Day 4: Cabo San Lucas 2

G (who didn’t stay up late blogging last night) was up before me today to watch the sunrise, and I’m a bit jealous about that, but tomorrow is another day. He came back to the cabin at 7:40-ish to find me still asleep, and didn’t wake me up, exactly, but didn’t let me sleep, either. We went to breakfast in the Botticelli Dining Room with Paquito and Amul, and now that we’ve gotten to know them better, that is quite a bit of fun. I knew almost nothing about Nepal, and Amul, in the dining room’s quieter moments, enjoys telling us about his home. 

We explored the highest decks on the back of the ship afterwards, as we were already at the aft elevator bank. Oh, the memories came flooding back. It’s a little like returning to the house I grew up in. I bet I’ve walked thousands of laps around that upper running track over the years. I used to love to put in earphones and just do lap after lap after lap either waiting for the sun to rise (the last time in my life I’ve consistently seen it) or using as it an escape from the 100+ days of forced socialization on a cruise ship. 

I saw at least one other ship in port with us today but didn’t spend even a little time worrying about which one it was. We also didn’t take a tender over to shore. We’ll have two more days here next cruise if there’s something more we want to do. 

I just happened to be in the cabin late morning when the phone rang and Michelangelo Restaurant Manager Nebo invited us to come to his dining room every evening this cruise at 5pm for our very own table for two. The log jam has been broken! Hallelujah!  Are we appreciative?  Extremely. Should it have been this hard to make it happen?  Of course not. Should we have had to deal with the dismissive rudeness of the hostesses in both the DaVinci and Michelangelo Dining Rooms the first night of this cruise?  Oh hell no. We are putting it behind us, but this exact issue is why I no longer get excited about embarking a ship for a new cruise. I can be pretty sure it won’t be smooth sailing. 

We enjoyed lunch on the Terrace Deck and I continue to be impressed with the World Fresh Marketplace. I made a huge salad today from the salad bar that was full of goodness, and finished with a boatload of watermelon.  I know I just said I wouldn’t post food pics, but I’m allowed to change my mind.

A bowl full of healthy yumminess

Isn’t it beautiful?

Of course 😉

We changed into swimwear then and spent the remainder of the afternoon on the outside back decks, starting with the hot tub on Deck 17 aft with its wonderful views (and it was actually pretty hot, probably around 100-101°), then using that small round Oasis Pool and finally the Terrace Pool. In between we enjoyed the ample loungers. My favorite area is outside Sabatini’s next to that bubbling fountain. Very relaxing. 

We returned to our cabin to get cleaned up for dinner and found a plumber on a ladder outside our cabin working in the ceiling. He told us he was fixing a burst pipe but that we still had water to (TO, not IN) our cabin and that was a relief on both counts.  I’ll admit we were little nervous to come back this evening but everything was fine, the cabin was dry and both the ladder and the plumber were gone. This is not a new ship and few things are in perfect condition. Except my bed. THAT is perfect.

It was nice tonight to be able to attend the Elite Lounge together. We walked in to hear a guitarist singing Horse with No Name and had to laugh. I’ve been encouraging G to go horseback riding in one of these ports. I can’t go (fiercely allergic) but he enjoys it and hasn’t gone in years. So every port I ask him if he’s going to ride through the desert on a horse with no name and it’s become a running joke. But I sincerely do want him do to that. 

At 5pm we presented ourselves at the Michelangelo Dining Room and Restaurant Manager Nebo greeted us warmly and escorted us to our table. We are in one of those usual banquettes of multiple tables for two and, though we are not by a window, we will be next cruise, and the cruise after that and the cruise after that. Go us!  And props to the Emerald Princess dining management team for addressing the issue so quickly…after we asked for three days and then escalated it. 

Tonight’s menu was probably the weakest so far one based on our personal tastes and I resorted to my defaults:  salmon and broccoli. That’s fine; I needed a full day of sensible eating and I got it today. Tomorrow I can splurge. 

