Joining the Enchanted Princess

     We made it to the ship today. I was up before the alarm and we had the rental car packed last night so we were ready to go early this morning. I was up before 5 so I had all the house chores done by the time Judy was ready to go. We left around 5:15 and were in Lauderdale before 11 having stopped for breakfast. We drove around 300 miles to the port. I made a mistake and ended up going right to the ship. No problem, so we stopped and dropped off the luggage, gassed the car and had it back to the Hertz drop off (right outside the gate) in quick time. We grabbed a cab for the short ride back to the ship.  Boarding the Enchanted was easy as everything had been submitted through the app.

  After dropping our carry on in our cabin, we headed to the made to order pizza venue for lunch. We needed to wait for a table but we did have a very nice meal. We also tested our drink package – diet soda for Judy and of course a beer to go with the pizza. Then we did a walk through of the ship, trying to get a good idea of the layout. There are many redesigned areas on this ship and you can tell it is bigger with more space in the popular areas which you would expect.. There seems to be more “space” We also discovered that we did get a tour we had requested. However the app thing sucks as you try to do something and it just grinds away. For example we tried to find out what dining room we are scheduled for but needed our room steward to get that info. In any case, luggage was in our room, we unpacked, did the safety briefing and were ready to sail by the afternoon. We were a bit late on that count.

   At the sail away deck party they announced that there are 2700 guests on the his ship that holds over 3600 so we were correct in thinking that it is "empty". Of course they did the Electric Slide and the Cupid Shuffle. Some of the other songs had line dances associated with them but we could not remember how they go. Judy did manage a big Margarita and loved it.

  By dinner time we were beginning to feel the effects of a long day. There were 2 other couples at the table. Apparently we will not be at the same table every night – maybe. We have a set time but not a set place. Service seemed very slow. I hope that it was just first night confusion. After we did go to the show. The comedian startled slowly but got better as he went on. We did find out that there are over 500 Canadians on this trip. We met 2 today. We did not check out any of the music venues as the early start finally caught up to us. Our first time change is tonight.

Ready to Sail

  Finally we are ready to cruise again. It has been a few years since we have been able to take to the high seas. First Covid cancelled a trip to Europe. Then in the fall of that year our second cruise was cancelled. Finally we were scheduled to go cruising last fall but a bike accident made us put that one on hold. So here we are ready to go again! We are going on a Transatlantic repositioning cruise. We have many crossing of the Atlantic but this one has a few ports that we have not been to and will give us a better opportunity to explore the south coast of Spain

Itinery

This will be cruise number 26 on the Princess Line. It is a 14 day adventure starting in Fort Lauderdale and ending in Barcelona. The first 9 days are at sea except for one port, the last few days are port heavy.

The Enchanted Princess carries 3600 passengers, has 19 decks and is 1100 feet long and has only been sailing for about 18 months. It is one of the newest designs for Princess ships. We have a balcony on the Baja deck. The ship has all the familiar venues including the International Cafe, the small food bar in the atrium which is where we like to gather for daily tea and small meals. We really like the dedicated made to order pizza restaurant in the atrium. However it has many redesigned areas and new names for places on the ship.

It has been a interesting time preparing for this cruise. Like many cruise companies we must use an App to prepare for this trip. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. It remains to be seen how it works this time. This ship uses the Medallion Net. No more cruise cards for drinks, leaving the ship, etc. The Medallion transmits the info. If you walk up to a bar, the bartender sees your picture and has your name and probably what you ordered last time. We used this system that last time we sailed in 2019.

We have rented a car for the trip to Lauderdale and will simply drop it off at the port. That will be Thursday morning.