The first thing G said to me this morning? “Waymo called. Their car is still driving around looking for you”, and I put dealing with that on the top of my list of things to do today. I used the app’s chat feature and was easily given a credit for the $5 penalty I was charged. I asked why this would have happened (a car went to place not near me) and their AI simply said they’re constantly trying to fix and improve. Thank you for that.
Sleep, the first night in a new place, is always a challenge, but, for me, the biggest challenge on a cruise is the bedding on Princess. I knew that the weight of the comforter would be too much for “that” foot, and asked our steward for a blanket instead when he did our turndown service. We returned to find a MUTS blanket folded on top of the bed and the comforter still in place. I tried sleeping on top covered by the blanket but the blanket wasn’t long enough or warm enough so I did battle with the heavy comforter all night.
G left to get breakfast (I believe he went to Botticelli, which is very convenient for our cabin location…provided you can walk down the stairs because the elevators back here are quite congested), but I wanted to shower first. Before he left the cabin, G said that our sink wasn’t draining and we needed to report it this morning but that wasn’t the only issue, I discovered. The shelf under the sink, and the floor under that was flooded, and the items I had placed on the shelf last night (in ziploc bags) were sitting in water. Luckily, we had picked up two pool towels before returning to the cabin last night, not knowing for sure if we were going to have bath towels, and I used those to soak up the mess. But the shower was pure heaven, strong water pressure, lots of hot water and, of course, we are well used to both the shower size and the shower curtain. It felt great to lose the travel dirt.
I decided to skip breakfast; there was a fair bit of movement in our cabin and I was feeling just a tiny bit green, and went directly to Skywalkers for our Cruise Critic meet and greet. I haven’t gone to one of these for years, but it has been a very large and active group online, and I wanted to put some faces to names. But with Skywalkers being even higher on the ship, I was really feeling the movement up there. Have I lost my sea legs? I fear I have. Fortunately, these first two days of this itinerary as the Ruby quickly cruises her way north will almost certainly be the roughest ones we encounter (but we have friends taking their very first cruise on the ship later this summer, also to Alaska, and I made a mental note to remind them to come prepared).
The meet and greet was well attended by cruisers and officers, and I was able to meet Cruise Raider and 4cats4me, who have been on the forum for years and years also. I even won a Cruise Critic coaster, so thanks for Cruise Critic and everyone who worked so hard to pull all this together. They were pros at it!
G found me up there (cruising with the Locate Shipmates function in the Medallion app is a game changer), and came with a lady in tow. And here I need to back up a bit. Last night at dinner, we discovered that one of our tablemates, an older man, had been on the ship last cruise also, with his sister, who had too much difficulty with the rough seas because she used a walker, and she decided to cancel this next cruise and go home. So he was traveling alone this time, and G mentioned that he often travels solo, and if the man found himself in a situation where he needed help, to let us know. He was quite tech savvy and immediately pulled out his phone and sent us a friend request so he could message us through the app. And when we were setting that up, G discovered another friend name already in his app, a woman whose name (Noni) he didn’t recognize but whose face he did. He *thought* he sailed with her on the Ruby a few years ago.
This morning when he was at breakfast, she found him and they were able to reunite. He had met her at a Cruise Critic meet and greet and ultimately asked her to join him at an MTG luncheon on a cruise in Hawaii in March 2022. So I was able to meet her, and we had a fun time chatting and promised to get together again in the cruise. Bottom line: we never knew that the Medallion app matched you up with people you may have met on an earlier cruise, so take a look at that and see if any old friends are on board.
We went directly from there to get in line for lunch at the Botticelli Dining Room. Lines, we’ve got ‘em on this ship. When we stepped off the elevator on Deck 6, the lobby was packed full and people were lined up the stairs up to Deck 7 waiting for the dining room to open, and, once again, people were sniping about line cutters and, really, I was just trying to find a corner to wait in because people get so rude. But once the dining room opened, things started moving and it didn’t take long until we were seated at a table for two. But, seriously….chill people!
Summer rolls
Salmon poke bowl
Always, always…collard greens? Or was this spinach.? I think the latter.
Lunch at the bouncy back of the ship is where things began to feel quite bad, and I returned to the cabin (also on the back of the ship) and did exactly the wrong thing. I laid down (and covered up best I could with that MUTS blanket) and wished I was anywhere else for a few hours. G came and went, ultimately ending up at the military get together in the Wheelhouse Bar, and we made plans to meet at the Platinum, Elite and Suite Lounge, being held this cruise in the Vista-less Lounge (you can see why we wanted this “back of the ship” location). But as I laid in bed, I knew there was no way I’d be getting dressed for formal night tonight. I thought that I’d at least go to the PES Lounge and get some ginger ale and crackers.
G left to go to Botticelli for dinner, and ran into trouble. It seems that table we thought we had last night was not our table after all, that there are no assigned tables, and that in Botticelli you get a dining time but not a specific table, but all those empty tables for two? Well, those tables are assigned, and that is when he reached the end of his patience, walked down to Michelangelo and saw a Restaurant Manager friend who totally took care of him and now we have a table for two there tonight at 5pm. Oy vey, this has all been much harder than it needs to me. What do people who don’t have Restaurant Manager friends do? I guess they’re the ones waiting in the line outside of DaVinci that stretches long and wide back to the casino. If you haven’t cruised other cruise lines and aren’t aware, it doesn’t have to be this way. At all. Carnival, despite its lowly reputation, handles dinner reservations like rock stars.
And it also prompts me to go into the Medallion app and reserve dining immediately for cruises going out two years that we may not even take, just to eliminate this issue. I’ve always been reluctant to tie up a table until we made final payment (even though Elites can do that) because it didn’t seem quite fair, but we’re not anxious to go through this again either. I miss the old days of meeting with the Maitre d’ like something out of The Godfather, seeing him write something on his large seating map and walking away with a table number and a time.
G knows the drill, the took menu pics in my absence
G said he lasted about ten minutes into the illusionist’s performance in the Princess Theater, but when they rolled out the card tricks, he moved on. Meanwhile, I was so so so happy to return to the cabin with a real blanket on the bed, the heavy comforter disappeared somewhere, towels in the bathroom, a dry floor and a quick draining sink. Let’s get this party started (and calm the seas, please).
Tomorrow will be a better day!
Oh, and I keep forgetting to mention that we are sailing on a standard fare this cruise. I am no longer drinking alcohol, and have reduced even decaf coffee to one cup a day. I did dry January (easy to do after all the drinking on the Regal Princess), and just kept it going with two exceptions since then (can’t miss the prickly pear margaritas at El Charro in Tucson!). We knew from the Regal transatlantic that drinks started to lose their allure after day 7 or 8, and that even G would cut back his consumption after that. We just couldn’t justify a drink package for 22 nights. G is ordering drinks one at a time and I purchased a 4 device MedallionNet package for $495 to share between us. Is the fact that it’s not hyperspeed MedallionNet the reason I can’t post pics right now? Not sure, but it will work out eventually. As I said, G is streaming video at night with no issue. In fact, I woke up to him watching a morning news report out of Dallas. I wasn’t certain, in those fuzzy first moments of the day, but it sure sounded like I was hearing a traffic report as soon as I opened my eyes. I was. 😆
