Grand Princess California Coastal Cruise Wrap-Up

As promised, here is the wrap-up of our California Coastal cruise on the Grand Princess. I'll jump right into it:

Food:

• Breakfast for hubby was usually oatmeal and for me just a blueberry muffin. Unlike other ships I was able to get a blueberry muffin every single day but one. Sometimes it would have to come from the buffet, sometimes from International Cafe, and sometimes the guy working the IC would go grab one from the back. They were really good muffins on this ship, moist and chock full of blueberries.
• We ate lunch in the dining room twice but never ate there for breakfast or dinner. The lunch menu had enough choices and we had absolutely no problem getting a table for two. 
• We did Alfredo's just once. Remember, as long as they have the ingredients they can make you a pizza not on the menu. We went with pepperoni, lots and lots of garlic, and extra cheese. Their idea of lots and lots of garlic must be different than ours because there was barely any on it. We shared that one, then ordered one more and asked for even more garlic but it looked about the same as the first.
• We ate at Slice, the renamed/revamped pizza place on deck. One time it was a slice of pepperoni and another time it was the Stromboli with some marinara on the side. This was at the end when we started coming down with the flu so we couldn't judge whether it tasted good or not. 
• The rest of the time we ate at the buffet. It was the same standard Princess foods at the buffet dinner. Meat, mashed potatoes, pastas with some of the same Princess theme nights thrown in. (If you've only had the buffet on the Royal, Regal, or Caribbean Princess you will be disappointed.) 
• Our last cruise on the Grand a few months back we did the Crown Grill and didn't have a great experience so we skipped any specialty dining this time around. We also didn't order room service this trip.
• One note about embarkation day dining...we received a note when checking in about all the food venues open for the first day. Now that they've added the dining room to the list, the place was packed. Busier than any first day dining room lunch ever.

Cabin:

• We booked this cruise the week before it left so the lowest of the guarantee cabins, an interior F, was all that was available. A couple days before departure we received an IA cabin assignment. 
• We stayed on Caribe deck, just two cabins down from where we stayed in December. Unfortunately, we wound up having the same not-so-stellar cabin steward. Having experienced his lack of attention to cleaning last time (even with a supervisor being involved) we decided to just overlook it this time. Instead we avoided the sticky desk, stayed away from the corner above the fridge where there were roll crumbs, threw away the empty water bottle someone had left behind in the safe, and didn't use the pink and sticky section of the night stand. If it was our first time with him (and the supervisor) we would have been more insistent upon getting those things cleaned up. But experience taught us to keep our mouths shut because nothing will change.
• In the recent dry dock the TVs have been upgraded to the larger ones. But still no on-demand system.

Ports:

• All of the ports - Santa Barbara, San Pedro, San Diego, and Ensenada - were ones we had been to several times before. 
• Santa Barbara: Santa Barbara is a tender port and you need tender tickets. Passengers were asked to pick up tender tickets in the Explorer's Lounge then wait in Michelangelo's dining room until the number was called. We wound up staying onboard because it was our bartender buddy's last day on the ship. We stayed the entire day at his bar and hung out with him. 
• San Pedro: Usually the Grand docks in Long Beach when it's a port stop but for some reason the ship wound up in San Pedro this time. It confused both passengers and crew. We walked around and rode the free hop-on, hop-off bus to the fish market for lunch.
• San Diego: We went to see the San Diego Padres were playing the Arizona Diamondbacks. We walked all the way to the park and back. (Padres won.) Something to know about San Diego - the Broadway Pier where we docked had stairs, no escalator, and just one elevator. Even though hubby is disabled we weren't allowed to use the elevator. We'll be in San Diego again next month and now know we will have to be much more forceful in order to be allowed to use the elevator. 
• Ensenada: We had every intention of heading out for fish tacos, but all the days of walking had both of us feeling pretty worn down so we never got out. (Looking back now we realize we were also coming down with the flu.) It appeared most people stayed onboard when we were in Ensenada as the ship was super-busy that day.

