Do you want to know something crazy?  With all of my cruises and all of the port stops I have made along the way, I have never been to a cruise line’s private island.  For whatever reason, none of my cruises have stopped at private islands, and I’ve never even been to the Bahamas before.  I was really looking forward to seeing what it was like, especially knowing that Princess honors their drink packages on their private island!  With all of the expensive excursions we had booked for the rest of the cruise, it was nice knowing that today could be totally free (or at least totally covered by our cruise fare).  

My vision for today was that each cabin in our group would get off the ship at their leisure and we’d magically find each other in some central spot on the island (hopefully with the assistance of the Medallion location tracker if it worked ashore).  A slight wrench in the plans came when I realized that Princess Cay does not have a pier for the ships to tie up and dock at, so we would need to take a tender to shore.  My parents’ suite included priority access to the tenders whenever they wanted to go ashore.  We doubted we would be allowed to mooch off their perks, especially since they were likely to be the last of the 3 cabins to be ready to go ashore with them being relatively late risers.  My brother and I decided our families would meet up and take the tender together so the kids could play on the beach, and my parents would join us when they were ready.

Despite his 9pm bedtime, Ian woke us up at 7am this morning.  I considered telling him to go back to sleep, but instead I just got up, got both of us dressed, and took him upstairs to the buffet for breakfast while Jason slept in a little later.  I have sort of figured out the logistics of managing taking Ian to the buffet when it’s just the two of us:  I take 2 empty plates and keep them stacked together, and put all of our food onto one plate, then when we sit down at the table, I divide it up into separate plates.  This would have been a lot easier to manage if Princess didn’t use such extremely heavy plates though!  I understand they want them to be durable, but plastic plates are durable and weigh a fraction of what these ceramic plates weighed!

We grabbed a table next to the window to admire the view while we ate.  In the distance, I noticed a cruise ship docked at an island.  It was only 8am at this point, and we weren’t due to arrive at Princess Cays for another hour, so I assumed it was a ship from a different cruise line docked at a private island adjacent to Princess Cays.  

One of the waiters stopped at our table to ask if we wanted coffee, water, or juice, and I asked him about that ship.  He said it was another Princess ship at Princess Cay.  That didn’t sound correct to me because firstly, that ship was docked and I already knew Princess Cay does not have a dock, and secondly, I had looked up the cruise ship schedule for all of our ports and this was the one time I knew we would not have any other ships in port with us.  

As we got closer, I saw the ship had 2 red funnels, which meant it definitely was not a Princess ship.  When we were sailing past it, I could clearly see the Mickey heads on the 2 funnels, so now I knew it was a Disney ship and they were docked at their own private island!  Whew!  I hoped that meant that my research was correct and we would have Princess Cay all to ourselves today.

When we finished eating, we went up to deck 17 for a better view of the Disney ship.

While we were up there, Jason texted me that he was awake, so we met him back down in the buffet.  We ran into my brother’s family, so we all sat together while they ate breakfast.  My brother did not want to deal with waiting in line for tender tickets, so he wanted to stay on the ship a little longer and get off when the initial rush died down.  I didn’t see any purpose in twiddling my thumbs on the ship, so I said I would get tender tickets for my cabin, and we would go ashore first and find seats for the group, then my brother planned to find us a little later.

As instructed on the information left in our cabin, we went down to the Sushi Bar on Deck 6 to get tickets for the tender.  Only 1 person from each group had to be there to get however many tickets they needed, so Jason took Ian back to the cabin to grab our beach bags.  When I got to deck 6, there was already a line of people extending from the sushi bar down to the mid-ship elevators, but it moved quickly.  I watched as they handed the last tickets for tender 5 to the person in front of me, and then gave me 3 tickets to tender 6.  They instructed me to wait in the Piazza on deck 5 until they called my tender number, so I went downstairs to find some empty chairs and texted Jason where he should meet me.  

As it played out, we did not have to wait very long so it was a good thing that Jason and Ian were quick to find me!  Ten minutes later, there was an announcement over the loudspeaker that we were safely anchored in the bay and tickets numbered 1 through 6 could proceed down to deck 4 to board the awaiting tenders.  I wasn’t expecting them to call 6 tenders all at once!  We were already sitting right near the mid-ship elevators, so we grabbed our bags, walked down the mid-ship stairs one level, and boarded what must have been the first tender of the day because we happened to be sitting at the right spot.  

Last night, Cruise Director Tee said the tender ride would take 25 to 30 minutes, so we found seats inside the boat, prioritizing shade over getting a good photo of the ship.  It took a few minutes for the tender to fill up, and then we were on our way.

I’m not sure what kind of clock Tee uses, but that tender ride took exactly 8 minutes!  I should have known it wouldn’t take that long because I could see we were anchored very close to the island.  Maybe he meant it would take up to 30 minutes from the time you stepped foot on the tender until you got off at the island?!  

Once we were off the tender, we turned left and started walking, hoping to find a map or something to guide us to where we should go.  We never saw a map, but we did find an information desk.  I asked if there was an area that was good for children to play, and she said to just keep walking and we would eventually see the playground on our right.  Since we had never been here before, we thought that was vague.  We didn’t want to get lost, but as we started walking, we realized why she was so vague.  There is basically one long sidewalk that spans the width of the beach, so you really can’t get lost!  We started walking in search of a place to set up camp for the day.

As we walked, we saw tons of lounge chairs on our left side lining the beach, and then we found the children’s play area on the right side where the lady said it would be.  There was a small swimming pool with a few lounge chairs with umbrellas, but there weren’t very many of them and it looked like those were meant for parents whose kids were actively swimming at that time.

Next to the pool, there was a large playground that looked like a lot of fun for the kids and we decided we would come back here later in the day when my brother’s family joined us so Ian would have kids to play with.

There was also a separate shaded area with adirondack chairs and giant foam pieces to build and play with.  Ian actually had those same blue foam pieces at his daycare from when he was younger, so he was familiar with them.

We decided not to set up camp at the play area, and kept walking along the path to find our perfect spot for the day.  We wanted to get further down, away from where the tenders drop you off, in hopes it wouldn’t be as crowded.  We saw the place where they would serve lunch later in the day.  Just behind that were lots of big picnic tables under shade structures, which created a shadow over the nearby loungers.  This seemed like a good spot for us, but what sealed the deal was when we saw the lagoon!  The beach in this area was protected by a jetty, and that created a lagoon with very calm water.  It was perfect for the kids to play and swim, and we could easily see them from the nearby lounge chairs.

When we arrived, there was hardly anyone in this section of the island, and it really felt like we had our own private beach.   We found 5 lounge chairs in the shade, so we reserved those plus one of the picnic tables right next to the loungers, and decided this would be our spot for the day.  The Coconut Beach Bar was right next to our chairs, so I texted this photo to my brother and parents so they would know where to find us.

Once we were all set up, I left Jason and Ian to play on the beach while I walked around a little further into the island to make sure we really did find the best possible spot and that there wasn’t something better that we hadn’t seen yet.

After I passed a few more tents with picnic tables for lunch, I got to a section of beach with cabanas and sunbeds that were available to rent through the shore excursions desk.

That seemed like the end of the island, so I turned around to retrace my steps in the opposite direction.

On my way back, I noticed this 3 story lookout tower and made a mental note that I wanted to come back here later in the day with all the kids.  I knew they would love climbing up all those stairs, and even though I personally wasn’t as thrilled about climbing the stairs, I hoped the views from the top would be worth it.

When I made it back to our lounge chairs, I was happy to see there was still hardly anyone in this section of the beach.

A few minutes later, my brother texted that he was on the tender.  I wasn’t sure how we would all communicate on the island, so it was a nice surprise to see that our Princess wifi worked and we could text through iMessage like we had been doing on the ship.  The medallions worked for making purchases, but not for the location feature, so I told my brother where to go to find us when he got ashore, and a few minutes later, he found us.  

Around that time, I noticed the crew arrived to set up at Coconuts Beach Bar, so as soon as they were done, I went over and used my medallion to get a strawberry daiquiri.  NOW I feel like I’m on vacation at a tropical beach!

There was only one thing missing… a straw!  The crew said there are no straws on the island, which made it very challenging to drink this frozen drink.  I wish I had known and I would have brought a straw from the ship, or just ordered a beer instead.  

We spent the next few hours relaxing on the beach while the kids played in the water.  I was really nervous about how Ian would get along with his cousins because he hasn’t seen them since he was 9 months old.  Luckily, they got along great and Ian loved playing with them any chance he got.

At one point, my brother came over with a coconut that had fallen from one of the palm trees.  He cracked a little hole in the top and everyone tasted some of the water.

As the morning went on, a few more people joined us in our section of the beach, but it really never felt crowded.  It was lucky that we were the only ship in port today because I imagine it would be a different situation with more than one ship here.

Around 11:15am, I  noticed that some people had plates of food at the nearby picnic tables.  We walked over to the food pavilion buffet, conveniently located right behind our seats.  

They must have just opened a few minutes earlier, so there was no line yet.  There were 2 sides to the buffet which both had the same options…  BBQ chicken, grilled chicken breast, grilled fish, pork ribs, hot dogs, and hamburgers, plus a bunch of toppings.

