Happy happy joy joy!!!!!!!

 Finally, a beach!

Honeymoon Beach, St. John, USVI 

Day 72: At Sea

That 'moving clocks ahead an hour' thing worked, and it was after 9am before I finally went to breakfast in the Club Restaurant this morning. I swear, I was still full from chicken korma yesterday at lunch, but managed to eat a piece of stollen (I've lost count by now) and cold cereal. I was not going to have a repeat of that too-full feeling from yesterday. We had had a fairly bouncy night, and it continued this morning, but Captain D told us yesterday at he had to maintain speed to get us to St. John (no 's') on time tomorrow morning. Still, it was sunny and warm, and though it may have been windy, I wasn't complaining. Again, it's all relative. 

I left breakfast and went to the Cabaret Lounge for Bernard Hutcheon's lecture on Bequia and Tobago. Both islands are new to us; Bequia is part of St. Vincent (we've been there) and the Grenadines, and Tobago is part of Trinidad (we've been there) and Tobago. We're very much looking forward to both of these islands but we may opt for beach time over sightseeing. I am desperate to spend some time playing in the waves. 

G caught up with me there and we eventually left the Cabaret Lounge and sat on the Promenade Deck for awhile, and then went to the steak house for the British Pub Lunch. Rather than sit there and watch G eat fish and chips, I ordered the Ploughman's lunch and it was quite tasty and not as heavy as fried fish and French fries. Then we went down to the Panorama Buffet where I added stir fried veggies and a Bosc pear. 

G shocked (!!!) me by going to the Christmas card making craft class with cruise staffer and dancer Mackenzie. He had been up early today and walked around the ship taking photos of the Christmas decorations that passengers have hung on their cabin doors. We, of course, had nothing, because we didn't have room in our suitcases for a single additional item when we flew to Europe. G must have been feeling left out, and used the card kits to make two package-resembling decorations (complete with bows he made) to adorn our door. It's really quite creative and very cute. 

Shocked, I say!

We then sat out on the Promenade Deck again (always, always plenty of unoccupied loungers) and watched the sun dance on the moderate seas. We were entertained for an hour by two frigate birds coasting on the ship's draft, repeatedly moving up to the bow and then away from the ship to fall back and do it all over again. We have already decided that, regardless of our other plans for next winter, Christmas, if it is spent on a cruise ship, will again be on the Pacific Princess. We are veterans of several holiday cruises and it's tough to beat the homey feel and laid back atmosphere on this ship. It's the best!

It was formal night #91 of the season tonight. For once, even G seemed a bit weary of donning his tux, but we can't bear to miss dinner in the Club Restaurant with Magnificent Marco. Terrific Taufik was moved to a different station this cruise, and our assistant waiter is now Yakhov (no nickname yet). We have been so lucky with (and spoiled by) our Princess waiters during all of our seasons at sea.  Asked to name the single best thing about Princess, and especially the Pacific Princess, and it's undoubtedly its crews. 

While G showered for the evening, I opened my Awesome Note app to read that beach packing list I've used for years. The backpack, which wasn't used at all in Europe, will now be stuffed to the zippers with towels and sunscreens and contact lens solutions...and my Konvertible Kite, of course. There are so many things we will have to do without, including the soft sided cooler and metal water bottles (not to mention snorkel gear), but, as we sat on the Promenade Deck this afternoon and planned and plotted, we decided that one of the Princess tote bags holding ziplock bags filled with ice will make a nice substitute. The ATM card in its RFID pouch that was carried off the ship in every European port will not be needed, but the cash we got in Fort Lauderdale will be. It's a whole different sport to cruise in the Caribbean after the Med.

We skipped the PES Lounge tonight (we had decided that sitting in loungers on the Promenade Deck for an additional 30 minutes held more appeal), and went directly to the Club Restaurant for dinner at 5:30pm. Tonight is when it finally hit me...the last French onion soup, the last beef tenderloin, the last passionfruit sorbet, followed by the last Captain's Welcome Aboard Party and Champagne Waterfall and the last Motor City. :-(

However many days this season turns out to have (it was supposed to be 91 but then there was Nice and then there was Rome), it will not be enough.  I know that a month in Hawaii is the other part of our winter at sea, and this year is kind of an experiment, to see if we prefer a condo in Hawaii to cruising, but right now it's hard to imagine that anything could be better than cruising the Pacific Princess. Time will tell. 

We opted to skip Jere Ring tonight. We have an alarm set for early tomorrow, hoping to have enough daylight to watch as the Pacific Princess navigates between the islands of the US Virgin Islands and British Virgin Islands. It should offer spectacular scenery, and we don't want to miss it. 

