Wasting away in Galveston

When I last left you, we were trying to figure out how to stay for a week in Galveston, which would ultimately be less expensive to Princess than flying us home and back six days later. Some things we had to consider:

• Princess placed a price limit on our reimbursable hotel cost
• The Lonestar motorcycle rally is going to take place in Galveston this week starting Wednesday, and there was very limited hotel availability during that timeframe, and what was available was extremely pricey. 
• I am very fussy when it comes to hotels at any time, but particularly in beach towns. 

Searching online, I found two properties that might be acceptable but they both had very limited availability, and we didn’t want to book them sight unseen, so Sunday morning G got off the ship as soon as he could (he was turned back several times because luggage wasn’t ready, but we didn’t care; he was just taking a taxi to the most likely hotel). He went first to the hotel that looked the most promising, then walked eight blocks to the second hotel and decided the first property looked better. Meanwhile, I stayed on the ship until last and final call and then schlepped our three large suitcases and one roll aboard out to the Uber lane. 

The Uber lane was packed. Ugh. 

To make matters worse, the Ubers I was ordering kept canceling on me. Then I checked Lyft. For less than half the price of Uber,  Lyft showed up in ten minutes and the young driver did all the heavy lifting for me. Yay!

G was waiting in front of the hotel and got all the luggage stored and we sat around for another hour until the room was ready. This place is new and spotless and has a fully stocked kitchenette and a large shower and lots of counter space and a balcony with a gulf view and we are as happy as we can be to be here instead of flying home and having to come back a few days later. 

Saturday morning on the ship we saw a cruise friend and blog reader dating back to the Pacific Princess days and he said, “This isn’t your first rodeo with something like this, is it?”, and, no, it’s brought back memories of Nice since we heard the captain’s announcement Friday night, but is easier in a hundred different ways than that was. 

It also reminds us of the several times we got off a ship for a cruise or two and then got back on. The packing part is a pain, but it’s not that bad. I don’t know if we’re especially unlucky or if these things just happen if you cruise a lot but I tend to think it’s the latter. 

My first order of business was to launder all the clothes we just stuffed into the suitcases on Saturday when we thought we were going home and then re-pack with some semblance of order. We also placed a Boost delivery order from Kroger and at 7am Monday morning several cartons  of Mountain Dew and a case of water was delivered, as well as some snacks and ice cream. 

We have a microwave and full sized refrigerator, so if we get word the Regal is operating as planned on Sunday, we may place another order. I think that our insurance will pay for our meals, but don’t know for sure so we don’t want to live too large while we are here. There is an Italian place next door that makes good pizzas and we’ve gone there once. In fact, G said Sunday morning that we wouldn’t need to eat for a week, but by Sunday at 4pm he was starving and walking next door for pizza. 😆

As for what’s going to happen, we simply don’t know and don’t know when we will know. We could be flying home any day, or staying here the full week. The motorcycle rally doesn’t scare us. G still has his Harley and I just sold mine two years ago (a 1998 candy apple red Heritage Softtail Classic, my baby), and though we’ve never been to Sturgis, we have been to smaller rallies and know what to expect. It is supposed to turn rainy here later in the week, so that might put a damper on everyone’s plans. 

We have already received our promised refund to our credit card for the cancelled cruise and a whopping 25% Future Cruise Credit for our inconvenience, so kudos to Princess for not sitting on those. 

Meanwhile, we’re here, walking on the beach, watching football on a 55” TV, renting an occasional golf cart to tour the island and eating pizza and drinking Kroger water. I’ll pop back on when we know more. 

Day 21: At Sea

What an unsettled night we had, turning over in our minds what might happen next. And what a busy day today was, as we made decisions and rapidly spent money that we hope will someday be reimbursed. It wasn’t that packing up was unexpected; we were going to have to change cabins at the end of this cruise anyway. It was all the other stuff we needed to figure out. 

