Caribbean Princess Review Oct 3-Nov 6, 2004 (Part 1)

[obe1]

We left on Friday October 29th using Spirit Airlines out of Chicago's O'Hare Airport. Flight was on time and very smooth, landed in Fort Lauderdale at about 11:30 AM.

 

We used Princess for our pre-cruise Hotel which included transfers from the airport to the Hotel and to the Pier the next morning. We were met at the airport by a Princess Rep, she had a baggage cart but only put one of my 3 bags on her cart, I had to drag both of my suitcases outside to the curb where we were to get on the bus. I didn't quite understand why she didn't take all of our suitcases, her cart was empty. The bus was waiting for us, we had to wait on the curb while the bus driver put our bags into the storage area on the bus, after our luggage was stored, we were then allowed to board the bus.

 

Princess uses Greyhound buses for their transfers and are very comfortable. We stayed at the Marriott North, Fort Lauderdale. Upon check in we received a letter from Princess stating that the bus would be picking us up at 1:30 PM to take us to the pier.

 

This is a marvelous hotel and we were treated very well. Our room was very nice, the beds were heavenly, very, very comfortable, I slept very well that evening. The staff was very friendly and helpful. We stayed during the Halloween weekend and the staff was dressed up in costumes and they had some very creatively carved pumpkins displayed in the main lobby. .

 

We ate lunch and dinner at the hotel, both were very good, but a bit on the pricey side. My roommate Pat and I used the hot tub after dinner. It was very nice to relax after a long day of traveling.

 

This hotel was built near a wetland preserve, there is a boardwalk set up so you can take a leisurley stroll through it and see some of the flora, fauna and wildlife native to Florida. We did see a large turtle, but you really had to look hard as it blended in very well to its surroundings.

 

Woke up bright and early Saturday morning, had breakfast at the buffet in the hotel restaurant, it was very good. We went down to the Lobby at 12:30 PM to wait for the bus to pick us up. 2 buses arrived in a very timely manner, the 2 bus drivers had to load a mountain of luggage into the buses, this took quite a long time. After most of the luggage was stored, we were then allowed to board the buses for our long awaited trip to the Pier to board the Caribbean Princess!!

 

The trip took approximately 20 minutes to get to the Pier. We generously tipped the bus driver for his hard work in loading the luggage and for his interesting commentary about Fort Lauderdale while on the way to the Port.

 

We arrived at the Port at about 2:00 PM, there were no lines, we had express check in and we were onboard the Caribbean Princess in about 10 minutes. Hooray!

[GloriaF]

Please continue -- and thanks for taking the time to report back !