Amy Smith

Age: 31
Occupation: research associate in genetics biotech company
Number of Cruises: 1
Cruise Line: Princess
Ship: Grand Princess
Sailing Date: October 27th, 2002
Itinerary: Western Caribbean

Background:
 This was our first cruise and we were going on it with a bunch of family members to celebrate my aunt and uncle’s 40th anniversary. Just about everyone else in the group had cruised before, and we numbered around 30-40 people. It is a lively crowd, with all ages present, and we opted for the traditional late seating at dinner as a group. My husband and I are 30 and 31 yrs old, and have no kids. We have dogs J. We both work in science, and are both scuba certified. We have been married 5 years but never got to take a honeymoon, so we decided to treat this cruise as our honeymoon. We are pretty laid back, enjoying the water and sun, good food and drinks, and I am a serious amateur photographer. We were in need of some stress relief and hoped this cruise would provide a welcome diversion to selling our house and moving over the holidays. Please check out my photos of the cruise at :  http://community.webshots.com/album/54281484ZuulLT
http://community.webshots.com/album/54283699MSZHZR

Pre Cruise:
We flew into FLL on Sat 10/26, arriving at 2 pm. We took a taxi to our bed and breakfast of choice, Montfiallo. It was about a $15 cab ride, and we got there around 3 pm. The B&B was nice, quiet, and only two blocks from the beach. We changed into swimsuits and walked to the beach and relaxed for two hours. We came back to the hotel and got ready for dinner. We walked to Casa Blanca, a restaurant recommended by the innkeeper. The food was very good and they have a two for one special if you are seated before 6 pm, so that was a nice surprise when we got the bill. We went to sleep pretty early as we were tired from a long day of traveling. In the morning we left the hotel at 11 am and took a taxi to Port Everglades. The scheduled boarding of the ship was to begin at 12 noon.

Embarkation Day: We arrived to Port Everglades and found some of our group waiting in lines divided up by deck name. We were on Baja, so we waited in line for that. Got checked in within 15 minutes, the were herded upstairs to wait to board the ship. We waited upstairs for about 15 minutes, then they started taking the welcome pictures and letting you board. Hint : if you don’t want your welcome aboard picture taken (we didn’t), just go past the photo area and don’t wait in line. The photography people get more and more annoying as the cruise goes on, plus every pic you want is $9.95 !! So, skip it and you can get right on the boat. We went up to our room and checked it out, pretty standard. There was enough room for our stuff, and we definitely over packed ! We put away our carryon luggage and went to lunch at Horizon Court buffet. I found something to eat every time I went in there, and they vary the food quite a bit for lunch and dinner. After lunch we went to the pools and found more of our group already sunning and enjoying the Neptune pool. It was very nicely tiled and the whole area was nice. Never had a problem with finding chairs or people saving chairs. Dinner was smart casual, and we bought the Coke card which paid for itself – Note: just buy one per family, since they don’t check whose it is, as long as you just show the sticker when you order. We spent the rest of the evening exploring the ship.

Day 2: Princess Cays, Bahamas: The plan was to use our scuba/snorkeling equipment we brought, to get some sun, and spend some time trying to take some underwater pics with a disposable camera. We did all of the above, and the island was a lot of fun. Very pretty, and Oh the color of the water !!! The photographers were very pushy here. The BBQ was okay, and the drinks were delicious as usual ! We went to both sides of the beach and snorkeled, but the best snorkeling was all the way to the left side (facing the beach from the boat) around a small pier that has a red roof. There are many different fish there and they will swim right up to your face. We also saw some nice corals and a few spiny lobsters tucked among the rocks. I will develop the film from the underwater camera and post any good pics online. This was also the first formal night, and it was pretty neat seeing everyone so dressed up.  

Day 3 at sea: The plan was to get some lounge chairs and hang out by the pool, have a few cocktails, and relax. Breakfast was always at the Horizon Court buffet, where I kept it simple with fresh fruit, cereal, and an egg. We did the pool thing, but found the adult pools in the front by the spa and in the way back of the ship. These were where we spent the majority of our pool time. As there were no kids and plenty of chairs in sun or shade.

