Live From Regal 1/19/2020 E. Caribbean

[Tasha999]

See you onboard!  In the Renaissance drinking coffee and anxiously awaiting to go to the port!

[Steelers0854]

Well it’s a beautiful morning in Ft Lauderdale. Thankfully the weather caused no delays for us yesterday and we made it into town uneventfully. We are staying at the Homewood suites by the airport. They remodeled the hotel last year and it’s quite nice, plus was on the cheaper side for our quick overnight. 
 

Our goal is to be at the port around 11am. So time to get some free breakfast and pack up!

 

The hotel offers a shuttle to the cruise ship for $10pp. But a Lyft is only $10 so that’s our plan. 
 

we did receive an email last night we are departing from Terminal 2 but will return to terminal 21. This doesn’t really impact us much but may throw a wrench into the plans of those parking. 

[Steelers0854]

40 minutes ago, Tasha999 said:

See you onboard!  In the Renaissance drinking coffee and anxiously awaiting to go to the port!

Looking forward to it! T-4 hours or so. 

[MrSchwump]

We set sail in 4 weeks so I’m keen to hear about what was done in Freeport last week.  I was okay with the old mattresses although it probably is time to change them. I am hoping for contrasting carpet colors in the port and starboard hallways. That would help me find my way home!

[Steelers0854]

So I’m a tech guy. I love when cruise lines have great apps that make my life easier. This is our first Medallion cruise and first time using the Medallion app. On other lines it’s great to bookmark things you want to do so it’s easy to organize your day and remember what you wanted to do.  So far Princess fails in this category. Their design of the daily activities page is terrible. It’s unnecessarily difficult to navigate. They seemed to have tried to make it “pretty” over being actually usable. It just makes it hard to pick what you want to do as you have to scroll scroll and scroll some more. Oh well just a pet peeve!
 

[Paula_MacFan]

We are super excited to see this on today's schedule 🏈☉🏈❤ GO CHIEFS!! People seem to ask if games are shown onboard -- yes!

Edited January 19, 2020 by Paula_MacFan

[happicruzer]

Parked at the terminal Garage not knowing we’d be switching terminals.  We had more than one hour wait for port shuttle when our cruise departed terminal two and arrived at terminal twenty one.  Watched the off-site shuttles arrive and depart - next two cruises we are saving money by parking offsite. 
 

this was on top of the thirty minute wait for customs as Princess did not use face recognition.
 

if anyone driving sees your post they should heed our experience.

[Wishing on a star]

If the Regal has just had her dry-dock,  then hopefully,  FINALLY, they have now updated all the beds.

I would hope so!!!!

Ours was pretty bad, a year ago.

Heard that they had changed out the upper decks recently, but not all.

Edited January 19, 2020 by Wishing on a star

[Steelers0854]

So we made the 10 minute drive from the hotel to the port. The checkin process couldn’t be easier. We never waited. Scan your medallion and show your passport. Go through security and one last passport check. We walked upstairs to the priority boarding waiting area. 
 

 

Elite boarding was already in process before 11am. We sat for 5 min and they began platinum boarding!

[Reader0108598]

1 hour ago, happicruzer said:

Parked at the terminal Garage not knowing we’d be switching terminals.  We had more than one hour wait for port shuttle when our cruise departed terminal two and arrived at terminal twenty one.  Watched the off-site shuttles arrive and depart - next two cruises we are saving money by parking offsite. 
 

this was on top of the thirty minute wait for customs as Princess did not use face recognition.
 

if anyone driving sees your post they should heed our experience.

Well that sucks! Hope you had a great cruise!

 

 

Edited January 19, 2020 by Reader0108598

[Steelers0854]

They said rooms would t be ready til 2pm. But ours was ready right when we boarded. No signs or closed doors blocked our way so we went in and dropped our bags and headed for lunch. I’ll post some rooms photos when we get back down there. 

[Paula_MacFan]

We are on board sitting on our aft balcony. Super easy boarding, never had to sit and wait.  We have a brand new mattress & bar soap in the bathroom. Should be a beautiful day for sailaway!

[voljeep]

1 hour ago, happicruzer said:

Parked at the terminal Garage not knowing we’d be switching terminals.  We had more than one hour wait for port shuttle when our cruise departed terminal two and arrived at terminal twenty one.  Watched the off-site shuttles arrive and depart - next two cruises we are saving money by parking offsite. 
 

this was on top of the thirty minute wait for customs as Princess did not use face recognition.
 

if anyone driving sees your post they should heed our experience.

happened to us twice - first time not aware and we had parked at T2 - took right at an hour to shuttle from 21 to 2

 

next time we knew about it and just used park and ride ( whatever ) at the port off eller drive - worked well that time

[Reader0108598]

1 minute ago, Paula_MacFan said:

We are on board sitting on our aft balcony. Super easy boarding, never had to sit and wait.  We have a brand new mattress & bar soap in the bathroom. Should be a beautiful day for sailaway!

