Enchanted Princess Cruise lines officially joined the fleet on September 30th, 2020. Capable of housing 3600 guests, this ship offers epic entertainment, incredible dining experiences, awesome ports of calls and a relaxing vibe that is sure to reset your inner peace button!
This was my first cruise EVER. I have done some smaller niche cruising on the Nile and in Ha Long bay. This magnitude of ship and the volume of people it can ferry is something I’d only ever seen on an Aircraft carrier 🙂
We chose this 2 week cruise because of the ports of call that we were going to stop at. The Southern Caribbean is made up of the islands of Aruba, Bonaire, Curacao, Barbados, St. Lucia, Grenada, St. Kitts and Nevis, Dominica, Trinidad snd Tobago and St-Maarten. Although we didn’t stop at all of these exotic locales, we did stop at a good number of them and partook in local activities. We even visited places we had already traveled to which was fun as well!
The Accommodations
The Deluxe Balcony Room – This is basically an enhanced version of a Balcony stateroom, therefore it has more space and is equipped with a sofa bed. It also came with a larger balcony with more room to view the beautiful scenery. We had a nice little area to sit out on so we could really enjoy the views as we sailed from destination to destination. Taking in the ocean breeze is a perfect way to let your worries be carried away with the wind.
Food and Beverage
There were many options on this cruise line for good eats.
Fine Dining – These main dining rooms offered multi-course meals presented by a servers who made sure our glasses were full and your taste buds were happy.
Casual Dining – World Fresh Marketplace outshines any cruise buffet with regional fare, chef specialty stations and familiar favorites. There was also an International Café with sandwiches, soups and Jonathan’s favorite: sweet treats!
Specialty Dining – If you want to make any night a special occasion, exploring the themed restaurants is a good way to do it. For tantalizing Italian recipes Sabatini’s was an excellent experience. For seafood aficionado’s, the Crown Grill was the bomb. And Sterling Steakhouse or the Cajun-infused menu of the Bayou Café were also quite tasty.
Entertainment
Part of the charm and allure of sailing the seas is partaking in the plethora of cruise ship entertainment that cruise lines have to offer. The Emerald Princess has many options, including High Tea which was exquisite!
Cruise ship entertainment is not complete unless it includes themed deck parties. The 1980s are hot right now, and everyone is reliving the good old days of New Wave music (The Clash’s “Rock the Casbah”), and pop (Cyndi Lauper’s “Girls Just Want to Have Fun”). Always fun to get out on the dance floor to shake it off! There were countless live music options from Elvis Tribute bands to blues to classical. The Rock Opera was an incredible show as was the ABBA tribute concert!
This ship was equipped with a casino, a massive 2 level theatre and a comedy club, a deck with stores, a spa , mini golf terrace, 3 pools, a walking track, 15 whirlpools and a basketball / pickleball court. There were so many things to do that it was almost difficult to figure out how to plan each of your days at sea.
Fort Lauderdale / Cape Canaveral / Miami
Fort Lauderdale is blessed with blue skies, swaying palm trees, pleasant weather, pristine beaches. Beaches cover 37 kms of beautiful shoreline that cover eight beach towns, each offering its own distinctive vibe.
Things to see and do
The Kennedy Space Center– We arrived 3 days ahead of the cruise departure so we could do some sightseeing. Kennedy Space Center was on the top of our list. It’s one of 10 NASA field centers, and is a premier multiuser spaceport with more than 90 private-sector partners and nearly 250 partnership agreements.
Although Kennedy is the agency’s main launch site, the center also is home to facilities that research and develop innovative solutions that government and commercial space ventures need for working and living on the surfaces of the Moon and other bodies in our solar system.
The area sits on the banana river (named after its shape) which is a wildlife refuge. In fact, because there are roughly 5000 alligators in and around the NASA grounds, the fencing is curved inwards at the top. Alligators, believe it or not, can climb a straight fence but not a fence with curving at the top. We saw some Gopher (burrowing) tortoises on the premises as well as a ton of birds, including eagles and an alligator 🙂
We purchased the Kennedy Space Center Explore Tour which took us out to several launch pad sites, including a drive by Space X. We were able to visit the press area which displays the official launch clock. We also got to visit the bleachers used for family during the launch of the Challenger. The family area has since been moved out of reach from the press section to allow families to have privacy in the event of a disaster.
