rushed to get off or on the ship. We actually went back the ship after the day at the beach and we able to shower and head back off the ship for shopping and dinner.

Spa:

We don’t get any spa services but always enjoy the thermal suites and the enclave on the newer ships. We got a couples pass for the week for $249 (it was $149 for a single pass). I loved the enclave last year on Regal but was disappointed this year. The hot stone loungers are no longer hot and we were told on our tour of the spa that they are “cool stone loungers”. Since when? I know they were always barely warm but a cold stone lounger was not enjoyable at all. I ended up laying on the water bed loungers this time around but so did everyone else so there was a wait at times since there are only two. The pool in the enclave was very relaxing but by the end of the week the water was looking pretty gross and a little foam had formed so I stayed out of it the last two days. I find hot tubs to be kind of skeevy to begin with so I’m sure it was ok but to me it was a bit gross. I love the steam rooms and that is the main reason I use the enclave. I missed the aromas they used to put in at least one of them but did notice a nice scent on one occasion towards the end of the week.

Disembarkation:

At the end of the cruise we chose to do walk off and kept our luggage with us. To me there is nothing worse than having to wait around in a lounge to be called to get off the ship. We were off the ship by 7am and our shuttle arrived about 10 minutes after that.

We stayed an extra day to avoid the airport crowds and arrived at our hotel by 7:30. We knew check in wasn’t until 3:00 but wanted the hotel to hold our luggage for us. To our surprise they let us check in and go right to our rooms! That has never happened before and definitely not that early in the morning. We stayed at the Riverside Hotel, which has a wonderful location right on Las Olas. They also have a water taxi stop right at the hotel. The rooms were pretty basic but decent for one night. We didn’t pay to stay in the executive tower which I am hoping are more modern and updated than what we had.

The next morning Howard was there to take us to the airport and we headed home. A great week and a great cruise,can’t wait to plan the next one!

trystran72- It was a small group, I think only 10 of us.

Back to reality after a wonderful week on the Regal. I think DH and I both agree that this was one of our favorite ships.

We spent a pre and post cruise stay at the Hyatt Pier 66, we had loyalty points to use so both stays were free for us. We loved the location of the hotel but really felt that if we had to pay for the room it would not have been worth the price. There are renovated rooms but we definitely did not get one of those. The room was dingy and felt like being in any basic motel room facing a parking lot…Oh well…it was free. We loved walking around the Marina looking at the yachts and walking up and over the 17th street bridge to watch the cruise ships leaving port. Spent some time on Las Olas and walking up and down the Hollywood beach board walk. We actually did a lot more pre-cruise than usual because this time around we rented a car from Avis. We don’t usually rent a car, just try to find a hotel with a good location but when I found out Avis was located right at the Hyatt it made this so convenient and they shuttled us to the pier for no cost the next morning.

Embarkation was a little crazy, we should have waited another hour or so to go to the ship but we were anxious and excited. We arrived right around 12 but they were not boarding yet so the lines to enter the terminal were very long. Even the line for priority boarding was huge but once they did start boarding the line moved very quickly and we were on board in about 15 minutes after that.

No problem going to our room before 1:00, it was ready to go (Riviera 529). We prefer the upper decks and to be in the back of the ship but we booked a little late so this was the best we could do.

The ship is beautiful and the staff were very attentive and friendly all week. We never saw our room steward but he did a great job keeping everything clean and getting in and out around our schedule. We are Elite and decided to switch out our bar set-up for water which was great and they lasted the whole week.

Since we had 3 sea days on this itinerary we bought the week pass to the Enclave. We usually enjoy the Thermal Suites and went every day for an hour to relax before dinner. It was maintained very well, always very clean, an abundance of fresh towels and glasses for water. Luckily it was never busy when were there. I was disappointed that the stone loungers were never heated but still spent time using them. I really liked the fact that you now receive a card to access the room, we always hated to see people using the facilities without paying for the pass since it was so easy to access on other ships.

We felt that the food was excellent this trip. We had lunch on embarkation day at Alfredo’s and really enjoyed the pizza, much better than the ones out on the deck. We ate at Sabatini’s on the first night and Crown Grill on the last, something we do every cruise. Both restaurants had excellent service and food. Always love the International café and actually visited the Gelato shop much more than we thought we would. It was $3.50 for 3 scoops and the nice thing was if you didn’t want three scoops you still paid $3.50 but could come back at any time and get your other scoops you didn’t use. It was marked on the receipt for you. I had no problem eating three scoops at a time :p but I heard others being told about this when they were ordering.

If we were not at a specialty restaurant we are usually in the dining room for dinner (Symphony). We choose anytime dining and went around 8:00pm each night, never waited at all. We enjoyed our fettuccine Alfredo every night along with our regular entrees. I think the Parmesan basket got a little bigger and better each night! There were daily flambé desserts available besides what was on the menu…loved the bananas foster, cherries jubilee and peaches. We didn’t try the Curtis Stone options, we ended up liking the daily selections on the menus each night. We ate most lunches in the buffet or at the grill and found a great selection at both. Like the spread out design of the horizon court, no more long lines to get food. Never any trouble finding a table at lunch either.

We don’t usually love the nighttime entertainment onboard, we usually stick with MUTS most nights. The movies on MUTS last week were The Martian, Bridge of Spies, Woman in Gold and Spectre. We did attend the Voice show that they are doing now and thought that was actually really good. They really did a great job making it a lot like the TV show. There were some great musicians on board throughout the day in the piazza that we really enjoyed stopping and listening to as well.

