Day 108: At sea

We had the roughest night we've had so far this season on the Emerald Princess. Captain Forteeze had warned us, when we left Fort Lauderdale yesterday afternoon, that a strong northwest wind would blow 60 knots (70 mph) across the open decks, and we definitely felt it in our cabin up high on the back of the ship. It's not a matter of seasickness- I don't recall ever feeling really nauseous on this ship the way I did on the Pacific Princess- but it's just the restless sleep that results from all the movement. Honestly, it felt like the ship was hitting a wall, and shuddering down its entire length. We were constantly awakened, over and over all night long, and never had that deep, restorative sleep we needed. 

Luckily, things improved throughout the day today. Though it started quite overcast, by noon the sun was starting to be seen through the clouds and that troublesome wind calmed a little. I went to this cruise's Cruise Critic meet and greet, held at 10am in the Wheelhouse Bar (Why not Skywalkers? See below.). Lloyd had done a great job of spearheading that get together, as well as the one for next cruise, and , although I hadn't been an active participant on these Emerald Princess roll calls (being on a ship in the South Pacific might be to blame), it was nice to meet some fellow passengers we'll be spending some time with on Cozumel in three days. 

I was never high energy today, a result of our sleepless night, and skipped the usual sea day crafting and line dancing in favor of spending some extended time in a hot tub. I stayed in touch with the twins by text, and was thrilled with the results of today's big game. They won their basketball game 53-28!  I'm just a little proud of them!

I had a chance today to talk with the acrobat from Reflex Duo who performed last night in the Piazza. I asked him how he travels with that large hoop he uses in his act, and he said it comes apart into eight sections and can be checked as luggage when he flies. I asked if he then trusted it when it was reassembled, and apparently it all locks into position. He and his partner, who performed tonight, are from Montreal. Somehow, that city is the home to so many acrobatic performers. Is that because of Cirque du Soleil, or the cause of Cirque originating there?

I haven't yet mentioned that there is a large group (800 passengers) on board for a Concerts at Sea theme cruise. We've known about this group since before we booked our cruise, but have generally found that this sort of group doesn't really affect our cruise experience. Most of their gatherings are in Club Fusion, but they must have reserved Skywalkers during the day today for some events. I guess there are members from several musical groups of the 60s on board to perform and mingle with those cruisers. Aside from the theme T-shirts I've seen several passengers wearing, it's all been rather transparent to those of us not in the group. BTW, the cost for passengers who didn't book through the travel agency arranging this group to attend any of their private events was $600pp. Thanks, but no thanks. 

Tonight was the first formal night of the cruise, followed by the Captain's Welcome Aboard Party and Champagne Waterfall and production show I Got the Music (performed twice tonight). Pianist Ryszard Sulek is performing tonight in Adagio, and I think we may be up there to listen for a while before we retire. We don't have any specific plans for tomorrow in Grand Cayman, but G has been talking about a long, long walk.

Pray for me. 

Huh?  What's that you say?  There was football today?

I may have heard something about that. 

;-)

Day 107: Fort Lauderdale (turnaround day), in brief

I had an entire post prepared for turnaround day (which was actually yesterday) and it would not format correctly regardless of everything I did to correct it. In my frustration, I simply deleted it and decided to try again today (the next day). I can actually shorten the day down to a few sentences:

We were awakened early due to the shaking and shimmy-ing of the ship as it docked at Pier 2 in Port Everglades. 

We ate breakfast separately, G in the Horizon Court Buffet and me a little later in the Botticelli Dining Room. 

I took the time during breakfast to complete the survey Princess emailed us for the last two cruises (while the minibars arrive fast and furiously, so do the post-cruise surveys). 

Though the day was brightly sunny, it was also very windy and cool. We decided to stay on board as there was nothing we really needed to do in Fort Lauderdale. 

Disembarkation was significantly delayed due to deficient immigration manning. The last passengers walked off at 11:15am. Immigration came on board for the in transit passengers, and it was 11:50am before that process was complete. Minutes later, the flow of embarking passengers began. 

We ate lunch in the DaVinci Dining Room (salmon and a glass of wine for me). 

We spent most of the afternoon making phone calls and interneting in either Adagio or Skywalkers, the two quietest places on turnaround days. 

The Emerald Princess was the third of six ships to sail. It was cold and extremely windy on the Terrace Deck as we sailed, but we popped the cork on a bottle of Barefoot Bubbly and, holding tightly onto our glasses in the wind, toasted our tenth sailaway of the season. 

After dinner in the Michelangelo Dining Room, we skipped the Welcome Aboard show with comedian Al Katz and instead sat in the Piazza drinking coffee and listening to Ryszard Sulek playing classical music on the piano and generally missing Suzan and Greg very much. :-(

Visual aids for planning our seating choice around the Calypso Pool for the playoff games on MUTS ;-)

An acrobat from Reflex Duo performed in the Piazza at 7:45pm, and, for once, we had front row seats. He was amazingly entertaining, doing all sorts of balance tricks using a very large hoops (how in the world does he fly with that thing??). 

We went to bed and I fought my blog post, wasting 30 minutes of Internet to no avail. 

I mentally prepared myself for a Broncos loss today. To loosely paraphrase Shakepeare...if we're going to lose, let's lose this week, instead of in two weeks. 

It's going to be an emotional day. 

