LIVE fron the APRIL 1st CARIBBEAN PRINCESS- PICS and REVIEW

[MDSue]

Oh, thank you and more thank you.. we leave on the Caribbean Sunday..

you make it so much more excitable.

Looking forward to more pics... You know you're the best for doing this.

Cathy

 

Thnaks Cathy! I hope you have a wonderful trip! I'd love to be back again already. It is in the 50's at home today- not liking this weather at all.

[DeloreanGirl]

She's a beaut! I used your photos as my desktop background wallpaper here at work. Fantastic shots!

 

(Ah yes, and the sparkling Caribbean shots aren't half bad either... ;)).

[Caribensun]

Thank you, we like forward too and liked your photos from the ship.

Really appreciate your taking time to do this post with all of the pics.

[JWJs]

Thanks Sue for all of the fabulous pictures and comments! You just can't beat looking through all of your posts/pictures (more than a couple of times) when you are "hungry" for a cruise like I am right now!

 

BTW...your photography is wonderful. Great shots! Still love the one with the "little fish" hanging out with you the "bestest" :) and I loved all of your beach and ship pics!

 

The camera you used was a Canon? And which lens or lenses?

Edited April 12, 2012 by JWJs

[Tyskie]

Thank you so much for the great pictures.................we have been on CB several times and she is one of my favorite ships. We went to Sapphire beach last May...............still love Coki but was pleasantly surprised. Out buildings are "run-down" but beach and water great.

[MDSue]

Thanks Sue for all of the fabulous pictures and comments! You just can't beat looking through all of your posts/pictures (more than a couple of times) when you are "hungry" for a cruise like I am right now!

 

BTW...your photography is wonderful. Great shots! Still love the one with the "little fish" hanging out with you the "bestest" :) and I loved all of your beach and ship pics!

 

The camera you used was a Canon? And which lens or lenses?

 

Hi, I still think about my little fish friend- he really made my day and I truly hope that other swimmers at Cane Garden Bay are protecting him from the hungry birds. I felt bad for him cause he didn't seem to have a fish family to swim with.

 

I used two different cameras on my trip. I had a brand new Sony TX10 that I used for most of the pictures up until the time it died in the waters of Dominica. I don't seem to have good luck with waterproof cameras. The camera took great shots for a little pocket camera, but I wasn't crazy about the touch screen, mainly because I couldn't see what I was doing, especially in the bright sunshine.

 

The other camera that I used was my Canon T2i. since it is bigger and bulky, especially if I carry both lens, I left it on the ship for most days, but I took it with me to Antigua and Barbados. I used it exclusively for the last 3 days of our trip because the Sony was broken. I bought this camera in St. Maarten at my favorite camera store there. It came with an 18-135mm lens. I splurged and bought another 70-300mm lens (I can't remember the exact model number, but I can check when I get home). Both lenses come with an image stabilization feature which helps with lens shake when taking pictures. I used the 18-135mm lens most often, but for some of the distance shots, I used the 70-300.

 

I'm going to upload my Tortola pics today after work, where I'm still using the Sony. My pics for Antigua and Barbados will be from my Canon.

 

Susan

[MDSue]

Thank you so much for the great pictures.................we have been on CB several times and she is one of my favorite ships. We went to Sapphire beach last May...............still love Coki but was pleasantly surprised. Out buildings are "run-down" but beach and water great.

 

When we were at Sapphire, there was an island-wide power blackout for awhile. I must say that it was very interesting using the restroom facilities lit up by a single candle. The facilities were a bit dated, but they were fine for me. We didn't need to rent an umbrella because we had a nice tree to sit under, and the little food "shack" had decent food and drinks.

 

About an hour after we arrived an obvious tour-group of passengers arrived. All of their chairs were put closely together with no umbrellas for shade. I felt bad for them because they obviously paid more for their "beach day" than we did for our taxi ride and we definitely had the better location.

 

Susan

Edited April 12, 2012 by MDSue

[fishin' musician]

Thanks for Susan, I thought if I friended you I could send a private message, but alas, not the case. CC has the PM feature disabled.

 

BTW, the pics are amazing!

Edited April 12, 2012 by fishin' musician

[MDSue]

Day 3 Tortola,

 

I have so many pictures of Tortola, I hardly know where to start or stop. These first few pictures were coming into port on Tuesday morning.

 

 

Here's one more of the catamaran that decided to play chicken with our ship while we were pulling into port

 

 

Looking at the CB from port:

 

 

These are the open air taxi's that are waiting at the dock to take passengers to the beach. It is $8 each way. You can also grab regular cabs outside the main pier area, but I'm not sure how much they cost. We met one couple who paid $24 one way to go to Brewer's Bay where they said they had the beach to themselves most of the morning. They said lots of additional passengers showed up later on. They were then able to grab one of these cabs back to port for $8.

 

 

We went to Cane Garden Bay. The road there is windy, curvy, and steep. Our driver made a few stops for us to take pics on the way to the beach, including one of the ship in the distance:

 

[MDSue]

We love this beach! The water is calm and clear. There were lots of personal yacht anchored fairly close to shore, but there was still plenty of room for swimmers. The cost for beach chairs was $5 each, and the umbrella was surprisingly cheap at $3. We spent most of our day here and didn't really want to leave when it was time to head back.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There were lots of pelicans and terns fishing around us and plenty of silvery fish to keep them happy

 

 

 

That made my job of protecting my little fish friend even more difficult (I told the story of my "fish adoption" last week). Hopefully, he is still happlily using humans as a shield against hungry birds:

 

 

Edited April 12, 2012 by MDSue

[MDSue]

I walked down to the end of the beach area. There was a restaurant/bar towrds the end of the beach but no customers to be found

 

 

This beach dog was taking a nap under a deck a ways down the beach:

 

 

If you needed a cold beer at the beach:

 

 

A few more beach shots:

 

 

 

[MDSue]

Because I don't know where to stop, I'll post a few more and then take a break to get my dreaded homework done (because I got this crazy idea to go back to school as a mid-life crisis- one more year of this craziness!)

