Day 25: Roatan 1

We were in bed last night about 11:15pm when I heard the thrusters kick in (they’re hard to miss in the back of the ship), and I knew, even from our inside cabin, that we were docking in Roatan. That’s kind of different, but it reminded me of our many overnights in Papeete after leaving Moorea. Cruise Director Olivia had told us after last night’s show that the gangway would open at 5:30am today (also kind of different) and my first thought was that G would be out there. 

So when I woke up at 7am and G was not in the cabin, I knew he had gone further than the Horizon Court to get coffee. Sure enough, he had gone for a run on the beach at Mahogany Bay. “At 5:30am?” I asked. Well, it was closer to 6am. He said it was him and the life guards out there at that hour. 

The ship experience felt different today, even before the normal departure time of 5 or 6pm, but it felt very different this evening, as the Regal is staying in Roatan until tomorrow night while maintenance is done on the engine. I love being on a stable ship. Everything is just a little bit simpler (and I’m sure the galley crew and waiters would agree). 

We met up for breakfast in the Allegro Dining Room and then I took advantage of a quiet ship to do a load of laundry (there is a real advantage to having a cabin right by the laundromat) and make some phone calls. G found a like-minded gentleman to chat with on the Terrace Deck, and they were out there for hours. I would stop out to check in with him but it was so hot and so humid that I lasted about five minutes. Even the Filipino buffet waiters and cabin stewards were talking about it, so you know it was bad. 

Lunch was watermelon (surprise!) and a ‘chopped crunchy detox salad’ from the buffet and it was really delicious. It had ginger in it, which is what made it detox, I guess. While we were sitting there, I started to Shazam the Christmas playlist that we have been hearing nonstop and uninterrupted. Yeah, there’s a few Side Bs sneaking in there. It’s all Christmas, all the time, and, as I remember from prior years, it gets a little tough after a few days. Actually, some of the songs are really beautiful, but every so often we get a “Please Daddy don’t get drunk this Christmas (I don’t want to see my mama cry)” type of song and all that kumbaya gets dashed. 

I could do without anything by Gene Autry for a start. 

We spent part of the afternoon at the Lido Pool. Though the forecast had been for rain, it didn’t really cloud up until the late afternoon and didn’t rain until this evening. 

We went to the Elite Lounge before dinner, and I finally made it back to the Allegro Dining Room when it opened at 5pm to give thank you notes and tips to Marvin and Gift. It was like seeing long lost friends. We took another bottle of Prosecco to dinner and, for once, didn’t have to cut our meal short to go to a party, come from a party, or get a seat in the Princess Theatre.  

We’ve never had this much fun in the Elite Lounge. 😆

Sunset from the Promenade Deck

The Carnival Mardi Gras sailing away

Tonight’s Princess Theater entertainment was illusionist David Gatti, which kind of gives us the night off. We changed into shorts and went up to MUTS to watch the movie Reagan. While we were there, it did finally start to rain and chased us inside. We ended up just going back to the cabin early. We should get an extra good night’s sleep tonight, and won’t even have noise of the ship docking in the morning. I’m not minding this overnight one bit!

Day 24: At Sea

It was another perfect day at sea today, slightly windier with a little more swell.  Although I am trying to change things up a bit before we go home, in retrospect, I really don’t think we did. 

Breakfast in Allegro, lunch in Allegro, dinner in Concerto. I have been taking great care to complete the post-cruise surveys and am mentioning a few (particularly) waiters by name on them, and I find it so sweet that I can’t enter or leave a dining room without getting hugs. After we sat down last night, G asked me just what I was saying in those surveys. Well, whatever it is, I think the message is being received. Good. These people deserve all good things. 

This crew has redeemed Princess in my eyes (and my husband is very happy about that. TBH, there was a year there when I had taken to calling them Princess Screws Us instead of Princess Cruises). Shoreside customer service is still nonexistent but if you don’t need to reach out to them and can just enjoy the ship part, it’s all good. Better than that, even.  

