A review of our cruise to New England and Nova Scotia on Princess Cruise line’s Emerald Princess.

We decided to ditch the tropical destinations for a cruise to New England and Nova Scotia on Princess Cruise line’s Emerald Princess, though we didn’t quite make it to Halifax due to Hurricane Lee. We definitely weren’t expecting to leave Florida only to be in the direct path of a hurricane!

Our cruise was cut short, and we had to hustle back to New York to get ahead of the impending storm. However, we did get a nice full cruise and a bonus day in New York.

Cruising on the Emerald Princess

The ship itself was nice, but not super impressive. Our Standard Balcony room had adequate room for the three of us, with a bed that popped out of the ceiling to save space.

I did miss the mini suite we had on the last cruise, but they made it very hard to upgrade on this cruise! My grandmother booked our cruise nearly a year in advance, and when we called about an upgrade, they said every mini suite was sold out and we’d have to wait to bid for an upgrade.

One of our favorite things is to enjoy the view on the balcony, so I jumped at the first chance to bid and placed the max bid. We got the news of the upgrade two days before we sailed, at the cost of about $2000. This was way more than it cost us to get a mini suite on our previous cruise!

Unfortunately, I didn’t think about how I’d already printed the bag tags for our first room, and on our first day there we didn’t get our bags and had to go hunt them down. This was after two separate people at check-in reassured me the bags would be fine, and they would be able to get them to them right room.

So, if you are a person that likes to buy a standard room and upgrade, be aware that Princess now makes the process very annoying and difficult. Much like in the world of casino online stranieri, where players often seek flexibility and better options, the upgrade process here felt more like a gamble than a guaranteed perk.

The Overall Cruise Ship Review

The ship was decent and well maintained. It didn’t have much wow-factor, but it was clean and a lot of it had been renovated. There was a tiny mini golf course, several pools, a nice workout room, and a theater.

The shows were…not so great. There was a musical production, a comedian and a magic show that needed a bit more magic.

The kid’s club was great, however! My son had a great time and asked to go to their kid’s club every chance he could get. They had a big selection of video games and fun activities for the kids. I absolutely recommend Princess cruise lines for families, as our last Princess cruise had a great kid’s club too.

I also enjoyed the food (mostly) and thought they did a great job of presentation. We did the regular dinner every night and tried the casual dining options at Planks and Steamers.

I did not enjoy Steamers and found the crab legs to be stinky and weird. Planks was quite tasty and some of the largest portions we’d been served. The specialty coffees and desserts were top notch, and I really enjoyed the dinner options each evening.

Ports of Call:

Newport, Rhode Island

Our first stop was Newport, where we hopped on the tourist bus that will take you around to all the tourist spots for FREE! Newport has a lot of big mansions that are now tourist attractions. We chose to visit the The Breakers mansion, which was super fancy on right on the cliffs over the ocean. (hence the name)

We paid about $30 each and $10 for the kid, which was a pretty steep price to just walk around a mansion. They have a printed pamphlet for a self-guided tour, and the walk through is well mapped out. Visiting mansions seems the main thing to do in Newport, and it was pretty neat to see inside and the grounds around it.

Boston, Massachusetts

We’ve been to Boston before, but the one thing we didn’t get to do yet was a ghost tour, so we booked the Ghost & Gravestones trolley tour through the cruise ship at about $60 per person. The trolley picks you up at the port and you get a ride all through downtown while the host tells you stories about the area and its creepy residents like the Boston Strangler.

It includes a stop at two very old graveyards with tons of history and some famous inhabitants like Ben Franklin and Paul Revere. The gravestones are very old and worn with neat engravings. Our host Betty gave us a tour and stopped to point out the most famous ones, along with a few stories about the graveyard. We had a daytime tour, so we didn’t get the full scary experience, but it was still fun and interesting.

Port St. John, Canada

We were supposed to make a quick stop for a half day in St. John, Canada and then head to Halifax, but the hurricane derailed those plans, and we ended up with a full day in St. John. There is not a ton to see or do there, so we did a bit of shopping, had lunch and visited an old church. And I found some wings to take a pic with:

New York, New York

And unexpected highlight was getting to spend a full day in New York City! We missed the ferry and didn’t want to wait an hour, so we took a Lyft to Times Square. It happened to be “Diddy Day” so there was a large crowd waiting for Puff Daddy/P Diddy/whatever he goes by now to appear and do something.

We didn’t stick around to find out since he was already about 20 minutes late to his own thing. (I’ll be honest I actually confused him with Kanye West, whom I had no interest in seeing. I do really like Puff Daddy’s song “I’ll Be Missing You.”)

*As a side note, reading this post again in 2024, I’m sure that will be the last Diddy Day ever!

From Times Square we headed to the new location for the FAO Schwartz store. Last time I was in NY, it was their original location, which was much larger. The new spot was still big and neat, but I couldn’t figure out why it looked so different until my husband mentioned it had moved.

After shopping for toys (I adopted a little dragon) we went to the Nintendo store, which was full of shirts, toys and games. They had lots of TVs set up around the store with a full selection of games to play.

While wandering around, we spotted a building with giant butterflies all over the front. We made our way to it, and at first weren’t sure what it was or if we could go in. We cautiously opened the door and saw it was a bar/restaurant, so we popped in for a drink. And that’s how we discovered Lillie’s Victorian Establishment.

The whole place is decorated with fluffy pink flowers! They’re all over the walls and hanging from the ceiling. The drinks were extra fancy and very delicious.

No trip to NY would be complete without a bit of history so we visited the 9/11 memorial and Freedom Tower (now called the One World Trade Center) before heading back to the boat. We rode the subway from Grand Central to Wall St., which was an experience. They do not make it easy to figure out. We had an easier time with the Metro in Paris!

The machine for tokens or tickets or whatever you are supposed to get wasn’t working and apparently a lot of people don’t bother and just crawl under the bar. This includes the bum we saw pooping on the street right outside the subway entrance. Had a lot of fun explaining that one to my son who kept asking why that guy’s pants were down. Welcome to NY!

We had a great view of the city from our balcony on the cruise ship and had dinner with a view of the sunset and the Statue of Liberty. This was definitely a unique cruise experience, as it was our first that didn’t involve a tropical destination. I was hoping it would be a bit cooler, and we’d get to see some trees changing color, but it was still warm, and everything was still green. This led to me totally overpacking since I wanted to be prepared for any kind of weather.

Overall, I would recommend the New England/Nova Scotia cruise, even if we didn’t actually make it to Nova Scotia. It ended up being more of an American history tour rather than exploring Canada. I guess we’ll just have to try again!