Just to get everyone up to speed, I'll recap. I've just come off of a 7 night cruise on Caribbean Princess which is a 10 year old Princess ship currently sailing a singular Western Caribbean itinerary out of Houston's Bayport Cruise Terminal. She carries a little over 3,000 passengers and has 18 decks if you count the Sky or Star Deck and who wouldn't? I was traveling with my parents and our family friends, Doris and Don Bailey. The itinerary is Roatan, Belize and Cozumel. Caribbean Princess will be making this run weekly until the end of April when she'll go into dry dock. Then in November, Emerald Princess will come into Bayport Terminal to take her place beginning with the first cruise on November 16th and staying through April 2015.
Now in the interest of full disclosure, I will tell you that this cruise was not without it's mishaps. Although, none of them were a great inconvenience for those in our travel group. For the most part, things went fairly smoothly for us. To begin with, once I finally began packing on Friday afternoon, I got a call from my Dad who informed me that the Bailey's had received either a phone call or email (I can't remember which and it really doesn't matter) from Princess stating that they would have to board late because there was a Norovirus outbreak on board during the previous cruise which was currently heading into Houston and the entire ship was going to have to be disinfected before we could board. He asked if I had heard anything, I had not. So we both started checking email regularly. I eventually got one around 9:45 PM on Friday night. Dad's came through a little after 7 PM. All of the messages said that we could start boarding around 2 PM instead of the normal noon.
So I got up bright and early on Saturday morning to make the drive to Houston and was still about 30 minutes away from the cruise ship terminal around 1:15 when my Mom called and said that they had just been turned away from the terminal where they were told that the ship had just made it into the port due to fog the previous night. They were now anticipating a 6:30 PM embarkation. They had suggested that all 3,000 arriving passengers spend the day in Kemah on the boardwalk. Now, I don't know how much time you have spent in that area. But on a normal Saturday without an extra 3,000 people who are itching to get onto a cruise ship, it can be a little crowded and hectic. So, there was no way we were going to deal with those crowds. So we all headed to Texas City to spend a few hours visiting my Aunt Lou. Following the visit with Aunt Lou, we went to a Mexican restaurant for some good ol' TexMex and then drove back over to the terminal even though it was only 5:30. As luck would have it, they had just begun to let cars into the lot for dropping luggage off. Although the process seemed to take a great deal of time. We were in line and waiting to check in by 6:15.
After getting on board we all split up and went to our rooms. I was on Baja Deck in room 437. Mom and Dad were down the hall from me in 315. We were all on the starboard side of the ship in balcony cabins. Doris and Don were up on the Riviera Deck in cabin 518 on the port side also a balcony cabin. The ship is fairly nice but in need of a few updates, which it will receive in dry dock this spring. I was pleased with my cabin. It was slightly smaller than a superior oceanview balcony on Royal Caribbean which is what I'm used to. But it was still nice. One thing that I like about Princess is that the cabins all have mini refrigerators and you don't get that on Royal Caribbean. Here are a couple of pictures of my room as I arrived.
The bathroom was like any other on a cruise ship, small! The only difference is that the shower had a curtain that sort of goes out a little allowing just slightly more room in the shower so that it didn't stick to you. I hate when it sticks to you! There was no sofa in the room. So you only had the desk area and one chair to sit on in the room. The balcony was pretty nice though and let's face it... when you have a balcony in the Caribbean how much time are you really likely to spend inside a room anyway? Right? I do have to say that this is only the second time I have had a cabin to myself on a ship and when they push those two tiny little beds together, it makes one enormous and comfortable bed!
I will tell you that muster takes considerably longer on Princess than on any other cruise line I think I have ever been on. With that said, I've only been on Carnival once and that was many years ago before all of their much publicized problems. So, I would guess that theirs mirrors Princess now since they are both owned by the same company. I would say that from start to finish muster might have taken close to an hour, much of the time was just getting into place and getting someone to scan your card so that everyone was accounted for. Then they talk about what to do if you see someone go overboard, (you know, because those crazy people on Carnival are always taking headers over the edge so the lawyers have gotten involved) and then the captain had to talk about a minor itinerary change due to our late departure from Houston and we had to be lectured about washing our hands because of the Norovirus outbreak on the previous cruise. Also on Princess they make you take your life jacket to muster and you have to put it on, to be sure that you are capable of putting it on. I think the true test would be if they had everyone drink 6 or 7 cocktails first and then attempt to put it on while still holding a cocktail in hand because honestly, that's more probably the condition you will be in should the need arise to quickly don your life preserver. And here's another thing about muster while I'm on the topic. Why do people put that nasty little whistle in their mouth and blow on it as soon as the ships personnel mention that it's attached to the life jacket? That is probably the single biggest spreader of Norovirus on any cruise ship! Do you really think that the whistle is disinfected following each cruise???!?!?!?! STOP BLOWING ON THE WHISTLE PEOPLE!!!!!!
After muster Mom, Dad and I met at the Wheelhouse Bar near my muster station for drinks. I didn't bother taking my life jacket up to my room since I was only steps from our meeting place during muster. But Dad took theirs upstairs while Mom came on over to meet me. This was to be our only visit to this particular bar during the cruise. Dad and I both got Bloody Mary's which is one of the true tests of a good bar. It was basically some watered down tomato juice with a little bit of vodka. Mom had a Pina Colada which she said was okay. By the time we had finished our drinks and gone upstairs it was after 9 PM, so we went to the Horizon Cafe which is the buffet on Princess and had a little late night snack before calling it a night. Since we boarded so late, we never even made it to our assigned dining room. We were wrapping up muster at our assigned dining time. So, having dinner there was not an option.
Back in my room, I stayed out on the balcony until around 11 PM watching us make our way through the ship channel and out into the Gulf of Mexico. It had been a long day and at times a little trying but still all worth it when you considered that I was going to be spending the next 7 days on board a ship. Tomorrow I'll post a lot more pictures (sorry the pictures were so scarce today - I still haven't even downloaded all of them) and tell you all about the next few days of the cruise. For today, I have a lot of follow up work to do looking into honeymoons and destination weddings for prospective clients following yesterday's Signature Bridal Show where I had a booth on Sunday! Have a great Monday!
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