I got a hotdog and cheeseburger for myself.  It was my mission to get Ian to try hotdogs and hamburgers on this cruise.  There’s really no reason he wouldn’t like them aside from his stubbornness against trying new foods.  Much to my dismay, he rejected both options and asked for a sandwich made from a hamburger bun with a few slices of American cheese.  At least he was eating something with a little protein!

Just as we were sitting down to eat lunch, my mom texted to say she and my dad arrived on the island.  I’m not really sure what they did all morning, but at least they finally joined us.  My dad was wearing his custom Pop shirt with pictures of the 3 grandkids, so I had to get a photo of them all together!

After lunch, the kids were eager to climb the lookout tower, so Jason and I took them over there.

As expected, the kids all ran up the stairs like they thought an ice cream truck was waiting for them at the top.  When I finally got up there, I was treated to a beautiful view of the beach.

While I was busy taking my photos, the kids must have lost interest in the views because they had already started climbing down the stairs.  I sent Jason to run after them while I finished soaking up the views, then made my way back down.  When I got to the bottom, my niece and nephew were busy picking flowers off one of the bushes.

Never one to be left out, Ian wanted a photo with me too.  I tried to get one of him with his cousins, but he just wanted one with his mommy.

By the time we got back to our lounge chairs, my brother and SIL were finished eating lunch, so we all decided to head over to the kids play area for a little while.  Since that was halfway back towards the cruise ship tenders, and we knew we wanted to head back to the ship early to avoid waiting in long tender lines, we decided to pack up our belongings and vacate our lounge chairs.  It was now 12:30pm and we noticed the beach was much more crowded than earlier in the day.  Every time we stood up from a lounge chair to grab a drink at the bar or grab something for lunch, someone came over to ask if we were leaving and if they could take our lounger.  We constantly had to keep defending our turf, so it just made sense to give up the chairs at this point since we didn’t think we’d come back to this area of the beach.

We all went over to the kids area and watched them play on the playground and splash in the kiddie pool for a little while.  Around 1:15pm, the kids were getting tired, so we decided to take that as our cue to pack up and head back to the tenders.  That proved to be a great decision because there was no line at all and we walked right up to the security x-rays and then immediately onto a tender which was already half-full.

It’s nice that they provide shade in case people do have to wind up and down the corrals at the end of the day.

We sat upstairs on the tender so I could try to take some photos on the ride back.  We had a great view of the other side of the island.  I never thought to walk over there (the side to the right of the tender docks), but it looked like a nice calm section of the beach.

As we left the dock, I could see a glimpse of the rest of the beach.  Princess Cays was such a beautiful island, and I was so happy we got to spend a few hours there.

I tried to get a good photo of the ship, but we were moving into the sun so the ship was in silhouette until we got close enough that the ship could block the sun, and by then we were too close to capture the whole ship in my photo.  Oh well!

We all thought it was funny that we had to scan our medallions and go through security with x-rays when leaving the island, prior to boarding the tender… and then do it all over again when we exited the tender and got off the ship.  Did they think we collected contraband from a passing boat during that 5 minute journey?  Or perhaps someone hopped onto the moving tender to sneak onboard?  I guess they can never be too safe!

Once we got through security, Jason took Ian up to the cabin to take a shower, and I went straight up to the Lido pool bar to grab us some drinks to bring back to the cabin.  This time, I got myself an Elderflower and Meyer Lemon Spritz with St. Germain Elderflower Liqueur, fresh citrus, mint, prosecco, and meyer lemon club soda.

After their showers, Jason and Ian took a nap while I took my shower.  In an effort to avoid waking them up, I went into my parents’ cabin to blow dry my hair, and then I spent some time relaxing outside on their balcony.  So remember how we had sailed past the Disney cruise ship earlier this morning and I assumed they were docked at their own private island?  Well yes, that was technically true, but it wasn’t really their own island.  They were at the southern end of the same island as Princess Cays, Eleuthera in the Bahamas.  The Disney section is called Lookout Cay, and Princess Cays is located just a short distance up the shore.  If you had a car, I’m sure you could easily drive from one area to the other.  I actually just looked up Eleuthera on Google Maps and the island is much bigger than I realized.  There are several resorts throughout the island, so really Lookout Cay and Princess Cay is just a private beach, not actually a private island.  The more you know!

While we were sitting on the balcony, we could see the Disney ship still docked at their pier.  

That looked like a verrrrrry long pier!  I just looked it up and according to Google, it is a half mile long!  We could see that they had a tram running back and forth so the passengers didn’t have to walk.  

Just before our 5:20pm reservation, all 9 of us met outside the deck 6 elevators to enter the Amalfi dining room together.  Now that our cabins were linked, they had no trouble assigning us to the same table where we sat last night.

I ordered the fried mushrooms and the crab seafood cocktail appetizers, followed by the pork belly entree.  Everything was served at the appropriate temperatures and tasted delicious.

Unfortunately, service was incredibly slow tonight.  My appetizers were served at 5:55pm (35 minutes after we were seated), and my entree was served at 6:20pm.  None of us wanted to wait around to order our desserts and wait for them to be served, and my brother was eager to head to the theater for the 7pm production show, so we all opted to skip dessert and grab something later from the buffet if we wanted it.

We dropped off Ian at camp when they opened at 7pm.  On last year’s cruise, the shows were at 7:30pm and 9:30pm, so it worked out perfectly to drop Ian at camp when they opened at 7pm, and then have 30 minutes to walk from deck 17 aft to deck 6 or 7 forward to the theater, with time to spare to grab a drink from one of the bars along the way.  This year, the shows were at 7pm and 9pm, so it was impossible for us to catch the start of the 7pm show.  I wish the camp coordinated their timing better with the evening shows because we weren’t the only parents facing this dilemma.  We had a similar issue on our Carnival cruise this summer, but they accommodated us by letting us drop off Ian a few minutes early, plus the camp was at the forward elevators, so it was an easy journey straight down to get to the theater.  On this cruise, we had to walk the entire length of the ship to get from camp to the theater, so in the end, we decided it was easier to watch the 9pm shows most nights, even if that meant we couldn’t sit with my brother’s family.  

Tonight, there was a 7:15pm comedy show in the Vista Lounge, so that worked out well with our logistics.  We took the aft elevators straight down from camp at deck 17 to the Vista Lounge on deck 7, and found seats for us and my parents.  We even had a few minutes to spare so Jason could grab us some drinks before the show started.  Tonight’s comedian was Brandon Vestal, and Jason and I both found his dry, subdued jokes very funny.  I kept looking over at my parents and I could tell they didn’t find it funny at all.  I guess everyone has the right to their own opinions!

After the comedy show, I went up to the Bellini Bar for a Tropical Bellini, with Bacardi Superior, Prosecco, agave, and lime, while Jason got us seats in Princess Live for the 8pm trivia game.

The trivia game was sort of like Jeopardy style, with 5 categories, and each category had 5 different questions.  I forgot to write down the categories in my notes, but it was definitely tricky and I think we only knew a few of the answers.  It was fun to play along, but we left a little early to find seats in the theater for the 9pm production show.  

Tonight’s show was Spotlight Bar, which was our favorite show from last year’s cruise.  We enjoyed it just as much this year!  It was set in a local neighborhood bar from opening to closing time one night, and the patrons visiting the bar sang familiar pop songs to share stories about their lives.  I really enjoyed the song choices and choreography.  It featured “Brave” and “She Used To Be Mine” by Sara Bareilles, “Havana” by Camila Cabello, “Don’t You Worry ‘Bout A Thing” by Stevie Wonder, and “When I Was Your Man” by Bruno Mars.  There were 2 songs that I found particularly entertaining.  They sang “Old Town Road” by Lil Nas X, and the choreography featured the male dancers dressed like cowboys, dancing a country line dance on top of the restaurant tables.  I also really enjoyed when they sang “Haven’t Met You Yet” by Michael Buble because it was from the perspective of a girl meeting a bunch of first dates from a dating app.  Each man acted out a stereotypically bad first date behavior, until the last guy came out and was a perfect gentleman.  They stayed together for the rest of the show, and as the patrons left the bar at the end of the night, that couple left together.  It was very clever, and I appreciated the creativity.

I tried to take photos throughout the show, but the 5x zoom on my iPhone was no match for how far back we were sitting in the theater.

The show ended at 9:45pm, giving us just enough time to walk across the ship once again and take the aft elevators up to deck 17 to pick up Ian from camp before they closed at 10pm.  We all went back to the cabin to get ready for bed.  There was a paper on our bed reminding us to set our clocks ahead one hour tonight, so by the time we got ready for bed, we went to sleep around midnight on the new time.  Conveniently, tomorrow would be a sea day when we had no need to wake up early!