It's the last time we'll do that this season too. :-(

Day 71: At Sea

It felt amazing today, to be cruising down the eastern side of Eleuthera in the Bahamas as we ate breakfast on the Panorama Terrace with the sun sparkling on the water. This is the kind of cruising we've had the most practice with and I'm not certain we'll ever tire of it. It was warm today, but windy, and therefore a little rough...but Caribbean rough, not North Atlantic crossing in December rough. There is no comparison. We went to port lecturer Bernard Hutcheon's talk on St. John, St. Thomas and St. Kitts in the Cabaret Lounge at 9:45am. It was quite good, except he kept referring to St. John as St. John's, which is a pet peeve of mine. St. John is the US Virgin Island just east of St. Thomas; St. John's is the capital of Antigua and Barbuda, and the town where the cruise ships dock. A port lecturer should know that! Still, his talk was interesting and featured a little bit about everything:  island history and port location and sightseeing and lots of photos. 

G went to the veterans get together at 10:15am, but I went to sit in a lounger on the sunny side of the Promenade Deck (it's the Pacific Princess so there are always plenty of them, in sun or shade, even on sea days) and listen to an audiobook. I didn't last too long; the wind and rough seas blew up clouds of sea spray and everything, including me, was covered in salt spray. Besides, it was 11am by then and we had eaten breakfast so early, and not a large one either, that I was hungry. I went up to the Panorama Buffet but it was that 30 minute period when the breakfast buffet was being taken down and lunch was being set up and the buffet was basically closed, offering only pizza. 

G joined me after his get together and I told him I wanted to go to the Club Restaurant for lunch because chicken korma was on the menu, but he wanted to sit on the Panorama Terrace and enjoy the view. We were at an impasse until he walked through the buffet when it opened at 11:30am and saw that the same chicken korma was being served there, satisfying both of us. And what chicken korma it was!  It was made by Angel from Bulgaria and the man knows his korma. Jere and Johnny joined us and we were raving about the korma and I went in for seconds and two other passengers were telling the galley crew in the line how good it was too. 

I could eat korma every day for lunch and cioppino every night for dinner and be a happy cruiser. And kudos to Steve for introducing me to it in the first place. :-)

The hot tubs had been closed first thing this morning but were open and warm by lunchtime. G wanted to use one but I preferred the pool. Part of the reason I needed to order more swimsuits from Lands End yesterday is that the hot tubs on board are eating one of my swimsuits. It may not make it until we return home. Luckily, I have a second one for the salt water pool and beach but I am reluctant to wear it in a hot tub. However, the pool water had been significantly lowered due to the seas and was still very rough. That's not much fun either. So I sat in a lounger near the pool (it's the Pacific Princess so there are always plenty of them, in the sun or in the shade, even on sea days) and got some sun on my legs while G soaked.

I skipped the 2pm Grapevine Wine Tasting but G went, and then we met in the Cabaret Lounge for this cruise's BIG!!!!!! $500 Treasure Hunt Drawing*!!! (*must be present to win) and won not one thing. NOTHING. We've been fairly unlucky with that this season. Afterward, we retired to the cabin and I started a video I went to the trouble of downloading yesterday and, instead of watching it, G was napping in 3.6 seconds. He always does. It makes me wonder why I bother to download things for offline viewing in the first place. ;-)

We went to the PES Lounge (chips and guacamole night, and, of course fancier hors doerves too) where we heard several comments about the ship's movement up there, but, honestly, it's all relative, and we were fine today. Dinner was simple, just garden salad and salmon and broccoli, because of two servings of chicken korma at lunch. Plus, I had to save room for key lime pie for dessert. Flourless chocolate cake last night followed by key lime pie tonight?  Yes, Virginia, there really is a Santa Claus. 

We went to the Cabaret Lounge at 7:42pm for comedian impressionist Steven Smith's longer show beginning at 7:45pm (because it's the Pacific Princess and there are always plenty of seats) and Steven was funny tonight. His Donald Trump impression alone will fuel his career for the next four years. Harious! And his ability to mimic band instruments is incredible. But that was it for us tonight. We move clocks ahead an hour tonight, to AST.  Maybe we'll be able to sleep past the sunrise, because we haven't done that since we left Europe. But we do miss watching those beautiful sunrises with the coffee klatch characters from last cruise. It's not as much fun drinking coffee at 6am on the Panorama Terrace without them! 

Day 70: Fort Lauderdale (turnaround day)

Wucy, we're home!!

It is 10pm on a day that started at 4:30am. Something- a change in the sound the ship was making, or the fact that we moved clocks back another hour last night, or maybe because we were just so darn excited to be arriving back in the US- had us awake very early. In fact, the Pacific Princess entered Port Everglades shortly after 5am, and by 5:30am we were docked. Also by 5:30am, I had placed a big order from Lands End (40% off everything today only) and Zappos ($30 discount code, expiring December 24) and had the packages shipped to a friend's home to store for me until I return home. I'm not a huge shopper, but it's hard to pass up savings like that (besides, I needed three new swimsuits for Hawaii). 