We had an abundance of riches tonight entertainment-wise and thoroughly enjoyed first production show Blame it on the Boogie (can’t remember the last time we saw it), then party band Third Night Lucky performed a 70s tribute in the Piazza (everyone loved it) and then we went to O’Malleys to listen to Imperial Duo, a strings duo that plays all kinds of music. OMG they are fantastic. I’m so happy we discovered them early in the cruise. We’ll be groupies, for sure. 

And then it was blog time followed by bed time. I’d like to be up to see the moon set and the sun rise tomorrow over the Sea of Cortez. 

After all, I need a new goal. ☺️

Princess Cruises Cabo port guide

Day 3: Cabo San Lucas 1

The Emerald Princess was a quiet ship this morning when I snuck out of the cabin at 7:30am and headed to the Botticelli Dining Room. Very quiet. In fact, I don’t know why I was actually awake by 6:30am (and then lay in bed trying to be quiet), other than I’m sleeping so well in this bed. Well, that plus the fact that our cabin is as quiet as a tomb. Best sleep ever on a ship!

Being the only one crazy enough to be in line for the dining room when it opened, I was again assigned to our “usual” table at the back of the ship overlooking the wake, and could see the sun shining on the water, a welcome sight after yesterday’s gloom.   I dawdled and dawdled, with no place I had to be and G sleeping until a more sane hour on New Years Day. There was lots of group texting from both sides of the family sharing New Year’s greetings, and the fact that I could get them in real time on a ship at sea never fails to make me happy. 

I took a coffee for G back to the cabin, just in case he was awake (the aroma woke him up). And speaking of that, we both really love the Lavazza brand of coffee that Princess is now using. In fact, G loves it so much that he actually drinks it at home. Thinking back to the old syrup-based coffee, it’s a huge improvement and leaves us with no need to buy specialty coffees. 

I left again to go up to MUTS to watch the Rose Parade. It was fun, but I would have preferred to watch at least one Bowl Game on the big screen instead. We got nada, which was a little disappointing, but with an iPad and WiFi, I knew I could watch them on my own. En masse spectatorship is just so much more exciting. 

Our arrival in Cabo San Lucas was scheduled for 1pm today, and because of that later arrival, the Botticelli Dining Room was open for lunch.  Same table, same waiters (Paquito and Amul, and they wanted to know where G was this morning at breakfast). I’m posting menus but not photos of food (the exception being MTG luncheon) just because they simply never look appetizing, but the roasted cauliflower and Cobb salad with salmon was delicious. G has gotten me hooked on the chia seed and passion fruit yogurt parfait with mango, but he orders it as a starter and I get it as dessert. 

Our view at lunch

Over lunch, my early wake up started catching up with me. Or maybe it was because my energy level relative to G’s was much, much lower. He asked me to look online to see which ships were going to be in port with us in Cabo today, and I struggled with it, because I usually use my iPad for such tasks. And I was still at it while he kept talking and continued to ask me to look up four more things. He was on to a sixth question when I finally found an answer to the first (by which point we had nearly arrived and could look out the window to see which ships were going to be in port with us today), and when I told him I was getting weary of being his personal researcher, he said he was just making casual conversation and none of this was important and I swear I could feel my brain just explode out of my ears. I felt exactly like Diane Keaton in Father of the Bride when she had just had enough of her husband, played by Steve Martin and face planted on the kitchen counter. 

Yeah, exactly like that

After lunch, we walked out to the Promenade Deck to look around (it was a perfect weather day) and then returned to our cabin and here I have to back up a bit.  We returned to our cabin late last night (actually, this morning) to find that we had no wash cloths.  Here we go again.  We returned after lunch today to find that we still didn’t have washcloths. 

Our steward (name omitted to protect the innocent) was still in the corridor so I went out…to chat.  I started by first telling him that I knew this was not his fault, but that the Emerald was the fourth Princess ship in the past six months on which we couldn’t count on having one washcloth let alone two when our cabin was serviced. Is it an inventory issue or a laundry issue?   I found out that, on the Emerald, at least, it’s an inventory issue. He said that, though they had adequate washcloths at one point in time, so many of them have become stained that they can’t put them in the cabins. He showed me a few that had been folded and stocked on his cart that he couldn’t distribute. “Are they clean?”, I asked. Oh yes, just stained. “I’ll take them.”  It took some convincing but I left with two washcloths. And then tonight we had two washcloths. I don’t have my contacts in when I wash my face; I won’t see stains anyway. But, really Princess. Go to Sam’s Club and pick up a couple hundred stacks of white washcloths!