I eat sensibly 99% of the time in a cruise, but when my next cruise is cancelled, I treat myself. Actually, Michael treated me and found a few blueberries in the galley for pancakes. 

We did actually skip lunch today, because Cristian was treating us to dinner at the Crown Grill tonight, and, really, one must pace oneself all day when dinner is going to be the Crown Grill. We started packing things up, with me as careless as I could be tossing clothes into the suitcase to be dealt with at home. 

At 5pm we stopped by our usual dinner table to distribute tip envelopes and say good bye to our new friends, as the Crown Grill dinner just got arranged late last night so we hadn’t known we were not going to our regular dinner table tonight. We exchanged contact info and promised to stay in touch, and have an open invite to visit Ilya and Sofia in SoCal. 

And I didn’t think I was going to be one bit social on this cruise. 😆😆😆😆

Crab cake 


Shrimp bisque


Sometimes pescatarians eat meat!

Perfectly medium rare

Salted caramel crème brûlée

Key line pie bar

It was all delish, and service by Kevin was perfect. Thank you so much, Cristian, for this treat!!

We had skipped Voice of the Ocean this afternoon simply because there was a lot remaining to be done, and then skipped tonight’s show in the Princess Theater because, frankly, the cruise ends for me as soon as that final dinner is over. 

We set out our suitcases and crawled into bed about 9pm with our alarm set for tomorrow morning…and then the cabin phone rang. It was Guest Services. They would be delivering a letter in a few minutes offering us some reimbursement for our expenses if we chose to stay in Galveston this week instead of flying home and then flying back next weekend. It’s a smart offer…it’s cheaper to just keep us here. But everything- transfers on both ends twice and round trip flights and a pre-cruise hotel-  has all been booked today.

It would be another sleepless night as we researched Galveston hotels and made decisions. 

Life is never, ever boring. 

Day 20: At Sea

Today was the day that everything changed. Of course, we didn’t know that when we went to breakfast with Michael and Valenton in the Allegro Dining Room. We weren’t even especially hungry, but knew we were counting down our final meals on board. I had just fruit, since I knew there would be more goodies coming at lunch. 

Actually, I didn’t even have to wait that long.  We went up to the Terrace Deck where G left me for a minute and then came back with one of juice concoctions for each of us. Sitting there in the shade, looking at that gorgeous sea view…that was nice. 

We had received a notice in our cabin yesterday that our balcony would be getting cleaned this morning and not to plan to use it during that timeframe.  A couple of days ago on sea day it was off limits to us all day as they were removing rust and painting. I guess this was the finalization of that project. It gave us a good chance to see the size of our balcony compared to the others around us.  We are located right under the seawalk, or whatever that glass floored walkway is called. We had a nice balcony!

I was in the cabin when G came rushing in to tell me we needed to go to the World Fresh Marketplace right then as he had seen something he was certain I would want. So I followed him back up there to see what the attraction was, and, yes, they were making pitas and sandwiches from sliced roast chicken and all kinds of roasted veggies. G knows how I am with (especially) roasted peppers so I had a pre-lunch of those and still went to lunch with Michael and Valenton in Allegro. 

The ship must be out of Great Value buttery spread. We had the real deal on the table for the remainder of the cruise. Yay!

Here things got a little dicey (literally). I ordered the vegan tofu ramen bowl for lunch and it had just a few small cubes of “tofu” in it. After the first one, I thought that I needed to find out how they prepare tofu because it was a whole lot better than when I do. By the third one I was starting to doubt it was tofu but by the fourth or fifth one I was sure it was cheese. I just couldn’t get figure out what kind of cheese wasn’t melting. I mentioned it to Michael and he was on the case. 

He went back to the gallery and returned with a bowl with little cubes of…paneer cheese, a non-melting cheese from India. Sneaky. 

I spent part of the afternoon at The Enclave enjoying that for possibly the last time. I don’t like to go home with a wet swimsuit, so will probably skip tomorrow. 