Today’s drinks total:  22

Up next: our first sea day

Saturday, December 27 ~ Embarkation Day

As has become my norm, I didn’t get much sleep on the night before Embarkation Day.  Usually that is my own fault as the excitement of our upcoming cruise makes it hard for me to relax and fall asleep.  This time around, it was actually Ian’s fault that I didn’t get much sleep because he kept waking us up to ask questions about the cruise… Does the cruise ship have a theater?  Are we going on any small boats, and do they have a theater?  Does our cabin have curtains?  Are there curtains on the small boats?  Clearly he was very excited for the cruise and couldn’t sleep with all the questions on his mind.  He woke us up at 10pm, 10:45pm, and 11:30pm, but we didn’t hear from him after that so I assume he finally fell asleep for the night.

My alarm went off at 6:30am, and I immediately jumped out of bed to get ready for the day.  Who cares that I didn’t get enough sleep last night?  We have a cruise ship to drive to!  I turned off my alarm and before anything else, I checked Cruise Mapper to locate the Enchanted Princess.  Just as expected, she was docked in Port Everglades, but annoyingly, she was deep into the port at Pier 21 instead of the more convenient Pier 2.

Today would be a very busy day at Port Everglades with 6 cruise ships doing turn-arounds, including some megaships, and all of them were transitioning from their Christmas cruise to their New Year’s cruise so it was likely that they were all sailing at their maximum passenger capacity.  Fingers crossed that we don’t get stuck in a ton of traffic!

I got dressed, ate a quick breakfast, and Jason woke up around 7am and did the same.  Not surprisingly, after all of his questions last night, Ian slept later this morning than he did all week.  While we waited for him to wake up, we finished the rest of our packing and loaded our luggage into the car.  Ian finally rolled out of bed around 8am, so we got him dressed and strapped into his car seat and let him eat his breakfast in the car.

A side note about our medallions… When we booked the cruise, we purchased the Plus Package for Jason and myself, which includes free shipping of your medallions prior to the cruise.  When we did this last year, we were unsure how they would handle Ian’s medallion because he did not have the package, but he was in our cabin.  Luckily, they just lumped him together with us and shipped all 3 medallions together before our cruise.  Armed with that knowledge, we had no worries that all 3 medallions would ship together for this year’s cruise, but we were faced with a different dilemma.  Princess claims to ship their medallions 2-3 weeks before the sail date, but I have heard people mention that they didn’t receive theirs until the week prior to sailing.  Our dilemma was that we were flying to my parents’ house in Florida one week prior to sailing, and we were worried the medallions would arrive in Phoenix after we left.  Our solution was to ship our medallions to my parents’ house where we were confident we could receive them before the cruise.  After entering the shipping address and completing my order (which did indeed include Ian’s medallion for free), the confirmation indicated that it would ship to the cruise port and we could pick it up on embarkation day.  Wait, what?!  I canceled the order and did it again, making extra sure that I clicked “ship to home” and entered my parents’ address, and once again, the confirmation said it would be shipped to the port.  At that point, I decided to just let it be and hope for the best.  If it shipped to my parents’ house, then great, that would be more convenient.  If it ended up shipping to the port, then that just meant we would need to wait in an extra line to retrieve it, but it’s not like that would cancel our cruise or anything.  Sure enough, 2 weeks before our sail date (and 1 week before we left Phoenix), all 3 of our medallions were delivered to my parents’ house.  Whew!  

Princess’ medallions are the exact same size as Apple’s AirTags, so last year I bought 3 velcro bracelet AirTag holders in different colors to identify who is who.  They were still in good condition so we reused them this year.  Everyone donned their bracelets prior to climbing in the car, and we were all ready to go for our 2-hour drive to Ft. Lauderdale.

We finally left my parents house at 8:25am.  Luckily, there was no traffic and we were in Ft. Lauderdale by 10am.  We stopped at a gas station to fill up the tank, and pulled into the car rental drop-off location at 10:10am.  Budget has an office in the Ft. Lauderdale airport, but we opted to use the location closer to the cruise port.

It was crazy chaotic when we arrived, and we feared we would be waiting for hours to get on the free shuttle to the port.  We considered just taking an Uber, but when we walked over to where all the people were standing, we realized they were all waiting to pick up their rental cars.  We asked around and there was only one other family waiting for the shuttle to the port!  Perfect!  Literally one minute later, the shuttle pulled up, and a shocking number of people got off given the size of the bus.  We all got on and picked our seats, then a bunch of other people got on after us.  The driver kept loading on people and luggage until even the center aisle was filled with people standing.  I probably shouldn’t have been surprised given how many people got off when the shuttle arrived, but I did have to protect myself from the man standing over me when we went around turns as he lost his balance and nearly sat on my head!  

There were people from 5 of the 6 ships in port on our shuttle, and just our luck, we were dropped off last, but we were still thankful to avoid all the traffic around the port.  Our original plan was to drop off big bags at the ship first, then return the rental car and only have our carry-on bags with us on the shuttle.  We decided against it, thinking it would be much faster to only go to the port once, even if it meant schlepping our checked bags a little further.  We were glad we kept the big bags with us because we didn’t have to carry them at all!  Someone at Budget helped us get them on and off the shuttle, and the porters at the port were waiting right where the shuttle dropped us off to take them from us.  My brother drove to the port to drop off my SIL, niece, nephew, and all the luggage, and he said the traffic was horrible.  I think the car rental shuttle had access to a different entrance to the port because we did see lots of cars sitting in traffic, but we just zipped right on through, hopping from one ship to the next until we were finally dropped off at the Enchanted at 10:45am.

After handing off our checked bags to the porters, we were happy to see that the lines for security were relatively short, and it moved quickly because there were about 5 lanes open.  We took the elevator upstairs and there was no line at all for both the blue and green lanes at check in.  There were plenty of agents at both counters, so I have a feeling the lines were kept under control even during the inevitable rush a few hours later.  Our agent scanned our passports and told us we could board straight away!

I promise Jason and Ian were excited, despite looking like they were being dragged to slaughter in this photo!

We stepped aboard at 11:04am, exactly 20 minutes after getting out of the car rental shuttle.  That makes 3 cruises in a row for us having super easy and fast boarding experiences!  We went straight up to the cabin to see if it was ready, and we saw our steward in the hallway.  She said she was done cleaning our room and we could leave our carry-on bags inside if we wanted.  That was much appreciated as now we were more mobile to explore the ship.  Before we had a chance to mess up the cabin, I snapped a few photos.  It was identical to the cabin we had last year on the Discovery, so there weren’t any surprises.

Open closet, with shelves and a safe behind the narrow door in the middle, and the bathroom behind the door on the right:

Our bed, with nightstands on either side, each with a shelf, 2 drawers, and a lamp with a USB charging port:

The desk, minifridge, coffee table, and love seat were at the back of the cabin.  We asked Ian to lay down on the loveseat and he was still short enough to fit comfortably!  That was a huge relief because if we had to open up the pull-out couch, it would block our access to the balcony door while he was asleep.  When we saw our steward again, we asked her to just put a sheet on top of the cushions and not to open up the full bed for Ian, and she said that was no problem.

I loved how many outlets they had in our cabin.  In addition to the USB ports in each nightstand lamp, there were 5 other outlets on the desk, including 2 US ports and 3 international ports.  I always travel with my international travel adaptor so I could have used the other ports, but I never needed them.  I do wish they could have mounted the phone to the wall, as there was so little counter space in the cabin and the phone took up valuable real estate.

Another view of the cabin:

The typical pile of paperwork was waiting for us on the desk…

Muster instructions:

Today’s patter:

Information about the medallion:

Daily dinner themes in the buffet:

Information for guests with children on board:

We also spoke to our steward about opening up the door between our balcony and my parents’ balcony.  She said that was no problem and she would take care of it later this afternoon.

Even though our steward said the cabin was ready and we could take our time in there, we wanted to check a few more things off our to-do list while the ship was fairly empty.  Since our cabin was all the way aft, we took the aft elevators up to deck 17 to register Ian at camp.  I had already done his pre-registration online when checking in for the cruise, so I just had to make sure all the information they had was correct.  I made sure that all 6 adults in our group were listed to sign Ian in and out of camp, and then we were all set.  This is the only opportunity for parents to see the inside of the camp room, so I took a quick look around.  It was basically the same space as the camp on Discovery Princess, but I was thrilled to see they had trucks for Ian to play with.  Those who read last year’s review will remember that they did not have one single toy in any of the camp rooms that had wheels (cars, trucks, etc.).  

We also made sure to show Ian the bathroom so he would know where to go when needed.  It was great that they had a child-sized toilet in the bathroom in this room for camp as it’s for kids 3 to 7 years old.  The room for kids 8 to 12 years old only had a normal adult-sized toilet, and he was in that room on the port days, so the staff had to bring him over to the younger kids room if he needed to go potty.

When we were ready to leave camp, we had to practically drag Ian out of the room, so that was a good sign for him agreeing to go to camp during the cruise.  We took the stairs down one level to deck 16 so we could get our first drinks of the cruise from the Wake View Bar.  I opted for an Ultimate Cooler, with Tito’s vodka, watermelon, passion fruit, and cranberry, and it was the perfect way to kick off this cruise!