 

This place was a little down to the right of the beach we were at- looked very nice, had a good crowd

 

 

 

from our viewpoint under our umbrella:

 

 

a few panoramic attempts:

 

 

This viewpoint was from the far end of the beach- the water wasn't as crystal clear here, but still nice

Edited April 12, 2012 by MDSue

[swimgirl1]

Great Pictures!!! Can never post to many :D We ate at the Pink restaurant last March - yummy Conch Fritters and beer!!!

 

Thanks for posting!!

[Darcy8]

I love all of your pictures! Thanks for posting them. Will be on board this Sunday! Can't wait.:D

[MDSue]

I love all of your pictures! Thanks for posting them. Will be on board this Sunday! Can't wait.:D

Wish I was going back again already, enjoy!

[MDSue]

A few more of Tortola:

 

On the drive back from the beach:

 

 

These were taken at or near the port area

 

 

 

 

 

[rdsqrl]

I can't believe I haven't posted yet! I've loved your thread from your pre-cruise post in the airport! The narrative and the photos have been captivating! Please keep going; I feel like I'm taking the cruise with you, and I certainly am not ready to disembark.

 

And Tortola has now become a #1 priority -- or, at least that beach. Between the cute little fish and the adorable dog, what's not to like? Although that giant bird floating in the water looked a little scary.

[MDSue]

I haven't mentioned too much about the entertainment on board because we didn't make it to the shows at night. However, our tablemates went to almost every show and the movies under the stars. They had good reviews of just about every show. I believe the entertainers are quite

good from everything I heard- one day, I'm going to take the time to find out

 

We did spend a good bit of time in the atruim and they also had regularly featured entertainers there as well. These two gentlemen were there often and were quite enjoyable:

 

 

One thing I like about Princess over Carnival is that they still have full bands playing at the pool areas. My last few Carnival cruises only had a two piece band by the pools, but Princess has decent 4 piece bands. We didn't spend a lot of time around the pools, but most of the music seemed good, albiet loud, by the pool area

 

The ship also had quite a bit of Latin music in some of the clubs and bars onboard which I'm sure has to do with the large amount of Puerto Ricans onboard.

 

Overall, there was a wide range of all types of entertainment in the various venues on the ship. The only entertainment I found quite silly was some entertainer dressed in a bizarre costume jumping on stilts in the atrium while stripping down his weird outfit (not too much, I assume). I didn't stick around to watch his show, but judging by the expressions I saw on the faces of those who were watching made ne believe the little I saw was enough for me- he looked like someone who would be quickly buzzed off of the "Star Search" type of shows.

[MDSue]

Thanks for Susan' date=' I thought if I friended you I could send a private message, but alas, not the case. CC has the PM feature disabled.

 

BTW, the pics are amazing![/quote']

 

Thanks, I'm glad you like the pics. I'm enjoying reading about your activities and seeing your shots, as well. It is nice to see what others were doing in each of the ports and on the ship.

[MDSue]

My sister has promised to upload the patters tomorrow, so I'm hoping to try and post this weekend. Since they will take up quite a few pages, I'm thinking of trying to put them in a folder and trying to post that way, if possible

 

I'm not really sure the best way to share them. I'm open to ideas

 

Tomorrow, I will share my Dominica pics.

 

Susan

[MDSue]

I can't believe I haven't posted yet! I've loved your thread from your pre-cruise post in the airport! The narrative and the photos have been captivating! Please keep going; I feel like I'm taking the cruise with you, and I certainly am not ready to disembark.

 

And Tortola has now become a #1 priority -- or, at least that beach. Between the cute little fish and the adorable dog, what's not to like? Although that giant bird floating in the water looked a little scary.

 

Thanks so much! I'm not ready to disembark either! Would love to go back tomorrow! I've got lots more pics to share- narrowing them down is difficult because I took a gazillion!

[MDSue]

One more for tonight:

 

This was our ideal way to start each morning, especially on port days. We ordered room service each morning and enjoyed watching the ship come into port

 

Edited April 13, 2012 by MDSue

[PathfinderEss]

Really great photo's thanks for posting.

[MDSue]

Someone had asked for the Princess Patters and I finally conned my sister into uploading them for me. Since I'm back at work, I didn't have time personally. She couldn't figure out my scanner so she took pictures of each page. They are not in a particular order, but I tried to label them from the best I could decipher them. You may have to zoom in (if you put the mouse near the top left of the pic, you should get a zoom option). I'm sorry if they are confusing or blurry, but this is the best I can get for now.

 

http://s784.photobucket.com/albums/yy125/bsusan424/Princess%20Patters/

 

Our day 3 was Antigua (I said Dominica, but I was off a day). So I'm going to upload my Antigua pics soon.

 

Susan

Edited April 13, 2012 by MDSue

[pkt1976]

I loved your review and pictures. A Carribean cruise is on my bucket list hopefully for next year.