No matter how many cruises I take, the final day is always a struggle.  On one hand, I want to do it all, filling in all the experiential gaps.  On the other hand, I want to do as little as possible and just absorb every moment in the hope it will slow down time.  On this sailing, I did the latter, but still managed to pack in a few new things.  In this final day’s post, I’ll share a couple things we did, but also, summarize our first Princess Cruises experience.

Today was the first full sea day that I had to enjoy the ship without working, and after a very long night’s rest, I was ready to go.  The weather, however, was less cooperative, but it didn’t slow us down one bit.

We really enjoy St Maarten for its convenience, cuisine, and beaches, so I decided to work only a half day and enjoy some time in port.  It turns out we were far from the only ship in port though, and I was glad to see this.  After our day in port, we did something wildly uncharacteristic of us.

St Thomas is a gorgeous island in the US Virgin Islands, and everyone should get off the ship to enjoy not the famous jewelry stores, but the blue waters, sandy beaches, and spectacular views of the archipelago from atop the forested mountains.  I, personally, stayed on board however.  I did, however, have my favorite meal of the cruise so far.

Today we woke up to plenty of motion on the ocean as we sailed toward St Thomas.  This sea day was a work day for me, but after work we enjoyed the food and entertainment Sky Princess had to offer, including Rock Opera, their signature stage show...

Many cruise lines have private beaches or islands in the Caribbean, and Princess is no exception.  Today we visited their private destination of Princess Cays to enjoy the beach and relax.  We also spent some quality time back on the ship for recreation, and even fitness.

As frequent cruisers, it’s hard not to compare one line to another when onboard a ship.  This is especially true when on a cruise line that we’ve never sailed.  This means we’ll be doing a lot of comparing this week as we set sail on Princess Cruises’ Sky Princess for seven nights in the Eastern Caribbean.