Although Ft. Lauderdale is a great place to embark, along with a great place to spend a few days before and/or after a cruise, it makes sense to embark on the Southern and Western itineraries from other ports. The best place to catch a Southern Caribbean cruise is from San Juan, Puerto Rico. However, you’ll need to use a different cruise line for that option. For the Western Caribbean, it’s best to book the Caribbean Princess out of Houston, Texas. This ship hits Cozumel, Mexico; Roatan, Honduras and Belize City, Belize on a seven night journey.
Eastern Caribbean
Out of Fort Lauderdale, this is the most common itinerary. However, Princess has thrown a twist for the 2013-2014 winter cruising season. Their brand new flagship, the Royal Princess, will be taking over this route. With that, the prices are a little higher and staterooms are a little harder to get. Also, what used to be a four port call cruise has been reduced to three with Grand Turk Island left off the list.
Ports of Call
As with mostly all Princess cruises out of Florida, the Royal will stop first at Princess Cays on Eleuthera Island in the Bahamas. This is a private beach owned by Princess Cruises.
Next up is Charlotte Amalie on St. Thomas Island in the U.S. Virgin Islands. This a bustling U.S. territory with the signature Magen’s Bay beach as the highlight. A must for anyone who has been to St. Thomas or will be visiting is the viewing of the movie “Weekend at Bernie’s II”. The movie is terrible but it was filmed pretty much exclusively in Charlotte Amalie and on the beach at Magen’s Bay.
The only other stop on this itinerary is Philipsburg on Sint Maarten in the Netherlands Antilles. Another bustling island where you can visit the Netherlands and France all in one day. Close to the cruise ship terminal is the famous Princess Juliana International Airport at Maho Beach. This is the spot where jets as large as a Boeing 747 land just feet above the beach.
Royal Princess
The Royal is the newest and largest ship in the Princess fleet. She maid her maiden voyage on June 16, 2013. Like most of the Princess ships, the Royal was built by Fincantieri in Italy. The vessel has a gross tonnage of 142,714, is 330 metres or 1,083 feet in length and has a capacity for 3,600 passengers.
Tracking the Royal Princess
The Royal will be in the Mediterranean until early October, 2013. On October 9, she will embark on a 18 night Trans-Atlantic Repositioning cruise from Venice, Italy to Fort Lauderdale. On November 3, Royal will begin running Eastern Caribbean cruises before leaving Florida for Copenhagen, Denmark on April 27, 2014.
Western Caribbean
The Ruby Princess shifts to the West after spending the winter of 2012-2013 doing the Eastern Caribbean route. The Western Caribbean itinerary out of Fort Lauderdale is a bit of jumbled mess in 2014. The route consists of a nine night cruise that returns to Ft. Lauderdale mid-cruise, allowing for a shorter five night option. The nine night cruise morphs through out the season, basically offering three different routes, depending on date of departure.
Ports of Call
For simplicity, we’ll call them version 1, version 2 and version 3. Version 1 stops at Georgetown, Grand Cayman then heads to Cozumel, Mexico. At this point, the ship returns to Ft. Lauderdale before directly returning to Cozumel and directly back to Ft. Lauderdale. Version 2 follows a similar plan but after the first return to Florida, the Ruby then does and out and back to Grand Cayman instead of Cozumel.
Version 3 mixes a bit of Eastern and Western. In fact, you could almost classify this in a new category dubbed ‘Northern Caribbean’. However, any use of the word North or Northern conjures up images of snow and freezing temperatures which do not appeal to winter time vacationers.
In this option, the Ruby travels to Princess Cays then on to Grand Turk Island in the Turks & Caicos. At this point, she returns to Ft. Lauderdale before heading west to do the Georgetown – Cozumel loop.
Ruby Princess
The Ruby is a relatively new ship and a member of the Princess Grand Class. She took her maiden voyage on November 8, 2008 and was also built by Fincantieri. The Ruby has a gross tonnage of 113,000 and is 290 metres of 951 feet long. The vessel has a capacity for 3,080 passengers.
Tracking the Ruby Princess
The Ruby will remain in the Mediterranean until her November 29 Trans-Atlantic Repositioning Cruise. This will come in the form of a 15 night journey from Barcelona, Spain to Ft. Lauderdale. Once in Florida, she will alternate 4-5 night Bahamas cruises with the five and nine night Western Caribbean itineraries. The Ruby will leave Ft. Lauderdale on April 27, 2014 to once again cross the Atlantic on a 14 night repositioning cruise to Southampton, England.
Southern Caribbean
In all honesty, unless your destination is the actual ship and you enjoy time at sea, it’s best to choose a cruise of greater length out of Ft. Lauderdale or a different cruise line embarking from Puerto Rico. On the Princess seven night Southern Caribbean cruise, besides stopping at their private beach on Eleuthera, there are just two ports of call. This winter, the Southern Caribbean itinerary will be onboard the Crown Princess, sister ship of the Ruby.
Ports of Call
As mentioned, the Crown will stop at the Princess private beach on Eleuthera Island in the Bahamas. Dubbed by the cruise line as a ‘private island’, Princess Cays is simply a private beach on the very long and sparsely populated Eleuthera. This port has no dock and passengers must be ‘tendered’ on small boats from the ship anchored off shore.
The Crown then cruises south to make a stop at Curacao. She then stops at nearby Oranjestad, Aruba before making the long journey back to Florida.
Crown Princess
The older sister of the Ruby Princess made her maiden voyage on June 14, 2006. Also built by Fincantieri, the Crown is identical to the Ruby in virtually every dimension and capacity.
Tracking the Crown Princess
The life over the next year is a complicated one for the Crown Princess. Currently, she is based out of Southampton in the United Kingdom doing a wide mixture of itineraries that include the Norwegian Fjords, Baltic Sea and Scandinavia, the Mediterranean and Western Europe.
On October 26, the Crown will embark on a 14 night Trans-Atlantic Repositioning Cruise between Southampton and Forth Lauderdale. Between November, 2013 and February, 2014, she will be alternating seven and 14 night Southern Caribbean cruises with seven night Eastern Caribbean jaunts mixed in.
On February 15, 2014, the Crown Princess leaves Lauderdale for Buenos Aires, Argentina. She will then continue around to Los Angeles, California. After doing a stint out of L.A. doing Mexico and the Pacific Coast, she will move north to do Alaskan cruises between Vancouver, British Columbia and Whittier, Alaska.
Interested in Booking?
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