It was only 1pm, but it had already been a day, so when G was chomping at the bit to go ashore as soon as we arrived, I wished him Godspeed, told him I’d be on a lounger on the Terrace Deck watching football on my iPad and asked him to call me when he got there. I couldn’t imagine anything - ANYTHING- I wanted to do less in that moment than wait for a tender and go ashore to a Cabo San Lucas overrun by four large cruise ships with north of 15K passengers. Talk about a feeding frenzy from the locals!

For the record, they finally called open tender about 4:15pm. Until then, in the midst of all the announcements regarding the 50+ tender groups, the CD made numerous announcements thanking people for their patience, which, reading between the lines, really means people were exhibiting ZERO patience. 

I was watching the Rose Bowl on my iPad, loving that it’s finally Indiana’s time this year, when I first heard (because I had forgotten the game was yesterday, if you can believe it) that Miami beat Ohio State in the Cotton Bowl. I have never loved Miami more than in that moment (actually, I’ve never previously even liked Miami) and everything was suddenly right in my world. And, speaking of Bowl games, let’s just recall what happened two years ago today, shall we?

Sure, there’s been quite a fall since then, but we had our moment. Glad I bought the sweatshirt!

G didn’t stay long on shore (quelle surprise!), and returned saying it was very hot and crowded in Cabo (quelle surprise!) and he joined me in the shade of the Terrace Deck enjoying the breeze and view and the relaxing instrumental music that is played (not live) back there and generally having a much better time than being in a wall to wall mass of humanity saying “no gracias” a thousand times in response to pitches for taxis, time shares, skin care products, whale watching tours, fishing trips and boat rides to El Arco.

The best way to spend the day

Our original plan was to skip dinner, watch the sunset while grabbing something from the World Fresh Marketplace for dinner and then take a tender back to Cabo after dark just for the ride, which is quite pretty at night. Then, at 4pm,  G suddenly thought he wanted to go to dinner in the DaVinci Dining Room instead.

He first needed to shower so, once again, I went down 35 minutes early to stand in line outside the dining room to get a table for two with Rex and Raol to emulate the traditional dining we enjoy so much but didn’t have and that, right then, is when I hit my limit. While I was waiting, I wrote a letter about our dissatisfaction with the fact that 1) we never could get a dinner reservation for any table size for this cruise and 2) adding this cruise a month ago erased all the perfectly satisfactory reservations we had made for the next three cruises and 3) no one, either shoreside or on the ship, seemed to care. Once we were seated, I took the letter to Guest Services and asked that they make a copy and send one to HGM and one to DRO. 52 days of waiting in line is not tenable. At least not by me. 

I’ll keep you posted. 

We watched from our dinner table as the Quantum of the Seas North Star observation capsule was in operation. Craziness, but, if the glass was clear enough (unlikely on a ship at sea), it would provide great pictures of El Arco.

Regarding the new dinner menus we’re seeing on this cruise…I don’t know if it’s because they’re new to us or because the food in general seems to be very tasty on the Emerald Princess, but I’m kind of enjoying them. I’m not saying at all that it’s expensive food, and the portions are getting tinier and tinier (though our next table mates ordered steaks tonight that were pretty large, salmon portions are barely 3 ounces), but I’m liking the food very much. Tonight’s quinoa and pomegranate salad with goat cheese was delightful. And G swung into the Elite Lounge after his shower tonight and had a Black Forest cake there that he raved about. 

We didn’t even look at the dessert menu after dinner, because G wanted another piece of that Elite Lounge Black Forest cake, so we first raced to the forward Promenade Deck on Deck 8 for sunset (well worth the effort), then back to Club Fusion for the cake (also well worth the effort).  