They had a few special drinks themed for the New Year’s Eve cruise, but they were all priced above the $15 limit of the Plus Package.  I probably could have gotten one and just paid the $3 difference, but I felt like there were enough options that did fall under the $15 limit so there was no reason to spend extra money for these drinks.

We took our drinks to go and spent some time walking around the outer decks.  I haven’t cruised out of Florida since 2018, and I must say that I really missed these incredible views on Embarkation Day.  The cloud-less bright blue sky, the boats zipping around in the ocean, tons of cruise ships docked all around us, and a backdrop of beaches and condos dotting the horizon.  There was just so much to see!

We have a tradition of taking a photo with the life ring on Embarkation Day.  We have done it on every cruise we have taken, so of course, we had to take our photo today too.  At first, Ian didn’t want to be in the photo, so Jason and I just asked someone walking by to take one of the two of us.

Of course, seeing us take our photo made Ian want to take one too.  He wouldn’t let us take a photo with all 3 of us together, but he did agree to be in one on his own, so that’s better than nothing!

We ended our walk with a view overlooking the mid-ship Sky Pool.  It was now just after 12 noon, and still didn’t seem very busy on board.

None of us were particularly hungry, but we decided to get a light lunch before the buffet got too crowded.  I must have been in a seafood mood because I got an assortment of calamari, shrimp, scallops, and mussels, a pre-made smoked salmon sandwich, and some balsamic mushrooms to say I ate a vegetable.  It was actually really funny when I got the smoked salmon sandwich because everyone who noticed it literally oohed and ahhed out loud when they saw it in the buffet.

Once we were all seated and eating, I tried to order drinks to be delivered to our table, but the Princess app wouldn’t let us.  I’m not sure if these changes are fleet-wide or specific to the Enchanted, but we were limited on which locations we were allowed to order drinks to.  Last year, we loved that we could order drinks on the app and have them brought to wherever we were sitting, but on this cruise, that feature only worked in certain places around the ship.  This was what the app said when I tried to order drinks in the buffet:

We ended up flagging down a roaming waiter and ordered a margarita and an aperol spritz.  He brought it back to our table fairly quickly, but as I noticed was a trend throughout the ship, my drink wasn’t mixed at all.  Of course, I didn’t realize it before taking a sip.  Aperol without the spritz is very bitter, and I immediately realized the issue and mixed the drink with the cardboard straw.

We used the app to watch the muster video while we ate, then went down to the Vista Lounge to check in at our station when we finished lunch.  Easy peasy!

Around that time, my parents texted me that they were onboard.  They left Port St. Lucie way later than we did, and I had no idea where they were or when they would get onboard, so it was nice knowing they finally made it.  While we were walking around and exploring the ship, my brother’s family was eating lunch, and they finished before we were ready to start eating.  We tracked them down near the mid-ship pool, so we texted my parents to meet us there so we could all take a photo together.  My mom bought everyone these matching shirts, so we had to get one group photo before we all got changed for dinner.

After the group photo, my mom mentioned that she saw our checked luggage had been delivered.  Jason, Ian, and I went back to the cabin so the boys could change into bathing suits.  I told Jason to spend a few hours at the pool with Ian so he could swim with his cousins, and I could have the cabin empty to spend some time unpacking.  It took me over 2 hours, but I succeeded in unpacking all of our stuff just in time for sail away at 3pm.  I texted Jason to come back down to the cabin so we could watch sail away from my parents’ balcony, but he didn’t see the message because he was still in the pool with Ian.  When I felt the ship was moving, I stepped out onto our balcony.  On a normal cruise when I am only cruising with the people in my one cabin, this balcony would be amazing.  It was significantly deeper than the standard balcony we had last year, including a big table to eat meals outside, and both chairs included foot stools.

I noticed the steward had finished opening up the door to my parents’ balcony, so I walked over and found them basking in the sun.

Their balcony was really huge.  I was able to capture all of it when I zoomed out with the 0.5 camera on my iPhone.  If you look on the far left, you can see the door to my balcony just beyond the chair.  With all of this space, it was a shame there was only seating for 5 people on their balcony.  There was more than enough space for a few more loungers, or even a bigger dining table with more chairs.  

I took a peek inside because I wanted to see my parents’ cabin.  It was a Penthouse Suite, which was the second largest cabin on the ship (only the Sky Suite was bigger).  This was by far the largest cabin I have ever seen on a cruise ship!  There was a large living room with a full-sized couch, a desk, and a separate counter and shelves near the minifridge.

Entering into the bedroom, there were 2 large closets with doors.  I know some people like the open closets in the regular cabins, but I really wish they had doors like this to hide all the clutter.

Continuing into the bedroom, there was a large vanity desk area, and the nightstands had 3 drawers (instead of 2 drawers plus a shelf like in our cabin).

Their bathroom was enormous, with one sink, a large stall shower, and a large garden bathtub in one room, and a toilet and second sink in a separate room.

I stepped back outside onto the balcony to watch as we sailed away from Port Everglades.

The boys came back from swimming around that time to take showers and get changed for dinner.  The group decided we should change out of the matching t-shirts and all dress a little nicer for our first dinner together in the dining room.  After we were dressed, I took one more peak outside and was greeted with this beautiful sunset.

For those unfamiliar, there are 3 dining rooms on the ship.  The Santorini dining room has traditional dining with an early 5pm seating and a late 7:30pm seating.  We considered that, but the group thought 5pm was too early to be ready for dinner on port days, and we all agreed 7:30pm was way too late to eat dinner, especially with 3 kids in our group.  The Capri dining room was for non-reservation walk-ups, where you would arrive whenever you wanted to eat and be seated when a table was available.  With our large group, we feared that would leave us waiting for a table every night, so that was immediately vetoed.  That left us with the Amalfi dining room, where you could make reservations in advance for whatever time you wanted.  The reservations were offered in 20 minute increments starting at 5pm, so we all discussed it and agreed that 5:40pm would be ideal.  The other advantage to the Amalfi dining room was that it was located at the aft of the ship, so it was very close to all of our cabins and we could avoid walking up to the mid-ship dining room every night.

A few months before the cruise, I tried to make dinner reservations for our group of 9 using the app, but there was no availability at all for any time of day.  You don’t gain access to that feature until you make the final payment for the cruise, so this was in mid-September, still 3 months in advance.  I emailed our travel agent and she said there was nothing she could do on her end, but recommended we call Princess’ shoreside dining line for assistance.  I spoke with an agent who was extremely helpful, but she explained that all the tables for large parties were already booked by people who paid off their final payment before us.  In the end, she was able to make us a reservation for 5:20pm every night of the cruise in the Amalfi aft dining room.  That was slightly earlier than we initially hoped for, but it was better than nothing!  After she confirmed our reservation, I asked if there was any way to make our reservation at 6pm for New Year’s Eve?  My excursion wasn’t scheduled to end until 4:30pm, and then I’d still have to walk back to the ship, get up to my cabin, shower and wash my hair (since we’d be swimming in the ocean on that excursion), and get ready for a fancy New Year’s Eve on the ship.  There was absolutely no way I could do that in less than an hour (plus Jason would need time to get ready too!), so I begged her to find us something later just for that one day.  She said that she could accommodate us for a 6pm reservation that night, so that was a huge relief.  When I looked in my app, I was able to see the dinner reservations for each night of the cruise for all 9 people in our party.  My one mistake was that I did not think to take a screenshot of the reservations, so I didn’t have any proof of this conversation.  

Once we were onboard, I looked in the app and saw that our dinner reservations were for 8 people, not 9.  That’s not good!  My mom made some phone calls and made use of the special suites concierge services and found out that they changed us to a table for 8, intending to just squeeze in a 9th chair.  Apparently they didn’t have any real tables for 9, and all the tables for 10 were already booked.  This was less than ideal, but okay fine, we would make it work, even if it meant constantly kicking each other under the table and not being able to pull in our chairs all the way.  

All 9 of us met up outside the aft elevators on deck 6 and approached the hostess stand together.  The hostess made a big deal about us needing to link our cabins together to ensure we were always seated together as a group.  I’m not really sure what that was all about since we could see the reservation with all of our different cabins in our apps, but we spoke to another person at the hostess desk and she linked the reservations.  This lady was quite rude, and I honestly wish I had written down her name to comment about it in the post-cruise survey.  She kept blaming me for doing the reservations incorrectly and saying “well YOU didn’t link your cabins” and “YOU were supposed to do that so we could find you a table.”  Ummm, pardon me but I didn’t actually do anything!  I called the shoreshide dining line and that lady did all of the work on her end to book our reservations!  If you want to have an attitude with anyone, have it with that lady from your own company!  Once that was resolved, we were escorted to our table and told we could sit here at 5:20pm every night of the cruise and have the same waiters every night.  Or would we??  **Foreshadowing**

Anyway, back to tonight’s dinner…

Once we were all seated at our table, our suspicions proved true.  A table for 8 is definitely a tight squeeze with 9 chairs.  The chairs are wide, so we weren’t able to pull them all the way in to the table because the front corners were hitting the next chair over.  With no other choice, we made it work.  On the bright side, we had a wonderful waiter team at this table.  Our head waiter was Bernardo from Peru, and he was always so accommodating, especially in bringing Ian whatever he wanted for dinner, even if it wasn’t on the kids menu.  Isaac was in charge of our drinks, and he was always quick to take our orders and then offer refills as needed throughout the meal.  Tonight, I ordered a glass of sauvignon blanc for me and a cup of milk for Ian.  Ian prefers plain milk, and my nephew prefers chocolate milk, so each subsequent night, Isaac brought the boys their preferred cups of milk without us even asking.

