Jump to content
Cruise Critic Community

Emerald Princess: 10/31 Another Review

sunshine426

By sunshine426,
in Princess Cruises

Recommended Posts

sunshine426

sunshine426

Posted
Posted

We returned two days ago from our 10 day cruise on the Emerald Princess. Overall had a wonderful time, and have already placed our FCC request. This was my husband(Rich) and my fourth Princess Cruise. We have previously sailed on the Island, Star, Sapphire and now the Emerald. Although I think we still liked the size of the Island the best, the Emerald was beautiful, well laid out and we rarely felt like we were in a crowd. Our last two cruises we sailed with family members, but this was a cruise for just the two of us, and we were ready for some time to relax!

We traveled down the evening before and stayed at the Spring Hills Suites in FLL. They provided a shuttle from the airport, which met us promptly. While they did provide a shuttle to Port Everglades, it was not leaving until 12:30, so we opted for a taxi instead. We arrived at Port Everglades abt 11am. They had not started boarding, but placed arrivals in numbered groups as they arrived. Once boarding began Elite and Platinum were invited to board first, and then they began calling numbers. We were in group 3 and once they called our number we were processed thru, had our cruise cards in our hand and crossing the gangway in less than 10 minutes. We had a balcony cabin on the Caribe Deck. 238, which was a BB cabin. We went to explore the ship, and while we had every intention of eating in the dining room, the smell of Princess Pizza lured us upstairs and we began to enjoy some Florida Sunshine. Our luggage was delivered to our room by 2pm and we were able to unpack and settle in. After muster drill we went topside for sail away and coctails. Since this was halloween night, we had brought costumes and after dinner we changed and went out to play. The costume party was not until 10:30 in club fusion and we had a fun time.

We had anytime dining and never had a wait in the dining rooms. We shared tables and also ate by ourselves several times. Our arrival time varied depending on our port of call and energy level, usually between 6 and 7. Service was always attentive, but we never really made a connection with any server on this cruise. Formal Nights were the second sea day and the second to last sea day. Dining attire seemed to range from tuxedos to dark suits, to some men in dress shirts and ties. I didn't pay too much attention to apparel on the other days, but can't say that I noticed any shorts or jeans in the dining room.

We did not eat in the dining room three evenings. Once we decided to check out Cafe Caribe since that was not on any of our other ships. It really was just a buffet in the back of the ship. Food was OK, but nothing special. That night we decided to watch MUTS and it was actually pretty nice. We were both somewhat tired and enjoyed just chilling out under the stars. Plus they brought around milk and cookies. One night we just had Pizza late and another evening we enjoyed Sushi and Wine at Vines.

We did not go to any production shows this trip. We were going to go see "Boogie Shoes" a new show, but sadly a gentleman suffered cardiac arrest and the crew was performing CPR. They cancelled the show and escorted everyone out of the theatre. We did hear the next day that the gentleman had survived and was being flown back to the United States. While never wanting to witness this type of event, it is always encourging to see how well the crew is trained to handle emergency situations.

We enjoyed Eric Stone in Crooners one evening and also his one man show in the Explorers Lounge. Mid trip we discovered the Adagio Bar and that became our afterdinner entertainment the rest of the trip. We also watched Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull at Muts one night. Most of the movies that were playing on MUTS, played the next day in the Princess Theatre, and then made it to the TV.

I'll post about day time ship board life and our shore excursions later. Now, reality has set in and I must go fold some more clothes and start cooking dinner.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
sunshine426

sunshine426

Posted
  • Author
Posted

There is an extra charge at Sabatini's and The Crown Grill, some extra charges for items in Vines. Other than our bar bills and our one sushi night we had no additional charges. No purchases of photos this trip and we stayed out of the Casino. Ooops, we booked shore excursions as well. I guess I mean we spent no extra money on food.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
sunshine426

sunshine426

Posted
  • Author
Posted

Shipboard Daytime Activities: While in the past we have enjoyed the dining room on sea days for lunch and breakfast, this trip we were up in the Horizon Court more often. The breakfast variety was good, and we did enjoy sitting by the windows and watching that deep blue water. Or, watching the ship come into port. We had lunch in the dining room on our first sea day and the gazpacho and greek salad were fabulous!! We also ordered the desert cheese tray as an appitizer and it was enjoyed by the whole table. Our other sea days we were pool side and just didn't want to go get cleaned up to go to the diningroom. I find that Princess Pizza to be quite addicting.