A cake that tastes even better than it looks

Coincidentally, when we were returning to our cabin to change back into shorts, there were three of us in the elevator, the third being (we discovered) the Food and Beverage Director, Antonio. When we found out who he was, I mentioned how good the food has been on board, and, in particular, last night’s dessert and the cake tonight. He was VERY happy to hear that, and said that the pastry chef on board has been with Princess for 41 years and is in a league of his own. It’s obvious. Too often cruise ship deserts look better than they taste; not so on the Emerald Princess.  By that point we had arrived at our floor, G got off and I was getting off when Antonio said if he could do anything to make our cruise better to let him know. 

🤔🤔🤔

G fled, but I stood in the elevator door and began to fill him in. He stepped out and started taking notes. When I told him of our reservations disappearing, he said he hears this all the time. I told him I had just dropped off a letter with Guest Services and that we couldn’t do this for 52 days.  He said it would all get taken care of, but may take a few days. He listened, which no one on the ship has done yet. 

I’ll keep you posted. 

When I got back to the cabin, G asked casually, “Is he still breathing?” 😆

We rode a tender back over to shore just to walk around a little, thinking that the crowds would have died down, but it was still surprisingly busy. Besides the Quantum of the Seas, the Navigator of the Seas and the Carnival Firenze were overnighting or at least staying late, and young people were getting off those ships in droves. Cabo was really hopping tonight!

Another LiDAR photo taken with my iPhone 15 Pro.

It was actually pitch dark and I aimed my camera toward where I knew the rocks to be while we were on the tender, not even sure what I was photographing and this is the result. Technology like this on an iPhone is amazing. 

Approaching the Cabo Marina after dark

Pirate boat party time

We were on the tender back to the ship (last tender from shore was at 10:30pm) when McGuy texted needing honeymoon location advice.  I can count on…well, maybe two fingers…or one…probably one…that I’ve had to say no to my guys, but I had to tonight. Or at least, “Can we chat tomorrow instead?”  It had been a full day and I was wiped out. I fell into bed…

…and then remembered that I’m blogging, and got to it. Happy 2026.

And, we’re off!

Day 2: At Sea

Of course today was better. That’s how it works. In fact, today was a really good day, and a wonderful ending to 2025. 

First, let me just put this out there:  When someone mentions how great Princess beds are, I do an internal eye roll and wonder what they’re sleeping on at home that Princess beds are so much better.. Because all the Princess beds I’ve encountered in the past many years have been passable at best. I mean, if you slide off the edge when you sit on the bed, you can kinda predict the sleeping experience you’re in for.

But the Emerald Princess went through a dry dock earlier this year, and maybe all the mattresses were changed out at that time. That would make sense. I hope that’s the case, given our upcoming cabin moves. Because, otherwise, I’m tempted to schlep my mattress down to the new cabin on turnaround day. It. was. heaven. I woke up with not a smidge of back pain for the first time in a long time (even better than at home). 

Despite my prediction that I would sleep in, I slept so well that I was up shortly after 6am (and with a time change!), got dressed and snuck out of the cabin, using the time to walk around the public areas on Decks 5 to 7 and Decks 15 to 17. It was chilly and grey, and though not actively raining at that time, the outside decks were puddled. Cruising again on the Emerald Princess floods my brain with wonderful memories of our early winters at sea, but the last time we were on the ship was in October 2021, on its first cruise after COVID. And before that was probably more than five years earlier. While the overall layout is obviously the same, some things have changed, especially in the buffet. 

I met up with G in the Botticelli Dining Room for breakfast (Paquito and Amul (from Nepal!), and I mention names so I’ll remember them come survey time). Every waiter in there, every cabin steward I encountered today was extremely friendly and welcoming. I mean, even more than usual. I hope Princess never loses this quality in their crew, because it’s what keeps so many of us returning. 

More walking around after breakfast, this time together with G to check out our future cabins. Two of them are located next to each other; unfortunately we have a cruise in between them. Luckily, these cruises are 10 and 16 days long, so it isn’t like we’re moving every 7 days as we did on the Regal last fall. 

Over coffee in the World Fresh Marketplace (buffet), we planned our day. There is a naturalist on board but I didn’t discover her lecture until it was nearly over. I would love to do line dancing class again, used to love them, but it’s kind of rough on the knees. And we didn’t want a big lunch, because we had seen the New Year’s Eve dinner menu and it really was a feast. So we grazed a bit in the buffet (no lunch menu pics, sorry) and sat on the Terrace Deck until a storm blew us inside. 