For my appetizer, I ordered the deep-fried brie bites with cranberry jam.  It was delicious and I would have eaten that every night if given the choice!

Technically, my parents should have been eating their dinners in the section of the Capri dining room reserved for suites, and they should have had access to a special menu.  We later learned that this “special menu” was actually just one special entree in addition to the same menu everyone else was served that night.  They knew when booking their cabin that the other 3 cabins in our group were not suites, so if they wanted to eat dinner with the whole family, they would have to eat in the main dining room.  Once we got onboard, they spoke with the concierge desk and arranged to have access to the special suites entree and it would be served to them in the Amalfi dining room.  That was a great compromise, and my parents were happy the staff were so willing to accommodate them.

Tonight’s suites entree was a seafood risotto dish.  My dad wanted to order it for himself, but my mom opted for something else.  When they explained that to the manager, he said that he was able to bring two of the risotto entrees to our table, even if my mom was not going to be the second person to eat it (Hint, hint.  Nudge, nudge.  He was discretely encouraging them to share with someone else in the group.).  My dad asked if any of the rest of us wanted it and I jumped on it without blinking an eye!  To be fair, Jason and my SIL don’t eat shellfish, and my brother wasn’t interested, so it’s not like I had to battle them for the privilege.  

When the waiter placed my dish in front of me, I took it at face value.  It looked like a typical cruise ship entree portion size as I assumed it was served on a plate.  Imagine my surprise (and my dad’s surprise too!) when we realized it was a deep bowl!  As we continued eating, it felt like the dish just kept getting deeper and deeper, and it was stuffed with large scallops, shrimp, mussels, clams and calamari mixed in with the cheesy risotto.  There was sooooo much seafood stuffed in that bowl that we joked there must have been a hole at the bottom and a chef sitting under our table to refill it.  It was by far the best entree I had the entire cruise, and made me question why we don’t book our cruises in suites!  (We’ll just ignore the obvious reason… we can’t afford suites, and cheaper cabins mean we get to take more cruises.)

Happy faces with full bellies

After that ginormous entree, I wasn’t hungry at all for dessert, but I ordered the raspberry sorbet for a little something sweet.

Ian ordered vanilla ice cream from the kid’s menu for his dessert, and the waiter topped it with rainbow sprinkles.  When he finished his ice cream, he proceeded to eat all the sprinkles from the bottom of the bowl… silly kid!

After dinner, everyone else in our group went to the 7pm show in the theater, but Ian was cranky after skipping his nap and going to bed so late last night, so we decided to bring him back to the cabin to put him to bed.  While we waited for him to fall asleep, we ordered a few drinks to the cabin through the room service app.  Last year, we were able to order literally any drink offered on the ship, but this year, there was a restricted list of options.  After we placed our order, the drinks were delivered within 20 minutes.  Jason ordered a martini, and I ordered an aperol spritz (which was mixed properly this time!)

After 30 minutes, Ian was still fighting his sleep, so Jason and I decided to sit out in the hallway to limit Ian’s distractions.  I used this time to decorate the door to our cabin with New Year’s Eve decorations.  Last year, I made these decorations by gluing magnets to the back, so I had stored them away knowing I’d reuse them this year too.

I also brought these decorations that I made on my Cricut.  I designed them to be reusable for all my cruises, so the custom wording comes off and can be replaced for each cruise.  I decided to put them on the door to my parents’ cabin.  Because of the location of our cabin, we were at the very end of the hallway and no one would ever see our decorations.  Even the people with aft-facing cabins wouldn’t see our door because the hallway turned before our cabin.  The door to my parents’ suite was located at the end of the long hallway that spanned the whole length of the ship.  It had literally zero privacy and could be seen from at least the hall outside the mid-ship elevators, maybe even further if you had excellent vision.  By placing these brightly colored decorations on their door, Ian could easily spot it from far away, so he always knew where to go to get back to our cabin.  He knew that door was for Mimi and Pop, and the one with the New Year’s Eve decor was our cabin, but it was very helpful that we could see it from so far away (even though it meant my parents had less privacy with their door open.)

So remember how I switched our original booking from the aft-facing cabin to the last cabin on the port side of the ship?  As it turned out, this was a blessing in disguise.  Because the turn off to access the aft-facing cabins happened before reaching our cabin door, we ended up with our own little alcove.  We often left our deadbolt out to hold the door open so we could go back and forth between our cabin and my parents’ cabin without the loud noise of opening and closing our cabin door.  There was no way to close the cabin door quietly from the outside.  From the inside, you could turn down the handle and slowly push the door closed and it didn’t make much noise.  From the hallway side, you literally had to slam the door to make it shut all the way, and that would have woken Ian when he was asleep.  We felt fairly safe leaving the deadbolt out to hold the door open when we were sitting in my parents’ cabin since no one would ever see it.  This was our little nook, with our cabin on the right and my parents’ suite on the left…

Anyway, back to that evening… Jason and I ended up sitting on the floor of the hallway so we could chat while waiting for Ian to fall asleep.  Nearly 2 hours later, he was STILL fighting his bedtime, and he kept coming out into the hallway.

By then, it was 8:45pm and we were getting frustrated with him for not going to sleep.  Had we known he’d fight his bedtime like this, we would have put him in camp after dinner and gotten to enjoy the entertainment around the ship.  Around that time, my mom texted to see what we were up to.  When we told her, she offered to come back to the cabin to watch Ian so we could catch the 9pm show.  She needed to finish unpacking anyway, so it wasn’t a problem for her.  She said the whole group loved the show and she thought we would enjoy it, so we took her up on her offer.

My parents got back to their cabin a few minutes later, and we left to walk alllll the way forward to the theater.  We grabbed two seats at the back of the theater, and realized we hadn’t missed anything from the show because the cruise director, Tee, was still talking.  We actually took advantage of this several times during the cruise because we realized Tee talks for a few minutes before all of the shows.  The one exception was the 3 nights they had the big production cast shows, which all started promptly at 7pm and 9pm.  Tee had to introduce the specialty acts that came onboard throughout the cruise, which gave us a buffer to get to the theater on time.  More on that when we get to those nights of the cruise.

We were sitting really far back in the theater, so my apologies that these aren’t the best quality photos.  Tonight’s show was called Duo Gravity, and this was the description from the Patter:

Experience an unforgettable evening of electrifying music, awe-inspiring circus artistry, and lighthearted comedy.  This high-energy show seamlessly blends the timeless beats of rock ’n’ roll and the catchy rhythms of pop with breathtaking stunts.

After seeing the show, especially when compared to the description from the Patter, both Jason and I were underwhelmed.  We enjoyed it and were glad we had the opportunity to see it rather than spending the hour fighting with Ian, but we honestly thought it was an amateur performance.  Maybe we are just jaded from shows we’ve seen on other ships, or from watching similar acts every summer on America’s Got Talent, but we just were not that impressed with their stunts.

They started out with a juggling act…

Then, they performed a few stunts where the man lifted the woman…

Next, they picked a woman from the audience and asked her to come on stage to be their assistant with juggling.  

Then, they found two men from the audience and had them help with a unicycle act.  The funniest part of this was that the man on the left was the 16-year-old son of the man sitting next to us at the back of the theater!  We were literally in the last row of the theater, so it was funny that his son was sitting up in the front row, and watching his reaction to his son on stage was better than the act itself!

After that, the woman came back out and did some acrobatics with LED hula hoops.  

We weren’t all that impressed by her stunts, but I loved how some of my photos turned out!  The theater was dark, so the phone defaulted to a long-exposure shot.  In that time, her hula hoops moved, so the camera captured that movement, creating some really cool effects…

At the end of the show, the pair performed some more acrobatic stunts together, but this time, the woman did all the heavy lifting.  This was by far the most impressive part of the entire show, and it was really incredible to see her strength.  On America’s Got Talent, the judges are always looking for something they’ve never seen before.  I can say that in all of my prior cruises, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a woman do stunts like this!

That part alone made it worth us sitting through the whole show!  It ended at 10pm, at which point Jason and I went back to our cabin to relieve my parents from their babysitting duty.  My mom said Ian fell asleep within 5 minutes of us leaving… that kid is so manipulative with us, but he knows his Mimi means business!  

Each night of the cruise, Jason and I tallied up the drinks we each ordered that day.  It was nice being able to see our total in the app to make sure we never went over our 15 drinks limit.  There were many days when Jason ordered 12 or 14 drinks but I only had 1 or 2 on my account because the waiters always seemed to bill the drinks to Jason, even if we requested them to put it under my name.  We were careful to monitor it throughout the day and sometimes I would go order both drinks without Jason being nearby to ensure it went on my account.

