Climb Aboard!
Sat. Nov. 17
Port Everglades
Arriving at the port where the cruise would be taking off, my family set our eyes on the Royal Princess and boarded. The lobby of the boat was large and grand, seemingly fit for an expensive hotel. Tall pillars of glass stingrays and fluorescent lights were surrounded by spiraling marble stairs. Looking skyward you can see that the lobby takes up 4 floors in a great open display and a gorgeously decorated half dome was propped up on the ceiling of the lobby with the same material as the pillars. The cruise had wasted no expense on this stunning lobby, we were surprised that the boat could even hold such weight.
Turning back we're surprised to see our friends, we expected them on this cruise but to see them so soon was a shock. We greeted each other warmly and my family headed up to our room to see if our luggage had been taken up yet. Entering the elevator and stopping at our floor we navigate our way through the corridor to find our room, which didn't have our luggage delivered yet. To describe our room a little bit more: You enter through the door that you open with your key card, given to you before you board, and there's a short hallway that branches right to a small closet, a vertical shelf fitting a small safe, and a door to the bathroom. The bathroom itself is also tiny, fitting a sink, a toilet, and a walk-in shower. If you continue on through the brief hallway there are two beds, separated by a nightstand, a desk, and a tabletop with a freezer inside. Overall it's a small and quaint room, although there are beds in the ceiling that you can ask the steward to pull down. You're able to buy an upgraded room with more space but the smaller room trumped the larger because of the placement. Our mom gets seasick so she chose a room closer to the middle of the ship since the forward and aft would be much too rocky for her.
Settling in, we decided to look around and see what was different on this cruise. When you first enter a Princess cruise there will be a 'scavenger hunt' where you run around to different places on the boat to collect stamps for a $1000 USD raffle. It's a fun way to learn the ups and downs of the cruise, and you could win a prize as well! We then headed up for a small lunch from the buffet, just enough to hold us off until dinner. I was crazy tired from the airplane ride we needed to take to get to the ship so I crashed and burned once we got to our cabin, sleeping for about 3-4 hours.
Once I awoke, I find out that the ship may be delayed because there had been an accident, but for privacy purposes, we weren't told what happened. My mom said that it was probably due to getting too drunk and falling/tripping on something, but I hope it wasn't anything terrible. Putting that aside, our bags had still yet to come, which is to be expected on the first day of the cruise. The staff usually take a long time to sort out all of the bags, but it's a good thing that we had packed a spare set of clothes in case something like this happened.
Waving goodbye to Florida we headed off to our assigned dining room, Allegro. Overall, the food on the cruise was great, rich in flavor and cooked to completion. The father of our friends family cannot eat gluten, which was concerning at first, but our server catered to him and showed him what he could eat that day. He also gave him tomorrow's dinner menu so that he could choose what he'd like and they would be able to make gluten-free dishes in advance. We headed back to our cabins and were out like a light.
It was delicious if anyone was wondering x)
Disclaimer: Pictures were taken by me on my iPhone or my AKASO V50 Pro Native (an off-brand GoPro) unless otherwise stated.
