What began as a winter escape from the cold of Cambridge, Ontario, became the trip that transformed Lauri Davis Alty into a dedicated cruise specialist with hard-won wisdom to share.
At a Glance
A travel advisor's transformative first Princess cruise from Fort Lauderdale revealed that arriving one day early reduces stress, the ship's dining exceeds typical cruise expectations, and Princess suits couples and retirees seeking classical, quieter cruising rather than high-energy entertainment. Steel drum classes and Italian pizzeria experiences deepened her understanding of authentic onboard culture.
For many travel advisors, there is a single trip that changes everything. For Lauri Davis Alty, that trip was a Caribbean cruise aboard a Princess ship, departing from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on what was meant to be a straightforward January escape from the frozen streets of Cambridge, Ontario. What followed was not just a holiday. It was the beginning of a career-defining passion, and a masterclass in what it truly means to understand a product from the inside out.
Steel Drums and Unexpected Soul
Alty and her husband had arrived on board with reasonable expectations. They anticipated the trivia nights, the bingo, the standard revue-style shows that make up the reputation of cruise entertainment. What they did not expect was the man in the Piazza with the steel drums. A consummate performer hired to play throughout the afternoons and evenings, he worked through a repertoire that spanned Jimmy Buffett classics to Beatles tunes, filling the open atrium with melody and warmth. Alty describes the experience as something she keeps coming back to, and it is easy to understand why.
The connection went deeper than simply enjoying a live performance. Alty's father is originally from Barbados and played in a steel drum band during her childhood. She had grown up with the sound but had never learned to play. When the ship offered passengers the chance to take steel drum classes with the performer, she and her husband signed up immediately. "It was a great connection being able to do that," Alty recalls, "and it certainly felt like you were taking part in the culture of the places you were traveling to by being able to take that class as well." It was entertainment that became something far more personal, the kind of experience no brochure could have promised.
A Culinary Revelation on the High Seas
If the steel drums provided the emotional highlight of the voyage, the food delivered the most pleasant professional surprise. Alty arrived with tempered expectations, shaped by years of hearing cruise food discussed in mixed terms by influencers and fellow travelers. She is not, by her own admission, a buffet person. But the main dining room was something else entirely. Course after course exceeded what she had anticipated, and the quality held throughout the trip.
Then there was the pizzeria. "Even to this day, many cruises later, it was the best pizza I've ever had at sea," Alty says with the kind of certainty that only genuine discovery produces. "It was truly Italian in nature." She and her husband made a ritual of it, taking a takeaway pizza box back to their cabin on more than one evening of the ten-day sailing. The broader revelation, she notes, was that "we really never had an entree or a meal that was subpar, or felt like it was mass-produced." For a first-time cruiser quietly skeptical of large-scale shipboard catering, that discovery carried real weight.
The Lesson That Almost Came Too Late
Not everything about that inaugural voyage unfolded smoothly. The journey to the ship became a study in compounding misfortune. A labor dispute at Toronto's airport meant a two-hour wait before security opened. A terminal issue on the tarmac grounded their plane before it could push back. A Canadian winter meant a long queue for de-icing. Each delay piled onto the last, and the couple arrived at the port just two hours before sailing. They made it. But the stress was considerable, and the margin for error was slim.
The experience crystallised into the single most important piece of advice Alty now gives every client she works with. "Please, please, please make sure you fly in at least one day ahead," she says, "and if possible, do a couple of days in the destination that you're cruising out of. There are awfully often great things to see and do and it's a much more relaxing way to start your vacation." It is the kind of counsel that only lands with full conviction when the advisor has lived the alternative.
Knowing Your Ship, Knowing Your Client
One of the most valuable things Alty took from her first Princess sailing was an understanding of what Princess is, and what it is not. She is candid about this when advising clients. Princess, she explains, offers a classical style of cruising: quieter, elegant, and oriented toward couples and those approaching or in retirement. It is not the ship for go-kart tracks on the top deck or Broadway-scale production shows. "If you're looking for a lot of entertainment, broadway-style shows, a lot of activities on board that aren't things like art classes or trivia or bingo, this is not your ship," she says plainly.
That clarity is the product of having since sailed on ships ranging from intimate vessels carrying 350 guests to mega-ships with 6,500 passengers. The range has given Alty a comprehensive map of the cruise landscape, and her core professional belief has only deepened with each voyage: "People who say they hate cruising mostly have just not been matched to the correct ship." The first Princess experience planted that conviction. The years since have confirmed it.
Insider Wisdom Worth Its Weight
Alongside the philosophical lessons, Alty came home with the kind of practical knowledge that clients rarely discover on their own. Her two most reliable tips both center on food, and both involve steering clear of the buffet. On embarkation day, she now always finds out which main dining room is open for lunch and heads there instead, settling into a proper seated service while cabins are prepared. At breakfast on port days, she does the same, noting that staff will readily accommodate guests who mention an excursion departure time. "You can have a much more pleasant food experience than going to the buffet in five rounds," she says, with the easy authority of someone who has made exactly that mistake and corrected it.
She also carries forward a broader insight about what cruising offers that land-based travel does not. Her husband, at six foot seven, finds cars, trains, and planes genuinely uncomfortable. A ship, by contrast, gives him room to move, and the couple a chance to unpack once and wake up somewhere new each morning. "You sail at night, you go to sleep, you wake up in a new destination, and you've never had to unpack your suitcase more than once," Alty says. For the right traveler, that is not just a convenience. It is the entire point.
The Horizon Ahead
Alty's travel calendar reflects a professional who practices what she preaches. A Virgin Voyages Caribbean sailing is coming up in the fall, her first time aboard that line, approached with the same open curiosity she brought to Princess all those years ago. A return to Saint Lucia, one of her favorite Caribbean islands, follows shortly after. But the trip occupying the most space in her imagination is still some way off: a two-week Silversea expedition to the Galapagos Islands, with time in Quito and other corners of Ecuador she has yet to explore. "We are looking very much forward to not only seeing the islands, but experiencing Quito and places we've never been yet," she says, and there is no mistaking the genuine anticipation in those words. For Lauri Davis Alty, every new voyage is still, in some small way, the first one.