British Pub Lunch Day

I had wondered about WiFi speed with a package (MedallionNet MAX) v. without one. It’s pretty close, and would not warrant buying a package unless you were working on board and needed to Zoom. I think I can tell a little difference when I’m uploading ten pics at a time to this blog, but it’s certainly survivable…and a universe away from how blogging used to be. 

MedallionNet Max

Plain MedallionNet

Look at that weather forecast!

Aren’t we lucky. 🙄

There were two Captains Circle parties tonight, one at 4:30pm and one at 6:30 pm. It was also Born to Dance night in the Princess Theater, so decisions had to be made. I joined G for the first party (meet outside the Vista-less Lounge at 4:15pm, which meant getting cleaned up for the evening at 3:15pm), and then went to dinner and to the theater to get seats for us. He attended the second party with new friends he’d met on board. 

We were the only ones in the top 3 to go to the early party, and Captain Traverso thanked me three times for coming while I was standing next to him for the photo. At least I think that’s why he thanked me. If he had been one of my brothers, I would have suspected he was making a point after I missed last cruise’s MTG cocktail party, but I’m sure that wasn’t the case. IIRC, that was a Born to Dance night also.  Priorities!

Italian night means penne arrabbiata for me. 

So much for trying new things this cruise. 

G managed to get to the Princess Theater just before 7:30pm. Born to Dance was again spectacular. We’ve been meeting the new cast members around the ship and it makes watching the show that much more fun.

And that was actually as long as I made it last night. I’ve also run out of the prescription eye drops I use (for Sjogrens) and my hard contacts last 12 or 13 hours at most. Alas, there is nothing to be done about that, and the best part of my day is taking them out at night. 

Oh, and I almost forgot to mention that I had to purchase internet for this cruise at midnight last night. For whatever reason, our package internet didn’t expire until then and I couldn’t do anything to purchase a new plan until it expired. I just happened to wake up shortly after midnight (that immediate dis-ease that comes from the realization that that cord had been cut, I guess). We were given only the option of purchasing for the remainder of our cruise (12 days), which probably rules out getting the Plus package next cruise, but we weren’t for sure going to do that anyway. We purchased the four-device package and I’m loving it. It’s a pleasure to be able to be on two devices simultaneously. 

Day 23: At Sea

Today was a perfectly wonderful day at sea. We had sun, the sea swell was slight (say that three times fast), and it’s not as windy as it was last cruise. I was up pretty early but, because I went bed well before dinner last night, I got over 11 hours of sleep. I needed it after a couple of sleepless nights. 

I was also starved, and we were at breakfast in the Allegro Dining Room shortly after it opened. I can already predict that I will miss my cappuccino each morning more than any alcoholic beverages without the Plus package. And G will miss his ice cream, though he’s discovered caramel and chocolate sauce is available for the soft serve on the Lido Deck, and he seems pretty happy about that. 

Fruit carving was taking place in the Piazza when I walked through there en route to a shop on board. 

Today was the day…I had run out of face wash a couple of days ago and was using the liquid hand soap in the cabin (which I don’t recommend), and I had also run out of shampoo and nearly run out of conditioner. G had told me I could use his shampoo, but he then left it in the shower in our old cabin and the (most likely) deck steward who cleaned the cabin didn’t realize we were just around the corner and probably tossed it. G used the ship shampoo one time and ended up looking a little Albert Einstein-ish. Simply stated, I needed to visit that shop on board.  $65 later I have Clinique face wash and Morrocanoil shampoo and conditioner and we are both set for the duration.  I miss the simplicity of restocking when cruising out of Fort Lauderdale with Walgreens a ten-minute walk away. In Galveston, an Uber is required to get to anywhere for supplies. 

Roasted cauliflower for the first time, but it won’t be the last. 

This ranks right up there with the broccoli salad as a favorite food.

(I also had it for dessert). 


Seafood curry

After lunch (also in Allegro), we went up to Deck 17 aft to use the pool and loungers back there. It was my first time doing that, and, while the pool is nice, it’s right next to the smoking area and it’s hard to avoid the smoke. I do like that it’s much quieter than the mid-ship pool area. Much quieter. And there’s a beautiful view of the wake. 

