Day 13: At Sea

I just realized that I didn’t publish this post yesterday. Sorry!

Today was one of those days when it is hard to find time to tell you what I did…because I was so busy doing it. The day started at 6:30am with a pool session. I went to the Calypso Pool today, merely to avoid the wind moving across my wet ears, and quickly realized that pool is used by lap swimmers. But I carved out my little corner at the shallow end of the pool and tried to avoid the swimmers. The water was still bouncy but it was a smidge warmer than the Terrace Pool had been and there was no wind. Finally, a very fit older gentleman showed up, also sporting webbed aqua gloves, and started his workout in a different corner of the pool. Holy hot dog. If he got that body through water workouts, I’m gonna keep doing crunch jacks and rocking horses until I drop dead. 

By the time I showered and got warmed up, I just missed G in Sabatini’s. No matter…every waiter there told me where he was going to be. So sweet!  So when I was finished eating, I caught up with him in the Explorers Lounge awaiting the start of the veterans get together. With no place else I needed to be, I sat in the back and spent some time trying to get back into my emails and blog. Something hiccuped, and my phone was being testy. Nothing I tried worked, but it suddenly fixed itself, and I had a couple hundred emails show up. Luckily, most were junk. 

I was looking forward to enrichment lecturer Eric Phillips’ talk about skiing to the North Pole (something he’s done 15 times!). He was the talk of the ship the rest of the day (even the comedian tonight mentioned him). What an adventurer!  In fact, he supported endurance runner Pat Farmer with the North and South Pole pistons of his pole to pole run. I love this kind of stuff, but with me it’s a case where those who can, do, and those who can’t instead skip a meal on a cruise ship just to hear a lecture about it. That’s as much as I’m willing to sacrifice to breathe the rarified air of a true adventurer.

The lunch menu from the app since I didn’t go

And I really did skip lunch because I wasn’t hungry, but also wanted a little time in the cabin to practice ukulele chord transitions.  That class was held at 1pm and we are moving much more quickly than we did last year.  I’m glad I have a little experience from the HawaiiI cruises or I would never catch up. I am not a natural. 

Hawaiian ambassador Kamaki

And following that I really did have a lie down in the cabin. I didn’t actually sleep, but I rested, hoping that would be enough to see me through the evening. 

Tonight was a formal night, such as that is these days. I was wearing an embroidered silk jacket that’s been in almost as many cruises as I have and a lady in the mid ship elevator lobby commented on it. Nice. And  then she pointed out that she was wearing Effy jewelry this evening and told me to check it out in the store on board. I was, frankly, shocked, annd asked if she was a paid model. She just smiled and said again, be sure to check iut the store. What the what is this about?  

The escargot at dinner were the best I’ve ever enjoyed on Princess, and I just happened to run into the executive chef at the entrance to the dining room as I was leaving and told him so. Not the snails, of course, which are always bland, but the garlic butter was so flavorful. I think it was the shallots. 

Tonight’s Princess Theater performance was production show Sweet Soul Music and we went from there directly to the Vista-less Lounge for comedian Syd  Davis. Done off his humor involved growing up Catholic in Dayton, Ohio in the 1960s. I could definitely relate. 

Reserved Premier seating on the Grand Princess

And then it was time for real sleep, that “burying myself in a fluffy comforter” type of sleep. My hour of pool time in the morning chills down my core body temp so much that my date with a warm bed is the best part of every day. 

Day 12: At Sea

Our weather today should not have been a surprise…but it was, given the gloriously hot and sunny day we had yesterday in LA. To its credit, it was mostly sunny, which certainly helped, but it was also quite windy, quite bouncy and fairly chilly (high 60s). I should know by now that 2 to 3 of those 5 sea days between California and Hawaii are typically rough and cool, and often overcast. I guess I’d imagined that, given California’s heat wave, this crossing might have been different.

We went to Sabatini’s when it opened at 7:30am. There is a new wait team in there this cruise, so it felt a little less familiar, but, as always, was a real treat.  I next went to the Terrace Pool never imagining the water would be cool, choppy and higher than it had been yesterday. I should have aborted right there and then but didn’t. I lasted 45 minutes but was chilled through and a little seasick by the end. Tomorrow:  the covered Calypso Pool. 

