SKY PRINCESS FEB 3-10, 2024 WESTERN CARIBBEAN (review part 1)

[LMADAMS91]

My husband and I just returned from this cruise last Saturday and thought I would give a mini review.

We arrived in FLL the day prior to departure. We left the hotel (Hyatt Place) at 10 am on the shuttle. We had to stand in line outside the terminal for maybe 10 minutes after dropping our luggage…two lines, one for blue lane and one for green.  These two lines merged immediately inside the terminal doors, then re-divided once through security.  We did a very fast check-in and stepped on the ship at 10:32. For reference, we are from the US, were green lane and platinum so that helped speed things along a little. I’ll give credit where credit is due…..Princess did a great job with embarkation!

 

Once onboard, we dropped one piece of carry-on luggage at the Soleil dining room and headed to the Lido deck with our backpacks. We grabbed a table, had a cocktail (plus package) and enjoyed the Florida sunshine. While on the Lido, we pulled up the muster video and got that out of the way.

At noon, we headed to the Estrella dining room for lunch. Before lunch was over, rooms were ready, so we grabbed the one bag from Soleil, checked in at our muster station and made our way to our room (D203) where our luggage was waiting for us.  Side note: when I booked this cruise months in advance, I tried to select my stateroom but could only do a guarantee. This has happened every time I have looked at a cruise over the last few years. I took the guarantee, as it supposedly guarantees a general location (in our case, decks 10-14 forward, deluxe balcony.) We were initially assigned A107 a couple of weeks prior to sailing.  I bid on a premium deluxe balcony ($50 pp) and won the upgrade. Our stateroom has the same layout as a deluxe balcony (with the small sofa) but a much larger balcony. The balcony was only partially covered, which was a concern, but for the most part, was a great addition to the cruise.

 

We sailed from FLL around 3:30, after numerous announcements regarding the folks who had yet to do the muster drill. Apparently, they finally corralled everyone and we sailed without a problem. We had reservations for 6:10 @ Estrella and had no problems being seated right away.  We had a beautiful sunset and a quiet evening.

 

We awoke Sunday morning to a storm……lots of wind, thunder and lightning. At one point, I noticed it was difficult to walk across the room (and I hadn’t even taken advantage of the drinks package yet!!) I had items falling from the shelf above the fridge. My husband was in the buffet grabbing breakfast for us when the captain announced the ship was listing to the port side…..dishes were sliding off and crashing to the floor in the buffet! (We later heard the dishes were also falling in the International Café.) Captain said it was all normal, they were making adjustments with the ballast, everything was fine. Problem was soon corrected, we made it through the worst of the storm and went on our way.

 

 Unfortunately, as per the captain, the low pressure system that generated the storm would be causing issues with the weather over the next few days…there would be a lot of wind. We were going to Cozumel on Monday (as planned) but would be docking there overnight to miss the worst of the wind. All aboard was changed to 1:00 am. We would be sailing early in the morning and sailing directly to Belize, skipping Roatan all together.

We arrived in Cozumel without incident. Unfortunately, our excursion, which involved the ferry to the mainland, was cancelled due to the wind. I don’t know if the ferries were even running for ship passengers…..?? Didn’t see them but that may have been due to where we were docked.

Our excursion was cancelled, so we grabbed an excursion to the San Gervasio ruins with a stop at the Mayan Cocao Company and a brief stop at a beach for drinks and a little tequila tasting. The excursion was booked through the ship. We had about an hour at the ruins with a guide. We hadn’t been to these ruins before, so it was new for us. There were several structures to see; the ruin site is much larger than I expected. There are no tall pyramids here, so nothing to climb.

 

The beach stop was more a bathroom/snack break.  It was a beautiful view.  We sampled a couple of local tequila flavors and went on our way to the Cocao Company. There we saw a brief demonstration of how the Mayans made chocolate, had a sample and a quick chance to shop.  They have a bar on site that makes frozen cocktails using the chocolate-I recommend the chocolate margarita!

 

We returned to the pier. The wind had really picked up-waves were coming over the pier onto the dock area-there was a nice splash zone to cool off for anyone interested. We were back on board early and stayed there for the night.