Launch site 39B was pretty impressive. Artemis launches from this very location. The largest self-powered land vehicle in the world, the Land Crawler pulls the space shuttles to the launch pads. The pads are flooded with water to reduce vibration and heat from the rocket engines hence why there is water tower next to the launch site 🙂
So many cool technological advances can be attributed to space science, research and innovation. Scratch resistant glasses, memory foam, WD-40, smoke detectors, a plethora of medical equipment and invisible braces……all technology developed for and as a result of the space program. NASA is and has always been about benefitting humans. Here, at the Kennedy Space Center, the sky is most definetly not the limit!
The Wizard of Oz Musuem
This whimsical place is a nice stop if you enjoy the movies, books and musicals that have been made over the years! There are a ton of authentic movie set and stage props that are permanently housed here, including Dorothy’s red ruby shoes.
The Manatee Sanctuary Park – is named Manatee Sanctuary because it borders a section of the Banana River that serves as a protected Manatee habitat. These beautiful creatures come to feed off the sea grass along the boardwalk. Manatees enjoy warm waters and almost always move to inland springs during the winter months. They are considered an endangered species and fall under highly protective legislation. With no fear of larger predators or humans, manatees will simply just move away from situations they are uncomfortable with. Jonathan is much like a manatee lol. We didn’t see any this time because it was too cold but the trail was aces:) The only catch was that there were alligators and snakes!
The Everglades – this was our second visit to the Glades together this year. The Everglades National Park is an outdoor oasis where we can really enjoy nature’s beauty and its ecosystem from an airboat ride. This 11,000 square km River grass refuge almost sits in Miami’s backyard. This National Park is third-largest national park in the lower 48 states, and has a unique ecosystem of mangrove forests, tropical hardwood hammocks, freshwater prairies and hundreds of bird, animal and plant species.
The Everglades Alligator Farm is a refuge for alligators that have been surrendered or found in the wild injured. This oasis is home to around 250 of them. The grounds also have a porcupine, macaws, emus, some species of crocodiles and snakes. The area sits in the Everglades backyard so there are numerous birds (including vultures), iguanas and even wild gators that visit the park. All the gator food is donated by Walmart once a week which I thought was stellar. The animals here are very well taken care of and have lots of clean spaces to live their best lives.
We also chose to participate in the alligator encounter which allowed us to meet some adorable baby gators and even get a chance to hold a three-foot alligator! We were allowed to hold a year old, 2 year old and 5 year old gator. They are super squirmy and are very muscular even when smaller in size. The coolest part was running our fingers over their eyelids as they closed their eyes and their eyeballs actually retreat into their skull. Alligators have ear flaps they are camouflaged into their head. We also got to lift the flap up which I found fascinating. It’s almost like a trap door that seals shut so no water gets in.
As a special part of the experience, we also got to feed the adult alligators. This was pretty exciting because as soon as we stood out on the platform, 80 to 100 gators swam towards us anticipating their snack. It was dope to watch the synchronicity of the entire affair.
They can get quite feisty and tend to pin each other down as they compete for a chicken leg or breast. Even when they didn’t catch the chicken we threw, the gators would go diving into the mud for their snack. Thankfully, none of the gators got aggressive with us even though some were growling.
Flamingo Gardens was established in 1927, making it one of the oldest botanical gardens and attractions in South Florida. Flamingo Gardens mission is to protect, preserve, and provide education about the natural and cultural heritage of South Florida and the Everglades.
The gardens are located on 60 acres of land. This is strictly a not-for-profit botanical garden and wildlife sanctuary featuring thousands of rare, exotic and native plants. It is here that you can find some of Florida’s largest and oldest trees, and over 90 species of Florida native animals…….lots of alligators, eagles, otters, panthers, bobcats, a black bear and of course, flamingos:) Feeding these sweet and gentle birds was amazing! Fun Fact: a bunch of flamingos is called a flamboyance!!!!
Sint- Maarten
This island is uniquely binational with a rare 350 year of open borders between the French and Dutch side of the island. Euros and Dutch Antillean Guilders are respective official currencies, but the US the dollar is by far the most commonly used denomination.
Our Excursion – Without a doubt, St Maarten has the most photographed airport runway in the world! One of St Maarten’s most well known landmarks is Maho Beach.It quite literally will give you the best “selfie” opportunities as you find a place on the beach (or water). Some beach restaurants and bars have the daily arrivals and departures posted like the one below 🙂
This is the only place in the world that a Boeing or Airbus come in for landing dangerously close to beach patrons as the runway is collated with Maho Beach. When a particularly large aircraft is taking off, there is a high degree of likelihood that a clumsy sandstorm will form around you. Also, the sheet power of the engines of the planes taking off makes it extremely dangerous to stand close to the fence but, we did it anyway. Jonathan actually held onto the fence while an Airbus 320 was taxiing for take-off.