Day 4: Grand Cayman: The plan was to do the North Wall scuba dive with Stingray City dive in the morning (booked through Princess shore excursions list). However, this did not happen as when we got there to check on our qualifications for the dive, a very rude and arrogant tour dive guide said we had to have 25 dives in order to do this dive, This was not stated in any of the literature we had access to prior to the cruise, and we complained about this. We were able to get in on the two tank reef dive, which we were qualified for (according to him). It was beautiful under water, and the sealife was abundant. We did the first dive to 85 ft and 30 min bottom time, and the second was at 50 ft for 40 min. I had rented an underwater camera from the ship’s dive shop, and it turns out they gave me one with a dead battery, so I didn’t get any shots from the dive – again, very pissed off about that. After diving, we didn’t have time to come back to the ship for lunch and to change so we just carried our dive stuff with us and had lunch by Devil’s Grotto at a pretty oceanfront outdoor bar/bistro. We shopped for some t-shirts but they were expensive so we just got one. No bargaining there !! We got back to the boat around 4 pm and went to the pool for a bit.

Day 5: Majahual/Costa Maya:
Since we had heard this port wasn’t worth the time, we decided to save some $$ and not do an excursion. The water was rough, but we wanted to snorkel so we walked to the right side beach and got in the water in a place that wasn’t to coral-y. NOTE: We found two syringes right on the beach, so wear protection on your feet at all times. You really can’t swim there without water shoes anyway since the coral is so sharp and plentiful. The locals hound you to shop in their stores, and while there were some bargains to be found, we thought they would go a little cheaper than they did. We found some nice ceramics, earrings, and souvenirs for family at home. The weather was mostly cloudy with intermittent rain showers, so we swam, shopped and went on the ship for a nap. This was Halloween and many passengers dressed up. They had a wonderful display of intricately carved pumpkins in the atrium, and we went to a costume contest in one of the lounges, which was fun to watch.

Day 6: Cozumel
The plan was to go to Xcaret Eco Park ( booked thru Princess) for the entire day. While there we had arranged to do the dolphin swim encounter ( you have to book this thru the Park, not Princess). This has always been on my "life to-do" list, as I love marine animals and wanted to have a dolphin encounter some day. Other things to do were snorkeling, walking through ruins, seeing flora and fauna in their natural state, etc.

We had to take a separate ferry over to Mexico (30 min ride) and they break out the t-shirts as soon as you get on the ferry. They were selling them for $5 each, and we got two on the way home. There was just not enough time to see everything in this park. The trails thru the park are narrow and it takes a good 25 minutes to walk from the entrance to the beach, and 25 minutes to really go anywhere in the park. The dolphin encounter was amazing !! We had an intro with one dolphin, then got to go in a pool with 4 dolphins and they would just swim into your arms and wait while you petted them, hugged them, kissed them, whatever ! We did that for a half hour, then the dolphins would get behind your feet and push you thru the water like at Sea World, which was something you could never do in the USA due to the liability issue. They jumped over your head, we got our picture holding a dolphin's face and having it kiss us on the cheek. Definitely one of the top two highlights of the cruise !! Pics were $9 each, and we each bought a t-shirt for $9 – good prices on the t-shirts – they could have charged $15 ! We got back to the boat , dropped off our snorkel stuff in our room, and went back to town to walk around. Other members of our group hit Carlos & Charlie’s and proceeded to get drunk J We found a few more trinkets and went back on the ship by 5 pm. This was the other formal night, and we had twin lobster tails for dinner – yum1

Day 7: at sea :The plan was to get some lounge chairs and hang out by the pool, have a few cocktails, and relax. We worked some more on the tans, and I helped judge the belly-flop contest in the main pool. We also packed up as much as possible, organized everything, and had king crab legs for dinner – yum !

Disembarkation Day:
We were off the boat by 8:30 and at the airport by 9:30 am. Unfortunately we had a flight leaving at 2 pm, and had to keep all our luggage with us until 12 noon before they would let us check in. So, we had a long wait at the airport, but the flight was on time and fine, and we got home safely. All in all, I would rate this vacation an 8 out of 10, for these reasons:  Good: lobster tails, king crab legs, lamb, beef tenderloin, dolphin swim at Xcaret in Cozumel, diving in Grand Cayman, service was good, Princess Cays was good. Princess Love Boat Dream chocolate dessert in dining room was excellent as was the cheesecake in strawberry sauce. Pina Coladas were a 10 too. ( $7 for a large) The executive chef was Italian, so all of the Italian food was out of this world! Comedian Carl Strong was pretty funny too – see the adult show at 12:15 ! Our cabin steward, Jeremias, was great too ! Bad: annoying photographers everywhere, prices too high for photos, unclear guidelines for the certified dives and rude tour desk operators, the pastries in the Horizon Court looked nice but were bland, no fountain soda in buffet area, you had to go to a bar outside of the room to get a soda. I think we really like cruising and will definitely go again, but I think we will try RC next as the Voyager was recommended by someone on this cruise. Of course I will do my research first !!

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