Your all set have an awesome cruise!

 

[Steelers0854]

We headed up to the buffet. We were greeted by name, this is going to take some getting used to lol, and directed to the hand washing station. About time they start enforcing this. 
 

Being back aboard a Royal class ship reminded me that they have the best buffets at sea. So many options and so much variety. DW sought out the first chef and he dutifully walked her through the buffet pointing out what she could or could not eat. We didn’t have to walk far when DW found the Mexican food section and built herself a plate of “nachos”. Tomorrow she may have them walk her through another part. But she could eat any of the carved meet (which there were 4 offerings today) toasted potatoes and vegetables along with all but the taco meat (contains gluten). 
 

The buffet was mostly empty when we were there. 
 

 

I grabbed some beef roast, bbq meatballs and breaded shrimp. All of it was delicious. The red velvet cupcake was a let down though. The cake was bland and the frosting tasted like butter and not much else  oh well saved me some valuable calories  

 

Other buffet thoughts, the service here is exceptionally better than Celebrity and others. Dirty plates cleared almost immediately. They get you any drink you want right away. And Princess still has the best lemonade at sea!

 

Here is the dinner menu for tonight. We can meet the Maitre’D at 12:30 and I’ll let you know how that goes for DW and dinner. 
 

[Steelers0854]

This whole medallion net seems a bit iffy. An early speed test isn’t promising given we are at port and the ship probably has a quarter of the people on it. Time will tell though!

 

 

[Colo Cruiser]

12 minutes ago, Steelers0854 said:

This whole medallion net seems a bit iffy. An early speed test isn’t promising given we are at port and the ship probably has a quarter of the people on it. Time will tell though!

 

 

The amount of people using MedallionNet should make no difference on the speed or use so I have been told a few times.

 

Bon Voyage!

[NYCS-Mohawk]

We are also at the Homewood Suites in two weeks for the 2/1 Sky departure.

 

Did you have any problem getting a timely Uber or Lyft from the hotel to Terminal 2 this morning?  Was there any surge pricing in effect?

[Steelers0854]

32 minutes ago, Colo Cruiser said:

The amount of people using MedallionNet should make no difference on the speed or use so I have been told a few times.

 

Bon Voyage!

this is not true. With any network the number of users and the amount of bandwidth each user uses will effect overall network performance. This is especially true with satellite based networks that are already pretty limited to begin with. 
 

6 minutes ago, NYCS-Mohawk said:

We are also at the Homewood Suites in two weeks for the 2/1 Sky departure.

 

Did you have any problem getting a timely Uber or Lyft from the hotel to Terminal 2 this morning?  Was there any surge pricing in effect?

 

we had no issues at all. Called the Lyft at 10:20 they arrived in 3 minutes, very easy drive to the port with no traffic or other issues. Couldn’t have been easier!

[Colo Cruiser]

2 minutes ago, Steelers0854 said:

this is not true. With any network the number of users and the amount of bandwidth each user uses will effect overall network performance. This is especially true with satellite based networks that are already pretty limited to begin with. 

I was told with the old system yes and with the new system no.

Since you are onboard maybe verify this?

I have asked on several MedallionNet cruises.

[Steelers0854]

The obligatory first drink photo!

 

[CruiseVA]

On our last cruise I noticed a CAT-5 cable running from the ship into a small switch in the terminal. I wonder if they use that for the Internet when in port at FLL.  Hopefully that is causing the crappy bandwidth.

The thing that bugs me the most about the scedule is they show the dead time, between around 1:00AM & 8:30AM, what is the point of showing that?  I also noticed that for our cruise on 2/2/20 they don't have the SuperBowl listed, maybe because they don't know the teams yet?

[Steelers0854]

11 minutes ago, Colo Cruiser said:

I was told with the old system yes and with the new system no.

Since you are onboard maybe verify this?

I have asked on several MedallionNet cruises.

Im sure they are happy to tell you that. However, this is pretty common network infrastructure issues. No network connection is truly limitless and the more users you have on a system will effect its performance at some point. Especially when you have 5,000 people all in one place trying to stream Netflix, Spotify and FaceTime. 

[dmccadden]

We will be on Regal for the February 9th cruise. Sound like things are going good so far. Will keep reading thanks for the info.  By any chance are you in an aft corner room? just wondering about soot?  Have read don’t worry on some threads and big problem on other.  Enjoy your trip!

[Steelers0854]

We booked a balcony room. We always love having our own piece of the ship all to ourselves. Pretty typical Princess stateroom. We were spoiled on the Celebrity Summit with their bathrooms. No fighting with any shower curtains!  We are almost all the way in the rear of the ship on the port side.