Boarding Sun Princess

The day we boarded Icon of the Seas back in January my son was filled with energy and chanting “Icon of the Sea's Day. Icon of the Sea's Day!” After a late flight and late-for-us bedtime, the energy this morning wasn’t the same. There was no chanting of “Sun Princess Day!” I also didn’t sleep well. We got ready for the day, and the first order of business was breakfast.

Pura Vida

Today is embarkation day and often we skip breakfast and eat it on the ship. I’m not sure why today was different, but we decided breakfast was needed. We walked to Pura Vida, found a table, and Brian went in and ordered for all of us. Brian and I each had an açaí bowl and my son had the kid’s pancakes. This was another legit kid’s meal. The pancakes looked more like rolls and were made from sweet potatoes, and the meal came with a side of berries and cold pressed orange juice. All but the blueberries were eaten by our little guy. Our açaí bowls were good as well. Mine was topped with strawberries, bananas, pineapple, coconut, and granola. Brian’s had fruit with peanut butter. I’d come back here!

We had time before we needed to leave. We walked around the block to see what was nearby and then we went to the pool at the hotel. Daytime brought a sense of cheeriness to the hotel and there was a ton of things I hadn’t noticed last night. The pool had a large chess board and connect-four. Inside the lobby were also games. We sat in the sun for a bit then headed inside to play one of the games. We played that game where you swing a ring and try to connect it to the hook. It was simple but fun! It was approaching 11am and time for us to get ready to leave. Our boarding time is noon and we’re 30 minutes from the port.

We go back to our room to organize our luggage and add our Princess luggage tags to our bags. I borrow a stapler from the front desk to attach them. We move our luggage downstairs, and I call a Lyft. The first driver is quick to cancel us, but the second driver is quick to come. We waited less than 10 minutes for the driver, and a Volkswagen Atlas shows up to take us to port. I install my son’s booster seat while husband and the driver load the bags. We ordered the XL car and that size was needed for our three large suitcases and our smaller ones.

Our driver lives in Miami and works for a glass company in Toledo. He drives on the weekends. He tells us he’s only driven to Port Everglades a couple times, but he says they ask for passports to enter the port. This is different from Miami’s port which does not require this. As we get near the port, the Lyft app re-routes us. It routes us away from the ramp for Port Everglades and to backroads. It’s a good thing it did because that ramp of cars wasn’t moving. We then are in another traffic jam that isn’t moving. Our driver makes a decision to change routes again and it was a good decision. These changes probably saved us at least 30 minutes of waiting, but even with the changes it took us 1.5 hours to arrive to Port Everglades.

The port was insanely busy. There was a mass of people waiting for transfers and then a mass of people lined up to board the ship. I’ve never seen a port so crazy. We handed our bags to a porter who placed them all in cages. We ended up giving him the booster seat as well and the porter added a tag for that one. We walked towards the mass, and a security guide pointed us to the end of the line. Despite the amount of people, it was organized. The problem with the line was that it wasn’t moving. People weren’t boarding the ship. Eventually the line moved and the whole port process took us 2 hours from arrival to stepping on the ship. Princess does not have priority boarding for autistic individuals who struggle with loud crowds and long lines, so we were with the masses. We did complete our check-in on the app ahead of time and I paid to have our medallions shipped. That $10 was well worth it and gave us access to the Green Lane. In the end, it only saved us a few minutes, but it was still nice. The actual check-in process was easy and then we were on the ship.

The long waiting and overstimulating environment meant that our son was primed for what we call Meltdown Mode. Any small disruption in his eyes would make us well-known on the ship. We’ve had meltdown mode happen on one other sailing on embarkation day and it wasn’t fun.

Neon Grove

Our first order of business is to find the kid’s club which we see immediately. Firefly Park is a cute space filled with activities for little kids. It’s for children 7 and under so our little guy has outgrown it! We then go to Neon Grove which is the tweens club and the place for our guy. We register him and we have a chance to explore the space together. There is ski ball and air hockey. I think he’ll like it here.

The nice thing about boarding so late is that the rooms are ready! We popped into our room to see it and then left to continue exploring.

Our Room

The time was approaching 3:30pm and we were hungry. We moved to the buffet which did not have a lot of options today. They already looked like they were transitioning to dinner. Brian got a hamburger and fries from the grill which was technically not in the buffet, and I grabbed some fries and fried broccoli because that station didn’t have a line. Our little guy didn’t want food and wanted to go back to the room which meant we had limited time before meltdown mode. It wasn’t an ideal lunch, but enough to hold me over until dinner.

We arrived back to the room, and all our luggage was there. I began unpacking and finding homes for all of our things. The screw holding the handle on the closet door was loose making the door a little bit harder to open and close. Our stateroom attendant popped in to say hello, and I mentioned the handle to him and asked for distilled water for my CPAP. Overall, the room was very nice and the amount of storage was plentiful.

We roamed around the ship trying to navigate where things are. This isn’t the easiest ship to navigate. I knew there was a pool at the back of the ship and I was determined to find it. I studied the deck plan and concluded it is on Deck 8. I go to that deck and walk to the back but find The Sanctuary Kitchen with no way to go farther. I ask a crew member, and she tells me to go up to nine and walk through the diner then go back down. These directions were spot on and it’s a beautiful place to watch the sunset! Caribbean Princess was the other Princess ship we sailed and had similar quirks where you couldn’t go straight to something and had to go up and down.

Dinner

It’s time for dinner so we change into “smart casual” attire for dinner. My son isn’t happy about putting on a nicer shirt and wants to stay in his UnderArmor t-shirt. I tell him he can keep the t-shirt on and wear the other shirt on top. He obliges. We arrive to dinner and smart casual apparently has a very different meaning to others. I personally hate dress codes, and it doesn’t bother me at all when people wear what’s comfortable. No one was turned away for what they had on so this is good to know for my son going forward. My dinner consisted of a salad and steak with pea risotto and veggies. The food was good even for my first meal. For me, the first meal on a ship is always pretty basic because the chefs don’t have the chance to pre-make what I can eat. Going forward, I order my meal the night before so they can make it safe for me and delicious. I was happy not to have grilled chicken and steamed veggies which is the typical first meal when I sail. We skipped dessert for ice cream cones near the pool. This has quickly become my son’s favorite feature on the ship.

We are exhausted so it’s time to go to the cabin and sleep. The closet door is fixed, but no distilled water. I chat with guest services to ask for water when the phone isn’t answered. We then discover normal water in the fridge, so I use that instead. A couple hours later there is a knock on the door, but we’re all asleep. The bottle is placed right inside the front door, and I’ll find it tomorrow morning.