The ports were fine, we have been to St. Thomas and St. Martin many times. We chose this itinerary for the ship and less for the ports of call. We had a really nice beach day at Princess Cays and rented two of the floating chairs…loved them!

We did the ship tour to St. John/Trunk Bay while in St. Thomas. We have never been to St. John so liked that the ship handled all the transportation there. I would not hesitate to do this again, just beautiful! If you are nervous about transportation to St. John the ship also has a “St. John on your own” that provides the ferry back and forth and lets you do your own thing. The ferry is right at the cruise port so you don’t have to taxi to the other side of the island. I only wish they gave you a little more time. We had less than 3 hours in St. John and could have spent all day if we could.

In St. Martin we walked around the shops and had lunch at the Barefoot Terrace restaurant (right across from where the water taxi parks). The food was decent but they had really great frozen drinks and you can’t beat the view from the upstairs terrace. This was the second time we have been here and will definitely go back. Just a great place to relax with a drink in the shade and watch the happenings on the beach.

I had the opportunity to participate in the Ultimate Ship tour on this voyage, I have signed up before but was never chosen to attend. It seemed pricey at first but it was totally worth it! We saw so many behind the scenes places and I just loved the time we spent on the bridge. Don’t hesitate to do this, it’s a must do just once!

Disembarkation was quick and easy for us, we always choose the walk-off option to avoid the craziness and so we can keep our luggage with us. We had to wait a few minutes in our designated meeting area but were off the ship, through customs and in a taxi in about 15 minutes.

Great week on the Regal, can't wait to see her again next year!:D

Thank you for the advice! I know she would feel much better traveling with a passport if possible.

Hello Everyone,

I am sailing with a group of 8 on the Emerald on February 22. One couple made a last minute decision to join us and needed to also apply for passports. One of the passports came back already but the other is delayed because more information needed to be submitted, there is an issue with a name change. It seems like we should have that passport back in time but if for some reason something happens is it still possible to cruise with another form of documentation? This particular person does have an enhanced drivers licence but I know that probably isn't sufficient.

Thank you for your help!

I have family members who are sailing on the Regal this October (Barcelona to Venice), how can we find out which nights are the formal nights? They are really into formal nights and want to make sure not to plan any tours that won't get them back with plenty of time to get ready.

Just off the Feb. 9th sailing, inside cabin M-531.. Avoid this location at all cost if noise from above bothers you. We typically book rooms on the upper decks and are used to some noise from chairs and things being moved around early morning and late evening and it never really bothers us. This time we must have been under the Horizon Court kitchen and ALL night long there were carts rolling above us, things dropping, clanking, it was very difficult to sleep and I can sleep through anything.

Thank you so much for all of your helpful comments! We are going to have to make a decision tonight. Luckily we have travel insurance just in case this doesn't all work out. Crossing my fingers.

DH and I are cruising out of FLL this Sunday and unfortunately we were unable to leave a day ahead due to a work issue. Right now we have a Jet Blue flight at 5:45am out of Buffalo and a connection that leaves JFK at 8:00am. We tried to book the earliest flight we could in case of delays.

I am starting to panic because of another winter storm set to hit the NYC area Sunday and I know that Jet Blue and JFK could possibly be a travel nightmare because of it. It’s still too early to really know timing of the storm or exactly where it will hit but I am wondering if booking a second flight as a plan B would be a good idea or if an 8:00am flight from JFK is possibly early enough to avoid problems.

I found a nonstop flight Spirit Airlines (I don’t know anything about this airline) at a smaller regional airport not too far away. The flight leaves at 2am on Sunday and arrives around 5am in FLL. It’s going to cost us about $350 for two one way tickets. I hate to have two flights booked because I’m paranoid but I’m not really sure what other options we have. It looks like if the Jet Blue flight is canceled I would get a refund and if both flights run then we would be out the $100 jet Blue charges to cancel a flight and just have a credit to use later. Ugh. I really NEED this cruise!!!

Does anyone have any experience with Spirit Airlines?

Am I being paranoid?:eek:

Thank you so much for all of the great advice! My husband runs a banquet hall and has a wedding the night before so a red eye flight is not an option from Buffalo as he wont get out of work until well after midnight. We decided to cancel the Southwest flight and found the earliest flight possible, Jet Blue leaving at 5:45am (through JFK) and arriving in FLL a little after 11:00am. I feel bad he wont get any sleep but I would rather be safe and make that ship.

Still nervous about a connection through JFK in the winter but I did notice that Jet Blue has two more flights from JFK at later times that could still get us there in plenty of time. I made sure to get travel insurance so all we can do now is cross our fingers and toes and pray there is no major snow storm that weekend.

All I can say is I've never had to fly in the day of for a cruise and I will do everything possible to avoid it in the future. Way too much stress and not a fun way to start your vacation! :)

Thank you for your advice! Time to start looking for another option.

My husband and I are sailing on the Royal Princess this February and this year we are unable to fly in a day early because of my husbands work schedule.

We are flying from Buffalo to Fort Lauderdale and thought booking a direct flight on Southwest would be a little safer than dealing with a connection in the winter months. I'm not sure what I was thinking because I just realized the ship leaves at 4pm and we arrive at 2:40! Is it crazy to think we might actually make it? Should I book a connecting flight if it can get us there a little earlier (around 1:15)? For some reason I was thinking the ship left at 5:00 and we had until 4:30 to board. I could just kick myself!:(

Just curious if anyone who has taken this princess excursion or something similar? Did you enjoy it, was it worth going on? We really wanted to do some type of excursion in Belize and need something less strenuous for some of the members of our party.

Thanks for your help!:)