And, before I knew it, it was time to get cleaned up for formal night #132 of the season. Our junior waiter Nyoman has gone home and we now have Dima from Ukraine. This new pairing seems to be working better already, thankfully. We have nine bottles of Prosecco in our cabin, and plan to take one to dinner nearly every night. Room service sometimes is delivering them two at a time, and we hadn’t opened any of them while we had the Plus package. I ordered sorbet for dessert and poured some over that, too. Yum. 

  Vegan menu roasted carrots with always available salmon

The Princess Theater show featured vocalist Willis White performing a Lionel Ritchie and the Commodores tribute. This was another incredible show, and he finished it out with All Night Long which had the theater rocking. How good was it?  We went back to our cabin to change into more comfortable clothes and returned for the 9:30pm show. 

We finished up in the Wheelhouse listening to Colin Salter. And that is how, after sleeping half of yesterday, I managed to stay up until 11pm tonight. I’m back on track and ready for this 14-night home stretch before we return home. But I’m left wondering-  how in the world did we ever do this for 150 nights in a row?

Day 22: Turnaround Day in Galveston

I don’t know how the crew does it. I wonder about that every turnaround day. They bust their butts every day, but turnaround days are so intense. Especially on these 7-night cruises. How do they keep going?  I am in awe of them. 

I was leaving the cabin at 6am this morning to put in a load of laundry, and our steward Neil was already in the hallway to greet me with a smile. I got the laundry started (so happy the laundromat is at the back of the ship on this deck) and was in the Allegro Dining Room when it opened for breakfast at 6:30am. By 7:30am the laundry was done and our new cabin had just been vacated (that’s a gift) and Neil, who is our steward for this cruise also, was already in there cleaning the bathroom. 

We moved to the opposite side of the ship but just around the corner, by far the easiest move we’ve had all season. Still, it’s a move, and there are still carts and piles of dirty laundry and trash to contend with. But by 8:30am we and all of our minibars were in the new cabin. That’s a record!

We have one more move, to a midship cabin on another deck, to contend with before we go home. I think my “No more moves” warning indicator is starting to flash, too. There has been a lot of packing and unpacking this season. 

G left the cabin while I unpacked and then phoned me to tell me it was 9:10am and I needed to be in the Symphony Dining Room for immigration with my passport. Yeah, right. It was 10:30am by the time we saw an official…but they do come on the ship, for which I am grateful. 

From there I sat on the covered balcony of the suite across the hall (it was raining) and started making phone calls and having security codes texted to me to allow me to do the insurance-related things I needed to do. The things which, quite literally, have robbed me of two nights of sleep. 

But…it wasn’t all for naught. I discovered in the middle of last night that we could simply suspend our civilian health insurance, we don’t have to cancel it, and that is what we are going to do. Three of you (thank you so very much) emailed me to tell me we would be fine with Medicare and Tricare for Life, and that made me much more comfortable about canceling the other insurance. But, as I told G, I don’t trust what “his people” are going to do to these programs. It will be nice to have a back up plan. 

At noon we were back in the Allegro Dining Room for embarkation day salmon (me) and beef tenderloins (G). After that’s when I hit a wall. Too much lost sleep, too sore a body from hauling luggage…I laid down in bed to read and rest, and eventually sleep and didn’t budge the rest of the day. I skipped dinner and, most unbelievably, missed an Elton John tribute show in the Princess Theater. I think G got nervous when he couldn’t wake me for that, but I really needed to unplug. 

