An old saying says, "You only get one chance to make a first impression." Princess's first impression in Rio De Janeiro was a disaster. We flew into Rio on flights arranged by Princess. We purchased a transfer to the ship. The airport greeting was fine, but when we arrived at the terminal, the bus dropped us off on the street outside the terminal. We were reunited with our luggage and needed to negotiate the area to the baggage drop off. There were no signs and little Princess presence. A porter did transport our luggage to the drop off point. We followed to be sure that our luggage got to where it belonged. It did. We were then pointed toward the terminal building. Again no signs and little sign of assistance. Anyone with mobility issues would have been in trouble.

After a short walk in 95 degree heat to the terminal, we joined 2000 fellow travelers in the non-air-conditioned terminal building. Again no signage. There were a number of people with Princess labels on them that were supposed to help. They had no information and really could not help at all. We did manage to find seats. When boarding started, someone yelled instructions. No one could hear them so everything was in confusion. Finally, after an hour or more, a Princess Officer took control of the situation and used a microphone. Things improved after that. We boarded the ship after about 4 hours. We got on board early. Some passengers did not get boarded until 7:00 PM.

Once on board, we found our cabin, had dinner and started the rather normal process of getting used to ship board life. Our room steward and our dinner staff were friendly, and provided us with quality service. Read more