Mr Sunshine loved the ultimate shave while on our Alaska cruise last year, and booked one for this first sea day. I had signed up for the yoga classes on all sea days, so first sea day found us up bright and early in the Lotus Spa. I truly enjoyed the yoga classes and participated in one on every sea day. There was an additional charge for these classes, but not for the 8am stretch class which had some yoga components. We had a meet and greet with our CC group in Skywalkers. It was fun to put names and screen names and faces together. We attended the art auction and had a few glasses of the free champagne. I call this "headache in a glass" champagne, but it did not stop us from having our glasses refilled. We always enjoy the auction, but sadly the starting prices were not within our budget.

We had a balcony cabin and a large one at that, but this cruise found ourselves using it less often and being topside at the pool area more. We met a delightful bar server on the upper deck on the first sea day. Once she knew that my husband avoided coctails that had sugar in them (which is most of them) she became very creative and created her own coctail of the day for him each day. We looked forward to seeing her every day and to see what she had in mind. Aslo made it easier for me to enjoy that occasional pina colada when I know he had his own special drink and wasn't having to settle for a rum and diet coke. Her name was Olena and she was from the Ukraine.

The terrace pool was closed most sea days for a private group, so we were at the calypso pool most of the time. Mr Sunshine would go early while I was at yoga and stake out a couple of chairs. He said that each day he would see people come and drop towels all over the chairs down by the pool. We usually sat on the upper deck, so this was a non issue for us.

 

We always like walking on the promenade deck. This one felt narrow to us,and like the other big ships you had to go up one flight of stairs in the bow. This was often closed off at night, so you would have to turn around.

 

Next installation will be our shore experiences.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
sunshine426

sunshine426

Posted
  • Author
Posted

Thank you for your kind words. Once again life interrupts and I am out the door for some errands to run. I'll post shore excursions next, I promise. Another passenger on our trip has posted some fabulous pictures, so go check those out. We were also on the Antigua Shore Excursion he was on, my back is in one of the photo's and his BIL was kind enough to lend me a cap when my visor broke. Such a small cyber world we live in.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
sunshine426

sunshine426

Posted
  • Author
Posted

I really don't know the different types of yoga. I know that it was not "Dahn" yoga. There was focus on movement with breaths. Time spent at the beguinning and at the end of class with relaxation breathing. Then walking thru a variety of poses and finishing with "sun salutations". I am still trying to improve my balance and find the one legged poses a challenge on dry land, and especially difficult on shifting seas. I can tell you that it was a more rigourous class than the ones I take at home, I really could feel the work out thru my abs later in the day. This instructer also offered yoga on Princess Cay, but I couldn't find him that day. It was a 45 minute class. Mats were provided. Hope this helps.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
sunshine426

sunshine426

Posted
  • Author
Posted

I've got abt 15 minutes this morning, so here goes. Ports Of Call!

Princess Cay: This was our first stop. It is a tender port. Since we are not platinum or elite, we gathered with the rest of the riff-raff in the Princess Theatre and waited our turn to go ashore. Once they actually began the tender process it moved pretty quickly. I was hoping to participate in the Yoga on the Beach that was supposed to be offered. Only trouble was no one knew where it would be or what time:confused:. I asked many staff members with no real resolution. Someone finally told me they would make an announcement by the "Banana Bar", so we settled into a few chairs in that area. You do need to bring a towel from the ship. I never was able to find the yoga, so I just vegged in my beach chair all day. The beach BBQ was ok. I have vowed to try to keep portions undercontrol and portions small. They had some great fresh fruit, so I did pretty good. Princess Staff readily available to take a photo, bring you a beverage etc. Bahamian beaches are so pretty, and this was no different. Lot's of sugary white sand, clear blue water. The water was pretty chilly, but still nice. When we were ready to leave the tender line was loooooong, so we sat down in a couple of chairs under the palm trees and waited it out. We were one of the last ones back to the ship, but figured they couldn't leave us as we were right by the tender boats.

Saint Thomas: We had booked a shore excursion to St Johns'. It was an all day catamaran sail with lunch. We boarded the catamaran right next to the ship and after safety instruction we were on our way. They took us to a natural reserve and went over snorkeling safety and turned us loose. We were able to see some sea turtles and had a great snorkle experience. Sadly, the reefs seem to be dull to me, with less fish. I asked if this was a healthy reef, or dying and was assured it was fine, but I am not convinced. When we boarded the catamaran, rum punch was flowing and it was pretty strong!! Mr Sunshine stays away from the fruity drinks, so the Captain made him a very strong rum and diet coke. We then sailed to a nice sandy secluded beach where a beach bbq was provided. Again plenty of rum punch, grilled chicken, salad, veggies. That is all I can remember except for the rum punch. We sailed back to St Thomas and my punch glass was refilled prior to disembarking. I wasn't sure if I had to declare what was in my glass when reboarded the Emerald. After a shower we returned topside and both of us had a nice boozy nap. We woke up intime for sail away.

