After landing in Fort Lauderdale on Friday evening, Emily and I checked into our hotel (where the desk clerk asked me to sign for me and my daughter!) and grabbed dinner down the street at Panera.  The next morning we had time to exercise, grab breakfast, read, and wander around the area before catching our shuttle to the port.

The 1.5 mile ride took well over an hour.  It is the busiest port in the U.S.  It is also very unattractive.  We finally got to the terminal where we zoomed through and were quickly boarding our ship, the Caribbean Princess.  One very nice thing about Princess Cruise Line is that your stateroom is ready as soon as you board.  We quickly found Lido 212 (we walked up 8 flights of stairs to avoid the long lines at the elevators) and were quite pleased with our lodging.

Huge closet.  Teeny bathroom.

We dumped our stuff, grabbed our first of MANY mocktails (Key West Coolers were our favorites) and settled in for a bit of sunning.


I will share that I smashed the top of my head good and hard on the handrail almost immediately after this photo. 
It was getting close to sail away, so we wandered around the ship, and iMessaged our last words to our families.

We soaked in the warmth for a while longer, and then headed back to our cabin to get ready for dinner.

Here are more photos of and around the ship.  I hope to do three other posts about the cruise. One of us in our dinner wear, one of excursions, and one of the FOOD!
This is the Piazza.  We spent very little time here, although there was always a lot going on in this area.  It was at least three stories tall and lined by food and shops.

This is a huge movie screen mid-ship over the Calypso Pool.  This was our main pool hang out, with or without movies.  It was quieter than the Neptune Pool and had the highest rising sun decks.  They show movies at night called MUTS – Movies Under the Stars.  I watched Maleficent one night.

During the day when we’d be sunning ourselves.