After the joys of the Santiago (dis)organisation, we weren’t particularly looking forward to the embarkation process. We were not disappointed… initially. We grabbed our bags from the coach and walked to a makeshift tent on the pier together with hundreds of other passengers. The mass was slowly funnelled into 4 lines. We had just reconciled our selves to a long wait when an elderly employee looked at our cases and said “labelled already, come” Princess had pre-issued baggage tags for us to put on the cases, I’m sure many other passengers had done this, but ours caught his eye! He led us past the crowds to the front of the line where our cases were put aboard. Perfect!
Next we went into a large warehouse style building where check in and security were performed. There were two lines for check in, one very long and one very short. Which one was ours…. the short one. Princess has a small electronic device called a medallion, which can be sent to you ahead of time IF you live in the USA. As we were in Alabama, we were able to order ours. With this little wonder we got the short line, got served immediately and checked in within about 30 seconds. Impressive!
Security was a little slower but not too bad, then it was onto the ship. Of course the cabin weren’t ready. We were told there would be an announcement when they were ready. We wandered around a little and had a coffee and cake. After a couple of hours we were still waiting, so as a poor innocent waiter asked us if we needed anything I replied with one of my very rare sarcastic comments that “A cabin would be nice!” He gave me a look, and disappeared! He reappeared a few minutes later and told us that he had made a phone call, and that the cabin was ready! Impressive! We are still waiting for the general announcement 3 days later!
We were scheduled to depart at 1730, but apparently the bunkering barge (floating gas station) had still not arrived, so our departure would be delayed five hours, but we were assured that we would still arrive at our next port on time.
We were impressed with the cabin size and amenities as well as the balcony size which would easily fit 2 chairs, foot rests and a table with plenty of room to spare.
There was plenty of wardrobe space and storage around the cabin. In fact there was only one small disappointment and the was the size of the shower, and the fact that it had a plastic curtain instead of a door!!!
We then unpacked (well Lyn did, for some reason she declined my offers of help). Having nothing to do I sat out on the balcony and enjoyed the exotic view.
