Emerald Princess: Day One

As promised, here’s part 2 of my blog on the Emerald Princess.

Like I said last time, our cabin is small, just enough room to walk between our king-sized bed and the walls. There’s a small round glass table that we could do without; it’s just in the way. Shirley asked me to make sure I put away my shoes since she almost killed herself that first night, tripping on them when she got out of bed in the pitch-dark room. So I’m trying to remember to do just that.

Even though our room is small, there is a nice desk area. The closet is an open area with a place to hang clothing. (Hangers are provided.) There is an area with a door and shelves to put folded things into, and there’s a safe that is controlled by a four-digit PIN, in case you’ve got valuables to store.

Our room steward, Christian, greeted us and assured us that he would meet all our needs. Our luggage hadn’t arrived yet, so we were off to explore our home for the next 10 days. We noticed that “we’re not in Kansas anymore,” so to speak—this ship was way different than the Carnival ships we’ve sailed on recently. The Emerald Princess is big, and not all the passages go through from front of the ship to the back (or to use nautical terms, the bow to the stern). We started at the top of the Lido deck (where all the food is!) and worked our way down from the stern to the bow.

Our first taste of this ship’s food was great. The buffet lines move fast, and there are about five separate lines. Most have the same food, but there are some differences, mainly in types of desserts. I know Shirley was quite pleased with the variety of sugar-free selections; for medical reasons, she cannot have foods with sugar added. On our past cruises the sugar-free desserts have been very limited, but she has really enjoyed having so many options.

After walking around exploring our ship, it was time for the muster drill. (In case you’re unfamiliar with that term, it’s basically a maritime safety drill.) Our muster station was in the casino; I guess we might want to place some bets before the ship goes down. It would be my luck that I would hit the big jackpot as water was rushing into the ship. The drill was pretty much standard; after about 15 minutes, we were back to our room to drop off our lifejackets before heading back to the buffet line. But as we were walking toward the aft of the boat, we passed the pizza/ice cream station, so that got our attention instead.

We went back to our cabin and found that our luggage had arrived, so Shirley started unpacking and I took a nap. She woke me up in time for a quick shower before dinner. Our assigned dining room is the Botticelli with an 8:15 seating. We are at a table for 8 with two other delightful couples. One couple is from Birmingham, Alabama (a husband/wife travel agency team); the other is from Ontario, Canada (she a preschool teacher, he a dentist). We’re also joined by two sisters from Calgary, Canada; one of them is a travel agent. All of us travel agents got this cruise free for training, and I guess the dentist and his wife just got stuck with us.

Our conversation the first night was very nice, each asking questions about our families and places of work. As the evening was winding down, our new dentist friend asked a question about our president. I asked him, “Why—do you want him?” He laughed and related that they had too many like him in Canada already. A conservative from Canada, who would have thought?

We finished dinner very pleased about our tablemates. Then we were off to the Welcome Aboard show. It was not a high energy show like those on other cruise lines; it mainly featured an introduction of the cruise director’s staff. We also found out that our cruise director had also come on the ship that day, so we will be learning the ship together. After the show, Shirley and I retired to bed in preparation for our second day, a stop at Princess Cruises' private island.