Our final cruise of 2024 would be on a new ship for us and would be our first transatlantic cruise, starting in Italy and finishing in America. But our holiday began the evening before the cruise with a drive up to London and a stay at the Thistle Hotel near Terminal 5. We booked a package deal for one night in the hotel and eighteen days parking in the long stay car park for the airport that, at the time, was cheaper than it now costs just to park.
The Thistle is a good option for flights out of terminals 2, 3, or 5, with just a few minutes driving to get to the airport car park from it, and we’ve used the hotel a few times now. We arrived, parked, and checked in for the evening, and for fans of pictures of hotel rooms here’s something just for you.
With a very early flight ahead of us we decided to eat in the hotel and have a reasonably early night rather than head out to a pub. The food was decent enough and we were talked into having dessert too. We then had one drink in the bar before heading back to our room.
I had a window seat for our short flight to Rome Fiumicino airport the following morning and not only did that mean I could take photos of the European landscape below us but as we passed Civitavecchia I could also see our ship in port.
When we booked this transatlantic cruise we wanted to add on a transfer from the airport to the port at the same time but Princess Cruises weren’t offering this unless you flew in a few days early and stayed in a hotel in Rome. That wasn’t possible for us but we knew it shouldn’t be too difficult to get a taxi outside the airport. As we stepped outside we were met by someone offering a limo ride for not much more than we’d been told the taxis were and he mentioned that he had a pass that would allow him to take us into the cruise port and to the ship while the taxis needed to drop people outside to take a shuttle bus inside. We weren’t entirely sure we weren’t about to be scammed but took a risk and yes, as good as his word, the driver got us to the port, inside, and dropped beside the terminal, needing to show a pass a couple of times at gates. That ride from the airport to the cruise port, however, was one of the most terrifying rides we’ve had as our driver spent most of the time on his phone or trying to get his sat-nav working and the car drifted between lanes on a number of occasions. We survived.
We stepped into the cruise terminal at Civitavecchia to a scene of utter chaos as seemingly every person had decided to try to embark at the same time. There was some attempt to hand out numbered cards to board people in groups but it was hard to make out who was being called so everyone just started gathering near the embarkation point. We couldn’t work out where the numbered cards were so decided to see whether our Elite status medallions would allow us to jump the queue. This angered one woman who saw we didn’t have any cards to hand and loudly claimed that we shouldn’t be there but at the same time a member of the local port staff glanced at our medallions then turned to her colleague and told her that we needed to be let through. Loyalty perks!
As we’d be spending the second half of this cruise crossing the Atlantic north of the equator we decided to book a cabin on the port side so that we could enjoy sunshine for the trip. We usually favour the starboard side for reasons of familiarity. Naturally, with Caribbean Princess being a Grand-class vessel we also booked our cabin on deck 10 as it has a half-covered, double-sized balcony.
First drinks aboard were a 24K Margarita for me and a Dirty Banana for my wife, taken on the top deck in the sunshine. When it got a little too warm for us – our sun block was in our main luggage which hadn’t reached our room at this point – we then hit Vines to check out the wine offerings aboard.
Prior to this cruise I’d joined a Facebook group for it – groups like this are the only reason I maintain a Facebook account at all as they can include useful information for travel – and there was a meet-up for the first evening by the aft pool under the Skywalkers extension so we went along to be social. The ship still hadn’t left the port as it only had a short distance to sail for the first stop on this itinerary. We spoke to one of the officers in attendance at one point and chatted to a couple of other passengers but didn’t meet up with the group any more after this initial encounter.
We hit Skywalkers for a bit at the end of the day, mostly to ride the travelator up to it as it had been years since we’d been on a ship with this configuration and Caribbean Princess was now the only ship in the fleet you could still do this on, but it had been a long day for us so we didn’t stay as late as we could have.
In the next post in this Caribbean Princess transatlantic cruise series we’ll be visiting the island of Sardinia for the first time and heading off on an excursion to see the Bronze Age settlement of Su Nuraxi at Barumini.