Before we sailed, however, G started wondering why I couldn’t get those security codes for log ins while we were at sea, and why I missed Meme’s last voicemail to me and realized that I wasn’t getting WiFi calling on my iPhone. I think I mentioned we switched carriers to Verizon last March, and I guess I haven’t had it since then. I couldn’t even turn it on in Settings. It says I should contact the carrier. G took my phone, went out to where he had a signal (the one downfall of inside cabins) and contacted Verizon and got that fixed for me. As he does so often. Insurance is my thing but he takes care of so much else. My guy. ❤️

Day 21: At Sea

We had another beautiful day at sea today; though it was windy and rocky, the sun was out and that always makes me very happy. Now that I’ve stopped overdosing on Benadryl, I was up at a respectable hour and made it to breakfast in the Allegro Dining Room, and then from there went to one of those chairs on the Promenade Deck, port side. I had never, in over five weeks on this ship, sat in one of them until last turnaround day, when I made several phone calls sitting there, and then again in Cozumel. That’s a nice area of the ship. I think I’ll frequent it going forward. 😉

After lunch (we were back in the Allegro Dining Room, because I didn’t feel like foraging in the buffet) I had a gratis afternoon in The Enclave, which, as you know, is one of my favorite haunts on any ship. Why free?  It had been noticed that we have been having an unusual amount of difficulty getting our folio straight, and that was offered to…what, relax me?  Possibly, but I kid, I kid. I am never less than polite when dealing with these issues. But, as G has told me for over 40 years, I apparently have a look, or a tone, or something that leaves little doubt that all is not well. Yeah, I can believe, after multiple visits over multiple cruises for the same issue, that might have been the case. 

The abundance of entertainment choices this evening required some planning. I wanted to start watching the SEC Championship game on my iPhone over dinner, but Streameast wasn’t working (when I asked my guys how it ever works, one of them mentioned illegal Russian gambling syndicates and the other said, “Don’t ask NeeNee”, so I’ve chosen to not dig any deeper on that point), so we ate quickly and went to Club 6 (aka the casino bar) to watch the last quarter.

I have never seen the watermelon with feta starter served quite this way (over spinach), but as I had trouble deciding between it and a salad, I was thrilled to get both in one. 

Tamarind glazed mahi mahi

I’m trying to order new things.

When the game went into OT, I thought we’d never get seats for production show Born to Dance, but luckily it was a short overtime, and we got our favorite front row seats. 

(I had to really curtail my usual excitable nature, and stifled my exuberance on this ship full of Texans when Georgia won). 

That’s a very tiny yay from me 😆

I know I’ve said this before, but Born to Dance is my very favorite show being performed on the Regal this season. Everyone else loves Bravo the most, and I can see that. The costumes, the voices…it’s beautiful. But what the dancers do in Born to Dance just amazes me. This was the new cast’s first time performing it before an audience, and I couldn’t wait to see them. 

Wow. They were just incredible. I love this cast, I’m sorry we’ll be returning home and miss must of their contract. (Maybe we should return after the holidays???) The jumps, the lifts, the splits are just incredible (in fact, one was done with such strength that a crotch seam split, too. Get me a needle and thread. If I can repair running spikes, I can fix pants!). Huge standing O at the end. One of the dancers had told us that they are adding Fiera next cruise. Can’t wait to see them in that.

We listened to live music in the Piazza while G had his last and final scoop of ice cream and I had my last free cappuccino of our cruises. After six weeks of cruising with Princess Plus, we’re going cold turkey next cruise. At least for one cruise. My Check Liver Soon light has been flashing hard for over a week. I think our limit for unlimited drinks is three weeks. Maybe two. We had the package for the transatlantic and since reboarding because of the Princess accelerator promotion for double days and cruises from August 1 to December 1 if you purchased a package. We clearly don’t need the cruises but the days do still matter if you like having breakfast in Sabatini’s as first most traveled on a cruise. And we do (there is always something to strive for). And we also like the Plus package. It’s much more fun to cruise with it, and I highly recommend it on a shorter cruise. But we need a break. We may purchase it for our final cruise if we end up missing it a lot. We’ll see… At least I won’t have to go to Guest Services every day at the beginning of the cruise to get our folio straightened out because the app can’t handle Princess Plus on B2B cruises. 

Something (autocorrect changed that to sobering, which is also true) to look forward to. 

Life is good. :)