And then it was again time to eat, and we took a bottle of champagne we received for…something (I think it was MTG) and shared it with our four nearby table mates. We were so lucky with them; they really made our cruise. G had told me that there would be a surprise for me at dinner, and I couldn’t imagine what that might be.  And then our friend Cristian appeared to sit with us for a short time.  Big hugs and we got caught up with his family and saw pics of his kids (now 8 and 5!). Gosh it is wonderful to see him!!

I don’t by usually eat any rolls, but Matthew knew I loved this particular kind, offered just once a cruise, and he made certain I got several. #spoiled

We went to the Princess Theater for what we were pretty sure was going to be a good show by Legacy, three vocalists singing Motown and The Commodores and Bruno Mars, etc. and they were good, but early in their show the Captain came on the PA and was making an announcement and they didn’t know and finally the message got through and they stopped the show. I really wish they had just kept going and we hadn’t heard the announcement because it was definitely going to impact us. 

Our next cruise is cancelled. Yesterday’s power outage was a harbinger of things to come. I had been immediately suspicious because the backup generator didn’t just kick in yesterday when we lost power and it always had on other ships when we’ve lost power. Captain Maresca had told us at the MTG luncheon that there had been a fire in one engine on the prior cruise and we were down an engine, but it wasn’t causing us to miss port schedules and it was being fixed while the ship was sailing to Texas. I guess that didn’t go as planned. 

Oh my. 

For our inconvenience, we are receiving a full refund and a 25% future cruise credit, which, as far as compensation goes is pretty darn light. When this happened to us on the Pacific Princess, we got 100% FCC I think. I’m going to go back and check that. 

But even more complicating is the fact that we were scheduled to be on the ship after the next cruise. This is kind of like Nice all over again, though much easier as we are in the US. We have a meeting with ship management tomorrow morning to see what this means, though I suspect I already know.

I suspect that we’ll be sleeping in our own really good bed Sunday night. 

Day 19: Grand Cayman

We had lots of alarms set to wake us up at 6am today, but we were up even before that, with that ‘clocks back an hour for the last time on this cruise’ thing. It does make me wonder where all the extra time that we got went to, but I suppose in my case it was spent at The Enclave or writing blog posts, because I have yet to read a single page in a single book. 

We really should have ordered room service breakfast today, but we didn’t, so G went off search of breakfast and I went to the World Fresh Marketplace to get a cappuccino but the machine was broken, so I had a Perrier and a roll instead, just something to keep all the supplements down that I swallow every morning. We met up and were in the Princess Theater even before our excursion meeting time of 7am. Go us!!

We’ve been wanting to spend time in port with next door table mates/new friends Ilya and Sofia and Antigua didn’t work out because I had a cold and stayed on the ship, so today was the day.  They had never before been to Grand Cayman, and anything that gets me into the water with sea life is fine by me, so we booked the $95pp Stingray excursion through the ship. (This also served the dual purpose of using up the last of our on board credits). 

We took a large port water shuttle to shore (we could have swam there faster), then boarded a bus for the short ride to the other side of the very skinny island. We had about 20 people on our excursion, which was great. I always dread ship excursions for being too big but this one definitely was not. 

Grand Cayman water shuttle

Regal Princess at anchor

It’s quite a ride out to the stingray sandbar, and I was reminded of why, when we used to scuba dive, I always wanted to be the first one off the boat at the dive site and the last back on. Even though it was not a rough water day, the boat was bouncy, especially once it stopped at the sandbar. 

The water at the sand bar is about waist deep

This is the catamaran that is used for the sailing excursion through the ship

We’ve swam with stingrays several times in several places, and, in fact, have probably done Grand Cayman stingrays at least three times, but we always enjoy it, and it was particularly fun to see Ilya and Sofia experience it for the first time. She was not a fan of holding the stingrays and when it was my turn the guide told me “ Don’t be scared“ and G said I vehemently responded,  “I’m not scared!!”, as if someone thinking that anything in the water might scare me was a most insulting idea, and yes, that would be correct. The dive masters in Cozumel long ago named me Pescado Amarillo for a reason. 