St-Kitts and Nevis
St Kitts and Nevis is a two-island country in the eastern Caribbean Sea. Both islands were formed by volcanic activity and both are mountainous. St Kitts is a fertile island with mainly black sandy beaches while Nevis is surrounded by coral reefs and has silver beaches.
The two islands support a population of about 46,000, of whom about 35,000 live on the island of St. Kitts and 11,000 live on the island of Nevis. Both islands are volcanic in origin, with central mountain ranges that dominate the landscape and follow a trajectory downward to the coasts.
We visited St. Kitts which is 30 kms long 8kms across at its widest, encompassing an area of 69 square miles. I wanted to use the number 69 in my blog so I had the give the miles instead of using kilometers like a normal Canadian. LOL!
Our Excursion – We completed the mega island tour which included several of St-Kitt’s hotspots like the Old Rum Road and Winfield Rum Distillery.
In the lush rainforest, which covers more than 1/4 of the island’s landmass we passed by many sugar plantations which were farmed by slaves for two centuries.
We also stopped at Black Rocks to catch beautiful views of the mega island as well as Timothy Hill, where the Atlantic and the Caribbean Seas meet.
Brimstone Hill Fortress was built in the 1600s by the British to defend the island, and now converted into a museum. This was a highlight of the trip. The Fortress National Park is a UNESCO World Heritage Site of historical, cultural and architectural significance showcasing British military engineering design and the workmanship and skill of the African slaves who built and maintained it. This is one of the best preserved historical fortifications in the Americas!
St-Lucia
Saint Lucia is the quintessential island paradise with the majestic peaks of the Pitons poking out and almost touching the sky. Adorned superb lush rainforests, and the hypnotizing blue-green waters of the Caribbean, the island’s landscape, people, customs, and cuisine intertwine to provide the perfect setting for a holiday.
Saint Lucia’s history is as rich as it is vibrant. The island is a virtual gumbo of cultures, and her people have a deeply held sense of cultural identity that they vigorously celebrate to this day. Embark on a voyage to discover Saint Lucia’s story, from her pirate past to her colonial times to the colorful customs of her people.
Our Excursion – Since we had been to St-Lucia before, we decided to explore the capital city of Castries, which also happens to be the largest city in Saint Lucia. It is also the seat of government for the island. Castries is located on the west coast of Saint Lucia, at the mouth of the Castries Harbour. The city is built on a peninsula that juts out into the Caribbean Sea and is home to many historic buildings and landmarks. We explored the shopping markets and the harbour which offered a lot of variety.
Barbados
Barbados is a very special place, especially to us since it is where we spent our honeymoon in 2017. Barbadians are very special people as well like mega talented, and super star performer Rihanna, and the cricketing legend, Sir Garfield Sobers.
Barbados is a small island country in the south-eastern Caribbean Sea. Its neighbours include Saint Lucia, to the north, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, to the west, and Trinidad and Tobago to the south. It is a fairly flat island, that is surrounded by coral reefs.
Our Excursion – We loved just being in the downtown area so we sauntered around and took in the chill Bridgetown vibes.
Grenada
Grenada (pronounced Gre-Nay-Dah) is an eco-tourism utopia situated in the heart of the Caribbean. Its history is a rich and blended array of influences including the early indigenous Amerindian communities. The island changed hands between the French and British a lot so it has been mainly shaped by the hands of the French, British and later African influences.
Our Excursion – The Underwater Sculpture Park is a man-made underwater gallery of sculptures located in Molinere Beauséjour Marine Protected Area. It was designed and created by renowned sculptor Jason de Caires Taylor in 2006.
This cool underwater garden is made from materials like concrete and rebar. They are static and permanent thus giving marine life ample opportunity to thrive. In terms of artificial reefs, these sculptures have been highly successful in attracting a stunning array of varied marine life.
A cool feature to these unique sculptures are the systematic and dynamic changes they have undergone over time due to currents, wave activity, salinity and sea surge. The sheer power of the ocean can be seen as wear and tear makes them look antique 🙂
Trinidad and Tobago
The Republic of Trinidad and Tobago is an archipelagic state in the southern Caribbean, lying northeast of the South American nation of Venezuela and south of Grenada.
Their history includes industry, slavery, and colonial rule under the Spanish, the French, and the British. Their varied past may be part of the reason why they identify with both Caribbean and South American. However, when it comes to heritage, culture and tradition, they are a people with a sprit all their own.
Our Excursion – The Caroni Bird Sanctuary is located on the Caroni Swamp is the largest mangrove wetland in Trinidad and Tobago. The large areas of mangrove trees are separated by waterways that can be navigated by small pirogues.