We were in the Panorama Terrace well before sunrise and watched the Royal Princess arrive and dock perpendicular to the Pacific Princess at Pier 2, and, then, as the sun rose, the Island Princess arrived and docked at Pier 21. Also in Port Everglades today:  the Holland America Veendam and a Seabourn ship, both small ships. By Port Everglades standards, it was not a busy day. I was texting with Suzan as soon as the Royal arrived, and stayed in touch when they were off their ship and at Starbucks long before we had been cleared by the local authorities. That was not a surprise; the Royal Princess left Port Everglades just 10 days ago, but it had been seven months since the Pacific Princess was in the US. Every crew member had to line up to go through US immigration, and at 8am an announcement was made that the first of the luggage would soon be available in the terminal but that passengers taking their own luggage off, and in transit passengers (those staying on for the next cruise) could begin to disembark. Our Global Entry got us to the front of the immigration line but it was still a bit slow, because some agents were busy checking the crew's paperwork. 

Finally, by 8:30am or so we were meeting up with Suzan and Greg in Starbucks. It was so good (!!!) to see them (for the first time since they disembarked the Emerald Princess in January). When we are at home, Suzan and I are in constant touch, but, obviously, first I and then both of us have been out of the country. Still, we picked up where we left off, not missing a beat. They really liked their 20 nights on the Royal Princess, and though they missed a few things from the Emerald Princess, overall they were very impressed. 

While we got caught up, I was simultaneously downloading videos on both my iPad and my iPhone and G was checking everything at home using Starbucks' fast WiFi. The Amazon Prime videos we had left home with on October 24 had long expired, and we had watched my iTunes videos ad nauseum (maybe that's not the best choice of words...) during our recent sea days. It was time for some new material. The humidity had been about 133% when we walked off the Pacific Princess, hot and muggy, but while we were at Starbucks, the skies opened up and it rained quite hard. We needed to go to Chase to get cash (desperately) and Publix and decided that I would stay at Starbucks to keep our electronics dry while G would brave the rain. By the time he returned, Suzan and Greg had had to move on (it was hard to say goodbye) and the rain had abated, dropping both the temperature and the humidity. The day was much more pleasant from that point on. 

G and I stopped by Walgreens on our way back to the ship. He suffered greatly in Europe, missing his favorite Mountain Dew, and purchased two 12-packs at Walgreens. I added some spray sunscreen and gum and mints and, of course, we needed a bottle of Barefoot Bubbly (it's a tradition!) and we returned to the ship very laden with heavy liquids, including G's favorite flavored coffee creamer. We will be very comfortable for the next two weeks. 

Embarkation day lunch on the Pacific Princess offers beef that is essentially a filet mignon, so, of course, G couldn't miss that. We were in the Club Restaurant at 1pm enjoying lunch (salmon for me) and then back in terminal 4 by 2pm using the really good WiFi there to download a few more videos. On board time was 3pm and that's exactly when we reboarded the ship. I did my usual shower routine during muster drill and we were on the Panorama Terrace at 4pm, the time of our scheduled sailaway. Captain D made an announcement that our departure would be pushed back until 5pm due to delays resulting from the ship's USPH and CDC inspections, crew immigration and loading stores, but, in reality, it was closer to 6pm when we sailed. 

We listened (it sounded like a Carnival ship) to the Royal Princess' sailaway party and every one of us standing on the Panorama Terrace said "We are so glad we're on the Pacific Princess!"  We had heard that there were 500 kids on the current Regal Princess Christmas cruise; in comparison, the Pacific Princess has 5 this cruise. Still, it was immediately obvious that our new passengers are not burdened by the memory of those recent rough sea days. Everyone is excited and upbeat and active. It's one of our favorite parts of B2B cruises; as much as we sorely miss our friends who disembarked today, the energy level on the ship tonight is high and there is a feeling of anticipation in the air.. It will be a very fun cruise!

 

Sailaway from Port Everglades as viewed by the Port Everglades webcam

 

 

We finally went to dinner in the Club Restaurant just before 6pm. We had had the bottle of Barefoot Bubbly ready for nearly two hours waiting for the Pacific Princess to sail but decided in the end to save it for an island sailaway. Dinner was pasta with chicken strips...and flourless chocolate cake, of course. The Welcome Aboard show featured comedian impressionist Scott Smith and he was quite good. We have some great entertainment to look forward to on this cruise (including the return of Mark Preston). We listened to piano entertainer Jere Ring in the Casino Lounge for an hour until the day finally caught up with us. G was asleep the minute he returned to the cabin, and I will be, too, as soon as I publish this post. 

As much as we enjoyed the Mediterranean, we are so ready for some beaches. And sun. Smooth seas and warm temps. Azure water. Rum drinks. We are ready for Caribbean cruising!

Cruise #6: Caribbean Connoisseur

We know we love the Caribbean and we certainly loved Christmas on the Pacific Princess when it was in French Polynesia.  This cruise provides a chance to combine the two, and this small ship and 14-night cruise means fewer kids, the only way G could get me on a cruise over the holidays this year.  The highlights are two ports that are new to us, Bequia in the Grenadines and Tobago in Trinidad and Tobago, and we get to tender directly into St. John, USVI and Virgin Gorda, BVI.  Sounds like a private yacht experience, doesn't it? Plus Fort James Beach on Antigua and Lobster Alive on Barbados...Merry Christmas to us!