Cruising the Caribbean on Emerald Princess - Embarkation Day

Embarkation Day – First Impressions

Departing from Naples, we used a one-day, one-way car rental to get us from home to Port Everglades and the Emerald Princess docked at Pier 2.  Pier 2 traffic flow is a bit tight and messy but we wound our way through in about 5 minutes to get everyone dropped off.  Proceeding back to turn in our Hertz rental, I noted two gas stations to refill the tank between the terminal and the Hertz return office which is literally right outside the 24^th Street Port Everglades entrance.  Reference-wise, the return location is directly adjacent to the Crown Plaza hotel on 24^th.  Quite conveniently located and Hertz provides a free shuttle from their location to each of the Port Everglades cruise ship piers.

Once back at the embarkation area, I used the “Preferred Boarding” line for shoreside check-in, probably cutting 15 minutes off my waiting time to get aboard.  Once aboard, I was able to head directly to our cabin, Dolphin (Deck 9) 714, a portside mini-suite most of the way aft (a couple of rooms from the after stairs/elevators).  Very convenient location since the main dining rooms and buffet are all located in the after part of the ship – which is great for our Aunt and Uncle who are a little less mobile – shopping, theater, and casino are amidships so a longer walk but eating is three times a day so we optimized our cabins for the most frequent trips.

Heading out to the Atlantic

Panoramic of Mini-Suite

Our first night dinner was in the Da Vinci dining room – we had “Any Time” dining but chose to make a reservation at 7:30pm to ensure we weren’t waiting in a line to get in.  This strategy worked perfectly and we were seated promptly at 7:30.  Our waiter Pat and his assistant Najia were great and the food we had for dinner was actually quite remarkable for main dining room food.  The variety was great, the portions were perfect to allow multi-course dining, and the execution/taste were very good.  If all the other nights are as good, we will be completely happy campers.

Our cabin – our first Mini-suite on Princess – is airy and large with a good sized balcony.  Great closet/hanging clothes space as well.  Shower and bathtub in the very decent sized bathroom.  Two thumbs up on the cabin; glad we have already booked a Mini-suite for our next Princess cruise in April… J