Today’s drinks total:  21

Up next: Beach day at Princess Cay

Monday, December 22, 2025 ~ Drive to Port St. Lucie

We decided not to set an alarm this morning after such a long day yesterday, but I naturally woke up at 7:30am.  I quietly got dressed and ready for the day, then went downstairs to the breakfast room to check out our options.  I apologize that I forgot to take photos, but the space was large enough for the size of the hotel (a nice change from so many other hotels where I have stayed when there aren’t enough tables and people are tripping over each other trying to get their food and find a place to eat.)  They had scrambled eggs, sausage, cereal, fruit, a fridge with yogurt and milk, and my personal favorite: a make-your-own waffles station.  I made myself a waffle and gathered a few other things, then found myself a seat to eat my breakfast.  When I finished, I made a waffle for Ian and brought it back up to the room.  By the time I got back, he was awake, so I helped him get dressed and eat his waffle while Jason got ready and went downstairs for his own breakfast.  

By the time Jason came back to the room, I had finished packing up our bags and we were ready to check out of the hotel.  We left around 9am to drive down to my parents’ house in Port St. Lucie.  It was around a 2 hour drive, but we split it up by stopping at Costco in Melbourne to give Ian a chance to go potty and to pick up some necessary supplies (who are we kidding… we picked up a case of the Sam Adams seasonal beers).  We tried to get in and out as fast as possible, but the store was a madhouse with people doing last-minute Christmas shopping, so we were there for around 45 minutes from start to finish.  After that, we finished up the drive to my parents’ house, and pulled into their driveway at 11:45am.  

Jason planned to work on Monday and Tuesday this week.  His company is based in Seattle, and we live in Phoenix, so he always works remote.  What difference does it make to his company if he’s sitting in his office in our house or in the guest room at my parents’ house?  It worked out really well because with the time difference, his work day started at 9am Pacific time, which is noon Eastern time.  That gave us all morning to drive to Port St. Lucie, and he had just enough time to eat a quick lunch before hopping on his first meeting of the day at noon.

I think this is where I will stop telling the minute-by-minute story of our time in Port St. Lucie.  We spent a lot of time hanging out on my parents’ lanai, exploring their neighborhood, and giving Ian quality time with his grandparents.  Ian loved playing on the nearby playground, and watching a family of Sandhill Cranes roaming across the grass.

On Tuesday afternoon, we spent some time swimming in the pool at my parents’ community center.

On Wednesday, Jason, Ian and I drove down to Boca to have lunch with Jason’s 95-year-old uncle.  

On Friday, we spent the day with my parents in Jensen Beach, visiting the Children’s Museum of the Treasure Coast and having dinner on the water at Conchy Joe’s Seafood.  Ian had so much fun sending scarves up the wind tunnel and playing the xylophone in the outdoor music garden.

Other than that, we just spent a lot of time relaxing, chatting, and enjoying the calm before the cruise.  After we came home from dinner on Friday night, we did a load of laundry and packed up some of the items we wouldn’t need in the morning so we could get on the road that much faster for the drive down to Ft. Lauderdale.

Up next:  Embarkation Day!!

Sunday, December 21, 2025 ~ Fly to Florida

I am going to approach this review slightly differently from my typical reviews.  Usually, I would cover any pre-cruise antics in detail, as that is part of our vacation and I like to cover everything we did between leaving from and returning to our house.  This time around, things were a little different because we flew out to Florida a week before the cruise to spend extra time with my parents.  I doubt anyone wants to read a play by play of that week, so instead, I will cover today as our travel day out to Florida, then I will skip ahead to Saturday for embarkation day.  Maybe I’ll throw in a quick review of our week visiting my parents if I think of something worth sharing.

I woke up to my alarm going off at 5:30am.  That was a less-than-ideal start to my day, but I needed time to get showered and dressed before Ian woke up, and I was able to justify it by saying it was 7:30am in Florida!  Jason was in the middle of training for a race he is running at the end of January, so he went for an early long run while we were still at home.  That meant I was on my own to get Ian dressed and fed, and to finish packing all the last minute items into our luggage.  Once I was done with that, I took Ian to pick up Subway sandwiches for lunch for the plane.  I found a coupon code where we could get 2 foot longs for $13, so that was worth the extra effort on the busy morning versus paying airport prices for mediocre sandwiches.  Ian is a picky eater so I made him a peanut butter sandwich for the plane when we got home.

When Jason got home from his run, he quickly showered and finished getting ready.  I requested the Uber XL at 10:30am, and it arrived to pick us up 6 minutes later. 

Bye bye, house!  See you in 2 and a half weeks!

There was no traffic on our 30-minute drive to the airport, but we were surprised to see what looked like Air Force One parked at the small private terminal as we drove in.  The plane was just labeled with “United States of America” on the side, so we were not sure exactly which plane it was, but it was still cool to see.

Randomly, our Uber driver’s name was Matthew, which is my brother’s name.  On its own, that’s not too coincidental, but imagine my surprise when the porter working at the curb check counter was named Kevin- Jason’s brother’s name!  We each only have 1 brother, so that was really funny that the two men who helped us get to the airport shared their names.  PHX charges $3.50 per bag to check your luggage at the curb, but we thought that was well worth the price to not have to juggle the two 48-pound bags inside the terminal with our carry-on bags too.

There was literally no one at all in line when we arrived at security.  We expected that we would be able to leave our shoes on as that was the procedure when we flew to Seattle over the summer too, but we were pleasantly surprised that we were also allowed to leave everything in our bags, including the 3-1-1 bag of liquids, and our tablets.  From the time we were dropped off by our Uber to the time we were through TSA took only 15 minutes, but then we had a super long walk to our gate.  No worries though because we arrived at the airport early and had plenty of time to spare!

**0007

I sat with our bags at the gate while Jason took Ian to walk around and watch the planes taking off and landing.  It was a relief to see that our plane arrived at the gate on time when the prior flight landed, so we assumed our flight would leave on time.  Unfortunately, it did not play out that way, and we didn’t start boarding until 30 minutes after we were scheduled to start.  Jason’s frequent work trips earned him A-List status on Southwest, so we had boarding number A31-A33.  The in-bound plane came from Baltimore, so it was highly unlikely there were any through passengers (I know Southwest is notorious for connecting you in bizarre cities, but there was no way someone would fly from Baltimore to Phoenix to get to Orlando!).  We expected to see 30 people on the plane when we boarded, but at first glance, it looked like way more people were on the plane.  There were people sitting in every row halfway back through the plane!  Where did all of these people come from?!  When we looked closer, we noticed that the first 3 rows on both sides of the plane were filled with people wearing business suits.  Then we looked a little closer and noticed they all had a curly-wired ear piece in one ear… they were Secret Service agents!  What on earth were they doing flying on our Southwest flight from Phoenix to Orlando?!  We realized they must have boarded directly onto the plane from the tarmac, and not through the terminal like everyone else, so that’s why there were way more than 30 people on the plane before us, and that’s also likely why we were so delayed.

We ended up sitting in row 12 as that was the first row of 3 unoccupied seats that we could find.  The rest of the passengers boarded quickly, and the plane finally departed 30 minutes late.  We had clear skies as we flew out of Phoenix…

I even spotted the famous fountain in Fountain Hills as it was going off when we passed it!  This isn’t a great quality photo as I had to zoom in all the way on my phone, but you can see it in the middle of the lake at the center of the photo…

The rest of our flight was uneventful, which I suppose is the best kind of flight you can have.  Ian refused to nap so he watched movies on his phone, Jason read on his Kindle, and I watched a movie I had downloaded to my Netflix app on my iPad.  We landed in Orlando at 7:45pm, 35 minutes late.  While we were waiting to get off the plane, we started talking to the lady in the row behind us.  She was an off-duty Southwest flight attendant and she said Donald Trump, Jr. was on our flight!!  Wait, what?!  We definitely didn’t see him when we boarded, but we figured out that he must have been the last person to board the plane after everyone else was seated, and he sat between the Secret Service agents in the front row, so no one knew he was there.  When we landed, there were 6 or 7 black SUVs waiting at our gate, and we saw them drive away with their lights on.

We never saw him get off the plane, so he must have gotten off before the pilot took off the seatbelt sign so no one would see him.  Jason and I are still confused as to why Donald Trump, Jr. flew on Southwest.  I’m not surprised he flew on a commercial plane, but I would have thought he’d fly on an airline that at least had a first class or business section.  Maybe he was in the same predicament as us in not finding any other direct flights between Phoenix and Orlando that flew at convenient times of day!  Turning Point USA had a huge conference in Phoenix the week before our flight, so we assumed he must have been at the conference and that’s why he was in Phoenix.  So I guess now we can check off a quasi-sighting of a celebrity from our vacation to-do list!  We didn’t see him, but we know he was there, so that counts for something, right?!

We eventually made our way off the plane and down to baggage claim.  It took about 20 minutes for our checked bags to come out on the carousel after we arrived down there, so thank goodness for AirTags because at least I knew they were nearby and not forgotten in Phoenix.