Warmed up slightly by a hot shower and dressed in the clothing I actually brought for the North Island of New Zealand (yoga pants and an oversized sweatshirt), we went to lunch where I was in search of hot food and a hotter beverage. The chowder was good but I can’t recommend the seafood curry. 

I was so excited to attend the first ukulele session of the cruise at 1pm and even happier that we actually were able to sign out ukuleles. The extra practice on our own is imperative for developing the muscle memory required for chord transitions. And speaking of ukuleles, shout out to reader Karen who sent this recommendation for the perfect ukulele for me. The marriage of two of my favorite things, and I was touched that she was thinking of me and connected the dots!

The evening started with the Elite Lounge and dinner with Libres and Sulton in the Michelangelo Dining Room.   

I had both Hawaiian items and they were both good.

We went to the Princess Theater performance by magician Kyle Marlette (gotta fill these sea days somehow!). Despite sitting in the “just in case”-iest of the “just in case” seats, G lasted the whole show, but I had to bug out when Kyle started swallowing razor blades. I do NOT have the stomach for that. G pointed out afterwards that it was no different than old time wrestling on TV, just an act, a comment that brought back a decades-old memory of running crying from the room when my older brother was watching that on TV. I don’t do well seeing people in pain…even cruise ship magicians. 😆

The Grand Princess show band did a New Orleans jazz set in the Piazza and we finished the evening at the Silent Disco in the Vista-less Lounge (to complete my 60 minutes of daily exercise goal). 

No matter how good the day, I thought, as I climbed into a warm bed, the same thing I’ve thought many times in the past…the best thing in any port is this ship, the best thing on this ship is this cabin and the best thing in this cabin is this bed.

Life is good. :-)

Day 11: Los Angeles turnaround

The alarm went off, as usually does, at 6am, though I’ll admit I’ve been either skipping it or turning it off immediately more often than not lately. Sabatini’s opened at 6:30am for breakfast today, and, as I headed that direction, I spotted loyalty host Andre standing at the entrance to the Elite disembarkation lounge in the Vista Lounge talking on a radio. I said hi and kept on moving but he caught up with me to tell me that we are this cruise’s most travelled guests once again. 

I. Was. Gobsmacked.  This cannot possibly be right. I didn’t even know how to respond, I was so shook. I kept thinking it was some big joke, but when I entered Sabatini’s, restaurant manager Priscilla welcomed us back and congratulated us on that same honor. I’m still thinking it is a huge mistake and until the Captains Circle party will have nightmares that someone will come running up disputing our right to that claim. 

But until we’re found out, I’ll sure enjoy breakfast in Sabatini’s. All those upcoming lazy sea days. Bliss. 

After breakfast I figure I could squeeze in a Terrace Pool workout before we had to report for immigration. It was a very hot, sunny, beautiful day with an obviously calm pool all to myself. More bliss!

Actually, I could have squeezed in two workouts, but they announced last and final call for disembarking guests, I took a quick shower and reported to the Vista Lounge. G had already disembarked to check out two nearby hotels and wouldn’t be able to re-board until the ship was cleared. Per usual, the in transit guests waited for an hour as 40 errant guests who needed to get off the ship were rounded up. Once that was accomplished, it was a quick process using facial recognition just inside the terminal.  I was walking back on the ship at 10:45am and G was right behind me. 

Last year, my face was never once recognized during our many turnarounds in LA and I always required in person screening, which G found rather harious in its predictability, but we had to renew our passports this year and that did the trick. No issues with facial recognition, though I remember saying ten years ago that the passport photo I was horrified by then would likely seem a lot less egregious when it came time for renewal. I was right. 

Embarkation Day lunch was the usual excellent menu and afterward we donned swimsuits (luckily I brought plenty so I could put on a dry one) and headed for a hot tub and then the Terrace Pool to cool off. We tried to sit on the Terrace Deck (as many guests were) but, darn, the sun was scalding. The wooden deck was too hot to walk on and the railing too hot to hold. The SoCal heat wave was in full force today. 