G and I have never agreed on who wins the buffet battle:  Crown Class or Royal Class ships. I love the smaller buffet like on this ship. I don’t like to spend ten minutes foraging for food as I feel I have to on the Royal Class ships. Give me a small buffet with just a few items I like and I’m happy. It’s early days, but I feel I can safely say that the dessert section on the buffet far surpasses that on the Royal Princess. G concedes that, but still likes the larger buffets. 

He also misses the covered seating area on the back of the Lido Deck that is on the Royal Class ships. I’ll give him that, but know that the Terrace Deck on the Emerald Princess will improve as the weather does. 

So, it’s hard to not compare, and I think the perfect ship (for us) would be some combination of all the ships we love. 

We returned to the cabin for a bit of a rest to get us through the long evening ahead. Not that I napped, of course, but it felt nice to escape to the quiet seclusion of our cabin.  Cruising is a people-y sport!  I drew the short straw and started getting ready first for tonight’s formal night. I love New Year’s Eve on a cruise ship, I really do, better than Christmas. No thoughts of people at home, New Year’s Eve is just all fun and parties and guests dressed as formally as they are on any other night in a ship. 

I waited in line again tonight outside the DaVinci Dining Room for over 30 minutes for a table for two. If they won’t assign us a table with the same waiter every night, I’m going to get one any way I can. It is a huge PITA, and so unnecessary, and will be mentioned on my post-cruise survey. Back at table 412 tonight with Rex and Roal, we’re going to make this work, dammit. 

Tonight’s menu was a feast. It was so hard to decide what to order, but we each got surf and turf and I ate two lobster tails and G two beefs and happiness reigned. Dessert for me (yes, I splurged tonight) was the Amalfi thing, possibly the best, most flavorful dessert I’ve ever had on Princess. Service by Rex and Roal was so spot on. Yep, they’re worth waiting in line for. 

We skipped the champagne waterfall and instead went to Club Fusion at 7pm for comedian Joe Duece. He was…okay. We had to be somewhere this evening as we burned time until midnight.  Our next stop was O’Malleys to listen to live music by the O’Malleys Duo (definitely NOT G’s thing, we discovered) and from there we went to the Princess Theater for the 9pm performance of Rock Opera. 

I’d only seen that show one time previously, on the Emerald Princess in 2021, and G has never seen it because he chose to watch an NFL game on MUTS that night (yes, I know, it’s hard to believe I didn’t do the same). I remember that I loved it, and I still love it. But, again, definitely NOT G’s thing. Give him a Bravo or an Encore any day. Yet classical music lover me prefers Rick Opera. Clinging to vestiges of my younger self, I guess. 

Side note:  as we were waiting in the Princess Theater for the start of the show, I received a happy New Year text and GIF from Angie, the lady we had met on the Ruby Princess in June. You might remember that she was celebrating her 94th birthday, the first one since her husband passed way, while traveling solo on board. We have stayed in touch ever since. Isn’t cruising great?

And by then it was nearly 10pm, and the parties around the ship were kicking off. Captain Baranski said in his noon announcement that tomorrow in Cabo San Lucas is forecasted to be 81F and sunny, and it definitely felt a little warmer on the open decks this evening…but still very windy and humid. We opted to welcome in 2026 at the party in the Piazza instead of the one on the Lido Deck. And, as the old joke goes, we stayed up until 2 or 3…minutes past midnight. 😉

Wishing each of you a healthy and happy 2026 filled with safe and exciting adventures at sea. 

Day 1: Embarkation on the Emerald Princess

We were up early today (that time change), but opted to skip breakfast at the Crown Plaza (buffet $27pp, a la carte items available). Instead we split a cheese stick from the USO and G ate some Oreos from the same place, we made coffee in the room and he left for a morning walk (over to the Emerald Princess, natch). That gave me time to enjoy a slower, quieter start to the day.  I usually take advantage of the pre-cruise morning to shuffle some items into my roll aboard to speed unpacking in the cabin, but, without a roll aboard, I could skip that today.   I nearly forgot (but thankfully remembered) to get my little medication thermos containing my serum tears from the room refrigerator. That would have been a costly error, for many reasons. Another reason to just fly in the day of a cruise. 