Blizzard relief :-)

Fort James Beach on Antigua

Cruise #4: 7-nights to the Western Caribbean

Day 106: At sea

I was awakened by a hard rap on the door at exactly 6:30am. Unbeknownst to me, G had ordered room service coffee again. Damn, I wish he'd quit doing that. It scares the bejeebers out of me to be jarred out of a deep sleep that way. I think we both went back to sleep- well, I know I did- and it was much, much later when I awoke again to find G gone and the clock reading nearly 9:30am. I had completely missed breakfast in the DaVinci Dining Room, but that was okay; I wasn't really hungry enough to eat breakfast at all. 

I took a few minutes to read over my blog post from last night, published while I was in a near zombie-like state. I needed to make too many corrections to count, and republished a clearer, more readable post (so if you read the original version, my apologies!). 

I gathered up my iDevices and went down to the International Cafe for my morning coffee (brewed decaf with Half and Half. Heaven!). I was not surprised to find Suzan and Greg there, but was delighted to see G there, too. He pulled over another chair for me but then soon left us. He is not a man to spend contented hours sipping coffee and reading and chatting. Must. Keep. Moving. 

Still, the three of us sat and sipped and read and chatted. I went online to download emails, and found another one of these gems in my inbox, the dreaded Emergency Notification from Princess Cruises. I receive way too many of these while I am on a cruise, an unsurprising hazard of cruising as much as we do. I simply didn't have enough wifi speed to be able to download the email content, and with many, many future Princess cruises currently booked, had no idea about which cruise I was receiving this Emergency Notification. I didn't know if our cruise starting in a week had been cancelled or if we'll be leaving St. Thomas 30 minutes earlier over a year from now. Or something else. I later found out that it was a CYA email about the Zeka viruse or Zeba virus or whatever it is called. Very helpful. :-|

The dreaded Loading... It just keeps spinning and spinning and...

G and I met in the DaVinci Dining Room for lunch right at noon. I was hungry by then, and had delicious calamari, gazpacho and my usual stuffed roasted yellow bell pepper...and a glass of wine, a nice sea day bonus. I wasn't going to have dessert, but when G ordered one, I asked waiter Joseph from the Philippines if the cheese plates available at dinner were available for lunch. He brought me one, but, since the walnut bread that is usually served with them wasn't baked yet, brought me crackers instead. 

So pretty, but yummy, too!

We followed up lunch with a soak in the hot tub on Deck 17 aft. Captain Fabreeze had told us, in his noon update from the bridge, that the weather would be turning ugly this afternoon, and in one sense he was right. It was raining when we went outside, but armed with our 'umbrellas' (our Tilley hats) to keep the water off our faces, we sat happily in a hot tub in the pouring rain with a couple of other like-minded passengers. 

Eventually, I left the hot tub and went to the Splash Pool next to it and ran in the water for 45 minutes and then followed up with some exercise time in the Terrace Pool, two decks below. I loved the solitude of it, something I would not have found had the weather been bright and sunny. 

While I was still soaking wet, I walked all the way forward on the ship to the Lotus Spa and used the steam room to warm up (a lot). I was hoping to run into Suzan there, and almost did, missing her by minutes. It was our last opportunity to enjoy a steam and a chat, as she and G are disembarking tomorrow morning. 

:-( Times 100. 

I was showered and dressed for dinner by the time G returned from the Grapevine Wine Tasting (I had skipped it. I'm having my own wine tastings everyday!). I took my iPad down to Vines Wine Bar to enjoy a glass of wine and some sushi while listening to Ryszard Sulek playing the piano in the Piazza. 

Does life get any better?!?

G came down to find me when he was showered for dinner, and we went to the Michelangelo Dining Room early enough to get to the 7pm variety show in the Princess Theater. I had a seafood starter and watermelon and feta cheese appetizer and the tamarind salmon as my entree. Not that many would be similarly affected, but I wish that Princess wouldn't offer salmon on both its embarkation and disembarkation menus, as we salmon lovers get it two days in a row and seldomly in between, at least in the dining room. 

The variety show in the Princess Theater featured comedian Al Katz and impressionist Tyler Bryce. He is really spectacular, and did Ray Charles singing America the Beauitful and Elvis singing the Battle Hymn of the Republic. I spoke with him last night and he said he is staying on for our next cruise, which is fantastic news. 

We had an entertainment windfall tonight, and left the Princess Theater to go to Explorers Lounge for the 8:15pm performance by production show vocalist Matthew Tyler (not to be confused with Tyler Bryce, whose show we had just seen). Matthew was backed by the Emerald Princess orchestra (did I tell you that musical director David Pitchfork from Australia is back on board?  We have cruised with him for years it seems, and he was so funny in last night's production show when he waved at us sitting in the front row as the curtain went down.)  Matthew performed mostly Rat Pack songs, but also sang Bring Him Home from Les Miserables, and that was beautiful. His wife, Rachel, who is performing in Las Vegas, was on board visiting him this cruise and sang a few songs with him, including The Rose. What a talented couple!

We finished out the evening by joining Suzan and Greg in the Horizon Court Buffet for- wait for it- red velvet cheesecake. I think we can say it's official:  red velvet cheesecake is as synonymous with the night before disembarkation as flourless chocolate cake is with embarkation night dinner. Well, yay!!!

And that was our day, our last with friends Suzan and Greg on board. And all I can say about that is WWWWWWWWWAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH. 

We will miss them. Times 1000.