That is all for now, next installment: Antigua,St Lucia and St Kitts

Link to comment
Share on other sites
TwinCruiserMom

TwinCruiserMom

Posted
Posted

When people post patters, they usually scan them or photograph them and place them on a site like Webshots and then they supply the link in a post here.

 

Some questions I have:

 

On what night was the Tropical Island party?

 

Were the formal nights on night 3 and night 9 of the cruise?

 

What movies were playing?

 

On the first day's patters (embarkation), what venues does it say are open for lunch?

 

Thanks so much!

Link to comment
Share on other sites
freetocruise

freetocruise

Posted
Posted

 

Saint Thomas: We had booked a shore excursion to St Johns'. It was an all day catamaran sail with lunch.

Sunshine,

Do you remember the name of the catamaran? Was it Heavenly Days? We did this trip last December with them and would like to repeat it this December if it is the same catamaran.

Thanks for any help.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
sunshine426

sunshine426

Posted
  • Author
Posted

 

Saint Thomas: We had booked a shore excursion to St Johns'. It was an all day catamaran sail with lunch.

 

Sunshine,

Do you remember the name of the catamaran? Was it Heavenly Days? We did this trip last December with them and would like to repeat it this December if it is the same catamaran.

 

Thanks for any help.

 

We booked this thru the ship. I think the name had the word "Jolly" in it. We had a great time on this excursion, the catamaran was on the smaller side, I think we probably had less than 30 passengers.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
sunshine426

sunshine426

Posted
  • Author
Posted
When people post patters, they usually scan them or photograph them and place them on a site like Webshots and then they supply the link in a post here.

 

Some questions I have:

 

On what night was the Tropical Island party?

 

Were the formal nights on night 3 and night 9 of the cruise?

 

What movies were playing?

 

On the first day's patters (embarkation), what venues does it say are open for lunch?

 

Thanks so much!

 

Island Night was day 5.

Formal Nights day 3 and 9.

MUTS:Hancock

Baby Mama

Sunday Night Football

Monday Night Football

Henry Poole is Here

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

The incredible Hulk

Get Smart

Mamma Mia

The Dark Knight

 

MUTS movies were shown the next afternoon in the Princess Theatre, and then some of them moved on to inroom viewing

 

Only the buffet was listed as open for lunch on embarkation day. The grill was open for hot dogs, hamburgers... and Princess Pizza was being served.

 

I won't be scanning the patters, so if anyone has specefic questions I'll keep them close as long as this thread remains active.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
TwinCruiserMom

TwinCruiserMom

Posted
Posted

Thanks so much for the info from the patters :)

 

Great movies!

 

I just hope they do not add Thursday night football since we have two Thursdays on our 10 day and that would be 4 nights of football :( Last December, our 7 day cruise had 3 nights of football on MUTS which really limited our movie watching.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
rdsqrl

rdsqrl

Posted
Posted

Sunshine, thanks so much for your detailed reviews. Looking forward to hearing about the other ports -- I'm on this same itinerary next month and I'm now even more excited than I was already!

Question for you about the yoga classes: I've never done yoga but thought it might be a fun thing to try. As you're someone who had prior yoga experience before taking the Emerald's class, what do you think: as a total beginner, would I be lost or is it relatively easy to figure out/follow along with what's going on? And how much do they charge for the classes?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

Go to topic listing
  • Forum Jump
    • Categories
      • Welcome to Cruise Critic
      • Hurricane Zone 2024
      • Cruise Insurance Q&A w/ Steve Dasseos of Tripinsurancestore.com June 2024
      • New Cruisers
      • Cruise Lines “A – O”
      • Cruise Lines “P – Z”
      • River Cruising
      • ROLL CALLS
      • Cruise Critic News & Features
      • Digital Photography & Cruise Technology
      • Special Interest Cruising
      • Cruise Discussion Topics
      • UK Cruising
      • Australia & New Zealand Cruisers
      • Canadian Cruisers
      • North American Homeports
      • Ports of Call
      • Cruise Conversations
×
×
  • Create New...