There was just enough time for yet another shower (I’m going to need to do a re-stocking in Hawaii because I wasn’t planning to take multiple showers each day) and a quick visit to the Elite Lounge where we ran into cruise friend Mona. I forgot to mention that last cruise we saw friends from the Emerald Princess Craig and Cheryl. But, honestly, fewer familiar faces than I’d anticipated and no old friends among the crew. That’s okay, we’re making many new crew friends. They’re all great. 

Mona travels solo and I was telling her about some solo travel I have planned and mentioned that I thought I’d do fine because I’m not at all social, and we looked at each other and burst out laughing, we two anti-social ladies who picked right up on where we left each other last January and never missed a beat. Okay, maybe a-social is more accurate than anti-social. Definitely. 

It was so nice to return to the same table with waiters Libres and Sulton, though I almost got taken down for trying to walk directly in to our table (as we had been instructed to do tonight) and not wait in the long line to be seated. Chill people!

I did not adequately plan ahead for tonight’s dinner. Each day I try to check out the lunch and dinner menu before I order breakfast to ensure I don’t get too much protein. I didn’t do that today, and had to miss out on my favorite cioppino (we’re no longer in Mexico, so they left out the cilantro and red pepper 😉), but I had the excellent bucatini caponata and steamed broccoli and- yum- I could eat that every single day and never tire of it. 

The timing of each evening’s Princess Theater shows has been changed beginning today. They are now at 7pm and 9pm. Tonight’s performance was vocalist Mark Kopitzke doing swing and I shouldn’t have been surprised that three Frank Sinatra hits were sung. It helped a great deal that Mark was a heckuva showman and a very polished performer. Given that we now have five sea days to Hawaii, I hope we’ll see him back performing another style of music. But his show tonight did give me the opportunity to dust off this meme. 

We were surprised, after the show, to see that we had not yet sailed. Captain Ravera had told us that the ship was undergoing special hull cleaning to comply with New Zealand regulations and that they wanted to finish that up before we left. He thought we would sail at 5pm but it turned out to be around 9pm. We walked out onto the Terrace Deck to see the lights of the Los Angeles freight port off the back of the ship. It was so pleasant back there that we stayed and chatted with fellow guests (even a-social me) until we had sailed past the breakwater and were on our way. 

I did some math-ing today. This is the fourth transpacific cruise (3 westbound, one eastbound) I’ve done, plus three crossings to/from Tahiti and countless Hawaii trips. I really never tire of this part of the world, and love the anticipatory excitement I feel at the start of every trip. 

Life is good. :-)

Day 10: At Sea

We enjoyed a quintessential cruise day today, with calm seas, perfect weather…and the knowledge that we have another cruise in the immediate offing. It doesn’t get much better than that!

First though, I need to solve the mystery about the necklace being fished out of the drain when we returned to our cabin last night. As I expected, steward Robert knew exactly what had happened. I have a small glass on my nightstand into which I place earrings and necklaces that I wear often, so I don’t have to put them away every time (still in that jewelry holder I made years ago from a pot holder and small ziplock bags). Well, when I took off a particularly meaningful (but not valuable) necklace before going into the pool yesterday, I placed it not in that glass but in a half filled glass of lemonade water, also on the nightstand. Robert came in to service the room, went to discard that glass of lemonade water, decided there was too much movement on the ship to just place it with its contents into his tray, dumped it out in the bathroom sink and realized too late that there was something in it. Because who expects to find a necklace in a glass of lemonade water?  He immediately contacted a plumber but had finished up for the night before the plumber arrived. The first thing he wanted to know this morning was if I had gotten my jewelry back. Yes, I did, a little worse for wear but I used a lens wipe to scrub it down real well.  Welcome to my world, where I do things like that all. the. time. 

After breakfast in Sabatini’s this morning, I got in my pool time and spent the rest of the morning writing thank you notes and preparing extra tip envelopes. I believe we will be saying goodbye to our special breakfast and our wonderful lunch wait team of Nyoman and Peter, but will be seated at the same dinner table in the Michelangelo Dining Room with Libres and Sulton. Lucky us!