Next, we took the elevator down to the car rental agencies and were greeted with a crazy long line at the Budget counter.  Jason sat with Ian on a nearby couch while I waited in line for 25 minutes for it to be my turn.  I had rented a full-size sedan, but the agent upgraded us to an SUV.  He asked if we wanted the toll pass, but I said no because we didn’t think we would need it and planned to just avoid toll roads to save some money.  The agent told me the gas tank was full and we should return the car with a full tank, or else we could pay $3 per gallon for them to fill it for us.  I said that we would return the car with a full tank.  I’m going to give you a little spoiler alert and flash forward to after we returned home from our vacation 2.5 weeks later, when I was reading all the emails I missed, and I found the receipt from when we dropped off the car in Ft. Lauderdale.  We were charged $150 more than the price I was originally quoted.  I called Budget to inquire about the discrepancy, and they said we were charged for the toll pass.  I explained that I definitely refused that service and we did not incur any tolls while we had the rental car, and after some back and forth, the lady on the phone removed the charge.  That only accounted for $79, so I asked her to review our receipt again because it was still higher than I expected.  She said we were charged a fee for filling the tank upon return, but I said we returned it full and could provide a receipt from the gas station if needed.  She said we were not charged for any gallons of gas, but that the charge was to enroll us in the program to give us the option for them to fill our tank.  Ummm, what?!  You charged me $70 for the option to put gas in the car, even if it was returned with a full tank??  I told her that I did not request to be enrolled in that service (I didn’t even know there was a fee for that service as the original agent just said we’d pay $3 per gallon for them to fill us up), and that I had told the original agent we planned to return the car with a full tank.  After a little more back and forth, the lady on the phone agreed to remove that charge, and the final total was now the same as our original quote.  The whole thing felt like such a scam, and had I not looked at my final receipt I would have been charged that extra $150.  

Anyway, back to the Orlando airport… We followed the directions into the parking garage where we found our rental SUV parked in our assigned spot.  We traveled with our little portable car seat for Ian, but the Budget agent said we were welcome to use one of their car seats if we preferred.  They had a large shed inside the parking garage with infant bucket seats, high-back booster seats, and big kid booster seats.  They were all individually wrapped in plastic as if they had been cleaned before being stored in the shed, so we took a high-backed booster seat for Ian, since that would definitely be more comfortable for him with all the driving we had planned for the week.  I installed Ian’s car seat while Jason loaded all of our luggage in the trunk, and we finally pulled out of the airport garage at 9:15pm local time.

By then, we were all starving and in desperate need of dinner.  In hindsight, we should have just found something to eat in the terminal when we first got off the plane.  We probably could have finished eating and gotten down to baggage claim just as our bags arrived, and it would have been a better use of our time.  While I waited in line for the rental car, I spent my time Googling what restaurants were nearby and still open this late on a Sunday night.  We didn’t want to spend the time at a sit-down restaurant, so we settled on Wendy’s as it was about 10 minutes from the airport and appeared to be our closest option.  We needed something fast, and knew Ian would be happy with chicken nuggets.  We ended up sharing a 20-piece box of nuggets between the 3 of us, plus Jason ordered himself a cheeseburger since he needed more calories after his long run this morning.  I was so exhausted that I completely forgot to take photos, but it was as you would expect chicken nuggets from Wendy’s to look, so I don’t think a photo would add much value anyway!

When we finished eating, we piled back in the car and drove to our hotel.  When I knew we needed to spend the night in Orlando, I booked us a hotel that was as close as possible to the airport.  In hindsight, that wasn’t quite necessary because we had to drive 10 minutes away from the airport to find a place for dinner… oops!  I searched on Booking.com and found a suite at the Country Inn and Suites by Radisson for $113 including taxes.  It had a separate bedroom for Jason and myself, and a pull out couch in the living room for Ian, at the price included breakfast in the morning.  We paid $10 additional for onsite parking, but I thought that was still a great rate.

The room was very nice and clean, and despite its close distance to the airport, it was very quiet.

This was the living room.  With Ian being so small, we just laid a sheet down across the seats on the couch and let him sleep there instead of pulling out the couch.  By the time he went to bed, he was so tired he probably could have slept on the coffee table!

This was our room with a king-sized bed, dresser, TV, and there was also a closet but I didn’t take a photo of it.

There was a kitchenette, with a minifridge, microwave, coffee maker, and ice bucket.

The bathroom was spacious and clean, and the room was plenty big enough for our needs considering we only spent 12 hours there.

By the time we got settled in the hotel and unpacked what we needed for the night, we didn’t get Ian to bed until around 11pm.  That was 9pm in Arizona, and he usually goes to bed at 7pm, so it was a long day.  Jason and I went to bed shortly after that as we were both exhausted too.

Flights

Why is it so hard to find a direct flight from Phoenix to Southeast Florida?!  I understand that most people traveling to/from Phoenix and Florida are coming from the northeast or midwest, but that doesn’t mean people who live in Phoenix never want to go to Florida.  My parents have been struggling with this lack of flight options for years.  In fact, one year, they opted to take a cruise from Florida, through the Panama Canal, ending in Los Angeles, just so they could fly from LAX to PHX because that was easier than finding a direct flight from their house in Florida.  Crazy!  This is why we have never been to visit my parents at their house in Florida… it’s just too hard to get there!  Well, booking this cruise meant we had no choice but to find a flight from Phoenix to Florida.  My parents’ house is located about 2 hours from the Orlando and Ft. Lauderdale airports, and about 2.5 hours from the Miami airport.  The good news is that this gave us some flexibility because none of the airports were particularly convenient.  We also had some flexibility in the dates we flew out to Florida.  Ian’s last day of school was Friday, December 19, so we were okay flying anytime after that, especially since staying at my parents’ house meant we wouldn’t need to worry about a hotel.  We were happy to have a few extra days to visit with them in Florida before the cruise if the flights allowed for that, but we were also okay waiting until mid-week if that meant a significant savings on airfare.  We were far less flexible about our return flight.  Because the cruise ended on Tuesday, Jason and I would have to miss 2 days of work that week, and Ian would miss his first 2 days back at school after winter break.  While missing 1 additional day of Pre-K was unlikely to impact Ian’s admission to college, we wanted to make it work with a flight home the day we disembarked the ship as opposed to staying somewhere overnight and flying home on Wednesday.

After extensive research, there were only 3 airlines offering direct flights: JetBlue in/out of Fort Lauderdale, American Airlines in/out of Miami, and Southwest in/out of Orlando.  Jason usually flies with Southwest for his work trips, so he had tons of points available to book these flights.  Our original plan for our Alaska cruise last summer was to fly on Southwest, but then it turned out the flight times were horrible so we ended up flying with Alaska Airlines, and those Southwest points from his work trips just continued to accrue.  It wouldn’t work to fly home from Orlando on the day we got off the ship down in Fort Lauderdale, but it was definitely possible to fly out to Orlando at the start of the trip.  Unfortunately, Southwest is very slow at releasing their flight schedules, so while we could have booked flights on the other airlines in January, we had to wait until the very end of March to book with Southwest.  In the meantime, I did a mock booking for PHX to MCO on Sunday, October 26, since that was the latest Sunday on the previous schedule, and there was a direct flight at 9:30am for 24,000 points.  That was perfect, so I just hoped that they offered a similar flight when they finally opened up bookings for December.

I woke up early on the day when they finally released the next block of flights, knowing that this is a holiday week and the cheapest tickets will sell out quickly.  Imagine my dismay when the morning flight on December 21 was scheduled for 6:05am!!  Seriously?!  What happened to my perfectly-timed 9:30am flight?!  And to make matters worse, they were charging 42,000 points per ticket!  We always knew it was possible that the Sunday ticket would be crazy expensive, so our alternative was to fly on Wednesday, December 24, assuming a mid-week Christmas Eve flight would be significantly cheaper.  While it was cheaper at 35,000 points per ticket, it wasn’t that drastic of a difference where it made sense to lose 3 days of our vacation.  I waited for Jason to wake up so we could discuss a Plan B because no matter which day we flew, there was no way we would take a flight at 6am.

One alternative that was doable, although not ideal, was we could take a 1:25pm direct flight which landed in Orlando at 7:25pm.  The issue was that my parents live nearly 2 hours from the Orlando Airport, so by the time we got off the plane, waited for our checked luggage, picked up the rental car, grabbed dinner somewhere, and drove 2 hours to their house, we wouldn’t arrive until very late at night.  We didn’t love the idea of taking that long drive in the dark so late at night, plus that would totally mess up Ian’s sleep schedule and we didn’t want to start off our trip like that.  The only way that flight would work was if we stayed overnight in Orlando.  We could pick up the rental car and stay at a hotel near the airport, and then drive down to my parents’ house on Monday morning.  The idea of having to pack/unpack for the extra night was annoying, but it seemed like our only option at that point.  To add insult to injury, the later flight cost 43,500 points per ticket!  I guess Southwest thought they’d give the crazy early 6am flight a 1500 point discount?  Luckily/Surprisingly, Jason had enough points in his Southwest account to cover all 3 of our tickets.  It drove him crazy to blow his whole balance on just 1 flight, but considering how rarely we have an opportunity to fly on Southwest, what else was he going to spend those points on?

