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. 

Day 9: At Sea

All these sea days on this cruise trying to write a blog post about ABSOLUTELY NOTHING are good practice, I think, for all the sea days on our next cruise when I’ll be trying to write blog posts about ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. Well, if you’re all still out there, you’re at least seeing menus and Patters, and we will have Hawaiian ambassadors bringing us cultural activities on our transpacific crossing. You know what that means…ukulele and/or hula lessons!!

Something to lift all our spirits. 😉

It was pretty rocky on our high deck, aft cabin last night, so much so that G woke me in the middle of night to tell me to be careful if I got up to use the bathroom; all the cabinet drawers were wide open and he didn’t want me to run into them. 117 pounds of luggage and I forgot to pack duct tape. Damn. However, I do print out labels with our names, phone numbers, flight info, ship and cabin number on them and duct tape them to the outside of each suitcase using a low residue tape. I think can salvage the edges of that for drawer stabilization purposes. Something tell me that, with Hurricane Nolo still floating around the Pacific (Polo?  Nolo?  I still can’t get over the odds of that), we may need further drawer stabilization. 

The day unfolded as most of them do…Snobatinis for breakfast followed by a water workout. The Calypso Pool remained netted off, as was the Lotus Pool this morning, though it did open later in the day. The issue there, I think, is that the water has been sloshing out badly when the sea was rough, flooding that enclosed area and even into the gym and spa. 

Speaking of gym, I finally made it into the gym for a unambitious core workout using the little foam roller I had packed. I was impressed by the fact that there were two recumbent bikes and another recumbent machine for arm pedaling which looks like it could be handy for someone with shoulder issues. Actually, it looks like something one would find at PT. 

It was so sunny and hot that we actually hung out at the pool until mid afternoon and got food from the Lido grill for lunch. It was a very relaxing to spend the day.

We’ve had multiple dolphin sightings on this cruise, no whale sightings (at least I haven’t), and wins the award for most interesting cloud formation, from a sunny Promenade Deck this afternoon. A storm spawned by Hurricane Rachel?  However it formed, it was certainly ominous. 

At 3pm in the Piazza, the Princess World Orchestra concert took place. It was the standard collection of songs from around the world, very nice, and the male violinist from Macedonia was especially impressive.

Speaking of the Princess World Orchestra…does anyone recall the very rock-oriented nature of the one we saw last June on the long Ruby cruise in Alaska?  The one the cruise director was told he couldn’t dare do on a Princess cruise?  The one that we loved?  Has anyone ever seen one like that since?  Has anyone ever seen that cruise director since, or was he disappeared for taking a chance?  I would love to see a repeat of that. 

This morning we received an invitation for in transit guests to attend a session about how turnaround day would be conducted and what to expect on the next sailing.  That was held in the Vista Lounge at 4pm, and followed the standard format. However, we were surprised that, once through immigration on turnaround day, we can’t leave the ship again. That’s how it is in Sydney and we don’t like it there either. G wants to check out a couple of San Pedro hotels. He has decided to get off the ship early to do that.

Some info from the in transit session:

• There are 109 guests in transit from this sailing to the next. 
• There will be 2516 guests on the next sailing (400 more than this cruise).
• The largest demographic (over 1000)  will be from the US, followed by Australia and then Canada. 
• We won’t have October 17 due to crossing the international Date Line.
• We will have a Crossing the Line Ceremony. 

That session was followed by dinner with Libres and Sulton (cauliflower steak for me, since I had already reached my daily protein limit). I’ve never had a cauliflower steak that could match what I had on the Sapphire Princess several years ago, but this one was decent. But because I recommended it so strongly back then that I feel the need to admit they are not all created equally. 

The third and final Captains Circle party was held in the Vista-less Lounge (the windows were covered 😉) at 7pm. All of us in the top 3 went to all three parties, because we all dislike it when the top 3 don’t show up. One time years ago, when we were baby cruisers, none of the top 3 nor the captain showed up, which kind of defeats the purpose of the party. 

We followed that with music around the ship and the 9:30pm Princess Theater performance of production show Born to Dance, my favorite one. We’ve had some good production shows on this cruise, which is good, because we’ll see the same ones on the crossing. 

We returned to a mystery unfolding in our cabin. There was a plumber in our bathroom fishing a necklace out of our sink drain. “Is this yours?” he asked. Yep, sure is. How it got there, how he got there…no idea. Something tells me our steward Robert would be able to fill in the missing pieces of the puzzle, but he was done for the evening and it would have to wait until morning.