The Crown Plaza perfectly suited our needs for a one night stay. The bed was sooooo comfortable, the shower was in a bathtub but I survived, and we had wash cloths and hand towels and bath towels. Oh my!  Take note, Princess. The TV was very small but we never even turned it on (not even to watch Monday Night Football). We were tired last night!

It started to sprinkle while we were in the shuttle going to the ship, but, at Berth 93, we had a covered area to wait under until we could get into the terminal. This won’t go down in anyone’s memory as a stellar embarkation, and, as we’ve seen in the past, we’ll never know the whole story behind the delays we encountered, We heard that 1) the ship was late arriving; 2) disembarkation didn’t start until 8:30am; 3) USPH was on board for inspections; 3) the CDC was on board for inspections and 4) they were waiting for a saxophonist to complete the band. 😉 I know the ship wasn’t late (I watched it arrive on the ship’s webcam) and I’m inclined to exonerate the saxophonist, so it was most likely one or both of the other reasons. Whatever, we were in the Botticelli Dining Room just after it opened at noon for lunch, armed with a healthy appetite. Half a cheese stick doesn’t have much staying power. 

I was so thrilled at lunch to meet up with Cruise Critic poster “that” (quotation marks mine, because this sentence just looks wrong without them 😉), who recognized me while waiting in line for lunch. It’s fun to put faces and real names with Cruise Critic names. 

Our cabin was ready when we finished lunch, and I unpacked my backpack and waited for my suitcase to be delivered…and waited and waited. I heard frequent activity in the corridor but discovered it was simply my neighbors checking for THEIR luggage to be delivered. G had rolled his suitcase on, so I appreciated knowing others around us were playing the same waiting game I was. Luckily I had showered at the hotel this morning and the clothes I’d worn for two days were not an affront to my fellow guests at dinner, ‘cause that’s what I ended up wearing. 

The sail away party had to be moved to the Piazza due to rain, so we skipped that, and, since we had crapped out getting a table arranged for dinner during the day, at 4:15p we both lined up, him outside the Michelangelo (traditional) Dining Room on Deck 5 and me outside the Anytime Dining Room on Deck 6 to see what we could get. 

After 45 minutes of waiting, he got nothing, and, since I was first in line, I got a nice table for two next to a window (in fact, a table we’ve had many, many times on previous Emerald cruises)…for tonight only. No amount of cajoling would get us assigned to that table for the remainder of the cruise. As for the Michelangelo Dining Room, the high number of in transit passengers had every reservation locked up in there until late dining. So how do we get one of those tables for next cruise?  We’re not sure, but it’s good to have goals. In the meantime, for the next nine nights we will be waiting outside the Da Vinci Dining Room on Deck 6 to get a table. And, yes, we had phoned the Dine Line on land and that 45 minute waste of time yielded nothing.

Happily, our servers Rex and Raol were wonderful, and dinner was delicious. But we are left to wonder about what has led to the degradation of the dining system on Princess. Certainly the introduction of Reserve Dining is part of the reason, but one would think it has been offset by the introduction of the Premier package with its unlimited specialty dining. 

And speaking of Premier Package, we spoke with a couple at lunch who had just upgraded to it when they got on the ship and then immediately had trouble getting reservations for a table in any restaurant on any night at a time they wanted. Is there any joy in dining Mudville?

The Princess Theater shows are scheduled at 7pm and 9pm, which makes for quite a rush at dinner, particularly when one has to wait in line to get in. Tonight’s show was one we saw just a couple of weeks ago, Alfred and Seymour, pretty ridiculous stuff but it did put a smile in our faces, not an easy task on an embarkation day as rough as this one.  But we’ve cruised enough to know that embarkation days are hard. Things will be better tomorrow. They always are. 

And, speaking of better, my suitcase was delivered while we were out for the evening. Fortunately, I packed with those frequent cabin changes in mind, and unpacking was quick and easy. We certainly know the cabin storage situation in an inside cabin on this ship!  We move clocks ahead an hour overnight, so I suspect we will have a bit of a lie in tomorrow morning.