The Swamp is known for many different species, including caimans, crabs, herons, boa constrictors, silky anteaters, and egrets.
It is also home to the Scarlet Ibis, one of Trinidad’s National birds. Similar to flamingos and reseate spoonbills, the Ibis gets its rich colour from their diet of crab. It takes about 3 years for the Ibis to develop its full colour, remaining a dull grey through adolescence. Although officially protected as a bird sanctuary, the Scarlet Ibis population, has declined considerably since 1970 and continues to be at risk from poaching and pollution of the river and Gulf:(
Aruba
Aruba is a small island in the Caribbean Sea off the coast of Venezuela, owned by the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Oranjestad is the capital city of Aruba. Fun fact: the whole island is a free-trade zone. The waters off the coast of Aruba are full of sunken ships, coral reefs, and cool tropical sea creatures.
Our Excursion – we visited the Aloe Vera Factory and Museum. Aloe, first introduced to the island in 1840, and quickly became a very important part of Aruba’s history. At one point, Aruba was the largest exporter of aloe in the world, with almost two-thirds of the island covered in plants. Here, the aloe factory was started in 1890 and today there are 35,000 aloe plants grown at any given time. The museum here is pretty rad.
The Bushiribana Gold Mill Ruins – a colorful history of gold prospectors has shaped the island’s history, dating back to the 1400’s and 1500’s, when adventurers searched the Caribbean for wealth and treasures. The abandoned Bushiribana gold mill that once processed ore from mines in the nearby hills during Aruba’s gold rush of the nineteenth century. Fun fact: In 1824, gold was finally discovered in Aruba, and eventually, the industry produced more than 3 million pounds of gold.
The California Light House – was named after a ship called the Californian, which has the distinction of having received distress signals from the Titanic as she went down in icy waters in 1912. This area offers some of the most beautiful scenic views of Aruba.
Casibari Rock Formations – For a relatively flat island, the presence of the unusual hills and huge monolithic boulders in Aruba are truly an enigma. To climb to the top, one has to maneuver through the rocks. I felt a bit like Dora the explorer.
Curaçao
Curacao island is one of several islands that are apart of The Netherlands: Aruba, Bonaire, Curacao, St Maarten, St Eustatius and Saba.Curacao is located all the way in the south of the Caribbean, in between Aruba and Bonaire, and right above Venezuela. The three together make up the ABC islands and are Dutch territories.
Curacao’s capital city, Willemstad is the tropical version of Amsterdam. It is also a World Heritage City. Instead of monochromatic houses lining the canals of Amsterdam, you have brightly colored buildings of the same colonial style in Curacao, and they are located on the water’s edge.
Our Excursion – We began by driving out to the salt plains of Jan Thiel. The harvesting of salt is long over on the island of Curacao, however there is still salt. Once here, it looks as though you are walking on snow. Jan Thiel bay is also for many years one of the habitat places for the flamingos.
The Flamingo Sanctuary allows explorers to view the flamingos from a viewpoint. At the plateau near the road, you have a breathtaking view over the salt pan and the flamingo family that lives there.
Hato Caves were formed below the sea level millions of years ago. With the Ice Ages the water level dropped down and Curacao was born. The Hato cave covers an area of 4900 m2, and is the home to the beautiful limestone formations, romantic pools, waterfall and the Madonna statue. Also inside the Cave is a colony of seldom seen long nose fruit bats:) These caves were only discovered 33 years ago as they were used by slaves to hide from their captors.
Mambo Beach is reason enough to visit as it’s one of the most popular spots on the island. With its beautiful white sands, it truly is a picturesque place to spend your day:)
Worth the experience or not: WORTH
Princess Cruises has some large ships and with large ships comes a wider range of activities you can participate in. We chose a 14 day cruise that offered a wide array of ports of call that we had not visited which was huge bonus and the main reason we booked. We found the selection of destinations to suit our interests. Eco tourism with a splash of history and local wildlife is our jam:)
The dining options are incredibly diverse as are the flavors we found on each menu. From casual bites to a more elevated dinner, we had many options to choose from and found that it really depended on our mood.
Princess Cruise Lines offers a traditional cruise experience, which means they don’t subject the passengers to fads or kitschy gimmicks. They do embrace tradition, therefore they do have a dress code. Most of the nights are ‘smart casual’. The expectation is that you wear something suitable for an evening in a restaurant.
This was a lot of fun! And honestly, trying a cruise at least once in your lifetime is worth the pampering and experience!
Happy Travels 🙂
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