by Gary Wonning

Created on: May 05, 2009

One of the newest cruise ships to sail the seven seas, the Emerald Princess is one of the classiest ships I have ever sailed on.

Weighing in at 113,561 gross tons, it measures 946.8 feet long and 118.1 feet wide. How a ship of this size can only draw 28 feet of water is beyond me.Carrying a crew of 1227 it easily accommodates 3573 passengers.It's diesel electric engines can obtain a top speed of 23.5 knots while burning approximately 89,000 gallons of fuel per day. With a total fuel capacity of 908,848 US gallons it has a range of 4834 nautical miles.

With 12 water tanks on board the ship holds a total of 874,502 gallons of water. Combine this with a total of 441,000 pounds of food and one is insured of having a good time with a guarantee of 10 days of excruciating heartburn! (judging by some of my fellow passengers , the ship surely must hold as much booze as water.)

While a person on ground level can see about 2.89 miles, the same person if standing on the 19th level would be able to see 15.2 nautical miles.

Equipped with 18 lifeboats,6 tenders,2 fast rescue boats, and marine evacuation systems, this ship is a safe as if one were sitting at home watching TV.
Adding to that the 823 fire extinguishers, 450 CO2 extinguishers, 634 fire hoses extending 45,749 feet, and numerous fire doors watertight doors, splash tight doors and a ultra sophisticated fire detection system makes this ship as unsinkable as they come.

Living on this floating hotel for 10 days was a total pleasure, based in Port Everglades we embarked on a ten day cruise to Aruba, Bonaire, Grenada,Dominica, St. Thomas and Princess Caye. Following 2 days at sea, we were eager to disembark in Aruba to stretch our legs and get in some much needed shopping, (my wife's words).:)

Next it was on to Bonaire, I had never been here before,and after a 3 hour tour and shopping , it was back on the ship with our next destination being Grenada. Here we enjoyed a great tour where we visited an herb plantation, a park and Fort Frederick. Darn, no time for shopping.

Arriving on the island of Dominica, we had a tour arranged to the Ti Tu Gorge, Screw's Sulphur Springs, and shopping.

All of this was just a warm up, next on the list was St. Thomas, the capital of shopping in the Eastern Caribbean!

One more day at sea and it was time for our final port of call, Princess Caye, Princess Cruise Lines private island. After spending a couple of hours on a floating raft tour, it was time to eat and shop, then back to the ship and an overnight trip back to Port Everglades.

It was a really enjoyable cruise with only 2 problems, one was that we had trouble getting our toilet to flush, and there was entirely too much shopping!

Just kidding, it was a nice cruise and the store owners are a pleasure to meet and deal with, I'm sure we acquired a lot of things that we just couldn't do without.

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