The water was so clear, so blue and the day was so sunny that, even if stingrays had scared me, it would have been worth doing this excursion just to experience the boat ride and the water. We eventually made our way back to shore and, about 10:30 or so, those of us who wanted to could be dropped off on Seven Mile Beach, and return back to the ship on our own. We chose to do that, and we were dropped at a not very developed part of the beach. It was simply perfect, and, frankly, this entire day made me fall back in love with the Caribbean a little after I had kind of burned out on it several years ago. 

The reef surrounding Grand Cayman

Following are some other independent tour operators with booths on the tender pier:

We caught a public bus back to the ship (US$2.50pp), and it started to rain, heavily, but only for a few minutes while we walked to the bus stop. No matter, we were already soaked and it did serve to wash some salt off of us (this became important later on). Once back on the ship, we were immediately starved and went directly to the Lido Deck where I consumed my annual hamburger (the last one was on the Sapphire Princess in August 2023). Something about being in the water has always made me crave a burger like at no other time. We also had a couple of drinks, and it was about 3:15pm by the time we made it back to the cabin to get cleaned up for the evening. It had been a fantastic day. 

And then, at 3:26pm while G was in the shower with a head full  of shampoo, the Regal Princess lost power and water pressure (and elevators and AC and…). G waited a minute, as we kind of expected everything to come back on, but when it didn’t, he climbed out of the shower and we had to assess his options. A bridge officer finally made an announcement acknowledging the situation but didn’t imply it was going to be immediately resolved. 

Fortunately, early in the cruise, 12 bottles of water had been delivered to every cabin that had purchased a beverage package, and most of ours were still on the desk. Using my phone flashlight, I poured bottle after bottle of water over his head as he leaned over the bathtub. Also fortunately, we never totally lost the toilet vacuum system (maybe there was some residual suction in the line?), and bottled water worked well for that too. 

But, unfortunately, I was the one left without any shower at all, and was still salt and sweat covered at 4:15pm while G went off to see what was going on around the ship. Finally I heard the ventilation system come back on, but we still had no water. I ended up cleaning up best as I could with bottled water, and wore shorts and a T-shirt to go dinner in the dining room for the first time in my life. I figured it would be an “anything goes” kind of evening (it was).  G had popped a baseball cap on his wet hair before he left the cabin and even kept it on during dinner. The horror!!

I wasn’t even certain if the elevators were working yet, and it appeared they might be. I was feeling lucky and started down in one. I remember being on the Pacific Princess when it lost power, and all the elevators were programmed to go to Deck 4 on that ship (Deck 5 on the Regal) and stay there with their doors open, so I wasn’t scared of that either! 😉

Peter our waiter was so funny. He delivered our menus and then started telling us what they didn’t have, and we finally just asked him to tell us what they did have available. But during the course of dinner, more and more items were ready, so dinner had a very strange order last night but it was all a lot of fun and very befitting the circumstances. By the time dinner was over, I think everything was restored though parts of the ship were still hellishly hot and humid. 

Grilled seafood bowl

G chose to go to see the comedian performing in the Princess Theater, but I wanted nothing more than to get a shower, a real shower, not a bottled water shower, and get the salt and stingrays washed off of me. To add insult to injury, the clothes I had worn to dinner, as casual as they were, weren’t even clean. Laundry is suddenly taking a long time (four days and counting) to be returned, and I have no choice but to do a load of clothes on turnaround day early in the morning, while we also have to move cabins. 

Thursday Night Football was being shown on MUTS tonight, and I took a chance that it would also be on our cabin TVs. It was. So, finally cleaned up, finally cool in the ACed cabin, I watched the game until I was joined by G. It had been an interesting evening