G stopped in to the interdenominational church service held in the Vista Lounge and led by Captain Ravera. At least he picked up the “bulletin”, an old Catholic teenager trick to verify Mass attendance to the folks. 😉

So we went to our final lunch in the Botticelli Dining Room with the wonderful waiters who took us under their wings on that first day (and located my roll aboard in the dining room lobby), looked for Voice of the Ocean on the afternoon’s list of activities but apparently they’re not having one this cruise, finished up yesterday’s blog post while sitting on the Promenade Deck, and chose to watch football (specifically, the Chiefs v Raiders game) in our cabin. We couldn’t leave before the exciting end of that game, but made it to the Elite Lounge for a couple nibbles before dinner in the Michelangelo Dining Room. That was followed by a classical music set by the Waves string duo in the Piazza and a Princess Theater performance by vocalist Drew Pournell. We had missed his show earlier in the cruise due to Captains Circle parties, so it was nice to get a second chance to see him. 

With not much else to report today (and not wanting to resort to “sea day sidebars” quite yet), I thought I would share my thoughts about the 28 year old Grand Princess. 

Simply stated, we love the ship. I was, honestly, more than a little worried about the ship’s condition given its age before we came on board, especially since G was kind of unhappy with the condition of the Emerald Princess last winter. Specifically, it was the number of non-working public toilets and sinks sporting “We’re on it!” signs on the day we boarded that were still in place 52 days later. I kept reminding him that the Grand was ten years older than the Emerald was, and to set his expectations accordingly.  I needn’t have worried. I haven’t seen a non-working public toilet yet on this ship, most of the automatic soap dispensers work and the overall appearance is the ship is excellent. 

In the interest of full disclosure (as I do get emails telling me that ships/places/meals I liked were found to be absolute $hitshows), we have been admittedly blessed on this cruise. Our cabin was in perfect condition. I haven’t been able to say that about any cabin the past couple of years except for the Star Princess, which one might expect it to be, given its young age. While I would enjoy another couple of feet of closet space and more lighting in the cabin (especially when I drop a small earring on the floor as I did this morning), our inside cabin is very livable. 

My mattress has been extremely comfortable. G drew the short straw this time and his was broken down on one side. It wasn’t an issue until the seas got rocky and he felt like he was going to slide out of bed. We rotated the mattress 180° and now, if he rolls, it will be against the wall.

My over the door shoe rack wouldn’t hang on the outside of the bathroom door, which is where we’ve had it on many, many cruises. I used four magnetic hooks and hung it on the wall at the end of a bed and we’ve decided we like it even better there. 

Our cabin’s AC, toilet, sink stopper and faucet all work fine. We have seen a few buckets around, in the Horizon Court and also in the Vista Lounge where the AC was dripping water due to the high humidity we had in Mexico. And there was a large floor fan in our corridor a few days ago. We know what that means, but it was gone after a few days. Bottom line, this ship is in as good a condition as ships 10 and 15 years newer. 

The WiFi has been passable. We don’t have a super high speed package and I’ve been unable to Zoom. I have Zoom sessions both of the next two days, so I’ll see if that was a one-off or a persistent issue. G has been streaming video successfully every night, so it’s not abysmal. But it would be nice if, for over $1000, we really were getting the “best internet at sea”. Actually, I’m just thrilled to be able to upload pics to this blog

The food has been good if not especially memorable. Princess knows that, and wants to charge extra for memorable. We don’t need memorable. We need decent, healthy meal options, and we have them. 

But where this ship shines, and what keeps us returning to Princess time and time again, is its very friendly crew. We never encountered even one person who wasn’t a stand out. That’s notable even for a company with a reputation for having a great crew. I love how Captain Ravera thanks them, in every single announcement, for their efforts and shows them such respect. 

We’re excited to be starting a further 28 nights on the ship, excited about the itinerary, and happy to be cruising with new friends we’ve met on board.