While it made the most sense to fly with Southwest for the outbound flight to use up the points that were burning a hole in Jason’s account, we would need to fly home from an airport closer to Port Everglades, which meant not on Southwest.  Jetblue had one daily direct flight from Fort Lauderdale to Phoenix, which would have been perfect considering how close Port Everglades is to FLL, but it departed at 7:40am so obviously we wouldn’t make it on time after disembarking the ship.  No other airline flies direct from FLL to PHX, so that left us with American Airlines out of Miami.  When I first looked at the flights in January, there was a 1:39pm flight for $236 per ticket.  I am still kicking myself that I didn’t just buy the ticket right there and then, because when I looked again the next day, the price jumped to $472 per ticket!  I tried checking in a different browser in case they saved my cookies, and I even tried checking on Jason’s computer, but the price remained that high.  I couldn’t justify paying an extra $750 for the 3 tickets, so I held off, hoping to find a better flight.  Unfortunately, that flight was literally the only direct flight on any airline from any Florida airport on that Tuesday which departed late enough to get to the airport on time after getting off the ship.  I considered taking a connecting flight, but since we had to book something that left in the afternoon, and we would want enough time between the flights to ensure we didn’t miss our connection, the flights all landed in Phoenix very late at night.  That 1:39pm flight was really our only option, so after 2 months of checking the price and not seeing any change, I checked again the day we booked our outbound Southwest flights and saw that the price dropped to $370 per ticket.  I immediately booked the flight.  It was definitely more than I wanted to spend on a one way ticket, especially considering we were flying on the Tuesday after most people go back to school/work, so it was long enough after peak holiday travel that the flights shouldn’t be that inflated.  At a certain point, I just had to accept it and buy the tickets.

Itinerary

This cruise was a 10-night Southern Caribbean itinerary, including 6 port days.  I will get into the details of our planning and what we did each day when I get to that day of the review, but for now, here is an overview of our itinerary:

Sunday 12/21 – Fly to Orlando

Monday 12/22 – Friday 12/26 – Stay with my parents in Port St. Lucie

Saturday 12/27 – Drive to Ft. Lauderdale for Embarkation Day

Sunday 12/28 – beach day at Princess Cays

Monday 12/29 – Sea Day

Tuesday 12/30 – SNUBA at CoralWorld in St. Thomas

Wednesday 12/31 – Champagne Reef, Titou Gorge, Trafalgar Falls, and Hot Springs tour in Dominica

Thursday 1/1 – Harrison’s Cave and Wildlife Reserve tour in Barbados

Friday 1/2 – Rum Factory and Les Salines Beach tour in Martinique

Saturday 1/3 – Sting Ray City in Antigua

Sunday 1/4 – Sea Day

Monday 1/5 – Sea Day

Tuesday 1/6 – Disembarkation and fly home

Intro

Hi everyone!  My name is Dana, and I just returned home from a 10-night New Years cruise on the Enchanted Princess (December 27, 2025 to January 6, 2026 sailing). As you can see from my cruise history listed below in my signature, I have taken many cruises over the last 15+ years, but this cruise was very different from my norm because we cruised with my parents, brother, sister in law, niece, and nephew!  Our little party of 3 was now a party of 9, so that drastically changed a lot of details about this cruise.  I always write a detailed photo review when I return home from my cruises, with a journal-style day-by-day format, so that was one thing about this cruise that was no different!  If you are looking for a short and sweet review, you might want to look elsewhere… I tend to write like I talk, so my reviews are very long and take a few weeks to complete. On the other hand, if you like reading about lots of details, and if you want to see TONS of photos (including all of the daily schedules and menus), this is the review for you!  I do this as much to help others plan their vacations as to give myself a travel log to look back on and remember my wonderful cruise. Please feel free to ask questions and post comments along the way… I welcome your feedback! 

Planning

A few years ago, my parents bought a Snow Bird house on the east coast of Florida, and ever since, they have been asking when we would come out to visit them and see the new house.  Unfortunately, it is really difficult for us to fly there from our home in Phoenix.  There are very few direct flights, and once we land, it is close to a 2 hour drive from either the Orlando or Ft. Lauderdale airport to their house.  Depending on the time of year, we have either a 2 or 3 hour time difference (thanks to Arizona not participating in daylight savings time), so most daytime flights land in the evening on Florida time, and we would still need to rent a car and drive nearly 2 hours to their house.  It just felt so daunting, so I’ve been avoiding making the trip, opting to visit them in New York instead.  That is, until this past summer when they officially sold their house in New York and left us with no choice but to make the trek to Florida if we wanted to visit them.  Selling the New York house was always in the plan, so over the summer in 2024, I committed that we would find a way to travel to their house in Florida for winter break in 2025.  We were already booked on the Discovery Princess cruise for New Years that winter break, and we had cruised on the Carnival Panorama for the prior year’s winter break, so I knew if I didn’t commit to visiting them in Florida well in advance, I’d be tempted to book another cruise out of California for 2025.  

Ian’s school has a 2-week winter break, so that got me thinking… If we are going to schlep all the way to Florida, maybe we should make the journey worth our while and do more than just visit my parents at their new house.  What if we took a cruise from Florida?!  With Ian still being so young and not really liking getting sand on him at the beach, I hadn’t considered a Caribbean cruise for us until this point, but by then, Ian would be 4.5 years old.  Maybe by then, he would like going to the beach?  He would still be too young for a snorkeling or scuba diving excursion, but we could keep it simple and go to the beach each day and let him play in the shallow water.  I mentioned this idea to my mom, and she immediately said, “What if we go too?”  My mom and I actually cruised together through the Mediterranean in 2013, and we still have such great memories from that trip.  Wouldn’t it be nice to create new memories with Ian and his grandparents?  And then my mom suggested that we should also invite my brother and his family.  My parents have always wanted to take a big vacation with both of their children and all of their grandchildren, so perhaps this was the time to make that happen!  After a lot of back and forth between the 3 parties about which itineraries and dates worked best, we finally decided on this 10-night cruise to the Southern Caribbean.  My parents and brother had never cruised with Princess, so that took a bit of convincing on my part (mind you, even I hadn’t cruised on Princess at this point since this was still 5 months before my first Princess cruise on the Discovery!), but we all agreed that it was the right fit for us and started to look at cabin options.

Our original plan was to book 4 cabins side-by-side.  My brother’s family of 4 would be very tight in one cabin, so they wanted 2 cabins, then my parents would be in one cabin, and my family would have our own cabin.  My parents preferred to book a suite so they would have extra space in their cabin in case any of the grandchildren wanted to sleep over.  The aft-wrap penthouse suites were available, but if you look closely at the deck plans, you can see that not all suites are created equal.  The ones on deck 9 have a significantly larger/deeper balcony than the others, even though they were all priced the same.  If there is ever a time to take advantage of a huge balcony, it’s when cruising as a party of 9 through the Caribbean!  With my parents in the corner suite, it made sense for my family to be in a cabin on one side and my brother to be in the 2 cabins on the other side.  We planned to open up all the balconies to make a giant balcony, but then we found out that there is a solid wall between the suite and the aft-facing cabins on that deck.  Funny enough, this does not appear to be an issue on every deck of the ship, but it is on deck 9 and we didn’t want to give up that huge balcony.  That’s okay, we could make that work, even if it meant going into the hallway to go between the cabins.  

Just as we were about to book the cabins, my brother decided that he wanted two connecting cabins so his kids could sleep in one cabin and he and my SIL would sleep in the other cabin.  His kids are 6 and 8 years old, so not quite old enough to be on their own in a separate cabin.  Unfortunately, there are very few balcony cabins on this ship which connect on the inside.  We really wanted to keep everyone together on the same deck, but the only connecting balcony cabins on deck 9 were all the way forward on the ship, so that would be quite a far walk back and forth.  We eventually found a pair of connecting balcony cabins on deck 10 aft, right near the stairs/elevators.  It wasn’t as ideal as if they had just booked the cabins next to the rest of us, but it made more sense for their family.  

Now that my brother’s family wouldn’t be part of our connected string of balconies, I conceded to give up my aft-facing balcony and take the cabin on the port side of my parent’s suite so we could go back and forth between our two balconies.  I wasn’t thrilled about giving up the aft view, and I would never normally book a cabin this far aft on a ship (literally the last cabin on the port side!), but the whole point of this cruise was to be together as a family, so it just made sense to make the switch.  Once we were all happy with our cabin choices, my mom contacted her travel agent and booked the cruise.  That was in September of 2024, so we had a long time to wait and plan out all our details for the trip.

In an effort to break up all the text from this post, please allow me to entertain you with ridiculous AI-generated versions of some photos from our trip…

3D Cartoon from New Year’s Eve

Jason and me as Smurfs on New Year’s Day

3D Cartoon of Ian and me on Princess Cays

South Park version of me and Jason at Silent Disco

Cry Baby version of Ian on the last night of the cruise

Labubu version of me and Ian in the dining room