Weather and seas:

• This was the smoothest sailing we've ever been on. It wasn't until the early morning when arriving back in San Francisco did we even notice any movement. The last day of the cruise was also the only one where we had rain. Otherwise the days were spectacular:

Embarkation Day in San Francisco

Santa Barbara

San Pedro

San Diego

Ensenada

Other things:

• Our sailing was the second one after the Grand left dry dock. I've done a separate post detailing the changes we saw. You can find that list here.
• If you're interested, you can find my day-to-day live trip report from the cruise here.
• If you want the Patters from the sailing, you can find them all right here.
• I left Encouraging Words Money Pockets all around the ship, including in the Wake Show box. I'll still keep that up for my upcoming cruises so if you ever wind up coming across one, you'll know I'm on the ship with you!

Grand Princess Last Sea Day

The other day hubby’s this is awesome quote ruled the day. Today it was me that said some words I never expected would come out of my mouth.

I’m glad we’re not going to Hawaii.

I had been working on hubby, trying to get him to agree to stay on this ship and take the next cruise to Hawaii. It’s a place we’ve been several times over and I never get tired of. But now I’m okay with not going, thanks to the kennel cruise cough I caught a few days ago. A cough that has turned into a deep down chest cold. Yesterday the sneezing and stuffy head started and now I feel completely miserable and have absolutely no interest in going anywhere but home right now. If I’m giving up on Hawaii, I know I’m sick.

So other than leaving the cabin to say goodbye to our cruise ship “son”, I’ve quarantined myself in the cabin, tucked under the covers, catching up on sleep and on movies I had downloaded. Throw in the packing and that has been the extent of my day.

The only picture I could force myself to take was of the bridge cam on the television.

Our first rainy day of this entire trip is probably a good day to be okay with letting this bug run its course. Tomorrow we’re back in San Francisco and will be heading home. I’ll do a trip wrap up sometime in the next week after I feel better.

The link to today’s Patter is here.

(Sorry for the brief, non-helpful post today. I really don't feel up to writing.)

Princess Cruises New Cocktail Menu

Princess Cruises just launched a new cocktail menu today. Check it out.

 

 

 

Bars on the open decks have their own menu:

 

Grand Princess Sea Day

Hello from our last sea day of this cruise!

Well, the encouraging word money pockets made it to the Wake Show today. All seven of them were read aloud, and I found out that the dollars will be going to charity. Double score! I’m going to continue adding one each day to their comment box for this upcoming cruise as well.

Tomorrow we’ll be back in San Francisco and we will find a new bunch of cruisers showing up. There are only 20 of us in transit passengers staying on for the next voyage. I do believe that’s one of the smallest numbers we’ve seen. We originally were planning on heading home tomorrow, too. But when we realized that once we got home we’d have to shovel snow and get groceries and Christmas shop and wrap presents and put up our tree and then take it down two weeks later it all just didn’t seem worth the effort. We’re basically skipping the pre-Christmas junk this year. As long as we’re home for Christmas day (per our daughter’s orders) that’s all that matters.

As for blogging during this last cruise of the year, I think I’ll be skipping it. I’m calling it a Christmas present to myself. I spent way too much time this past year blogging live from the ships. It takes more time than you could imagine making sure I had experiences to share, searching out answers to readers’ questions, writing informative posts, and taking photos other cruisers would find of interest. While I loved every minute of it (well, most every minute of it) I’m desperately in need of a cruise where I can relax and enjoy it as a cruiser and not as a writer, reporter, blogger, or photographer. (Thanks, slow Grand Princess internet, for making that decision an easier one.)

However, if anything new or exciting comes up I’ll come back here and write about it. I will also do an end of the year wrap up sometime next week. I’ve already started on that post and let me just say this: Oh. My. Goodness. What a year of travel it was.

Just to give you an idea, here are the numbers I’ve figured so far:
11 cruises
7 different ships
90 nights at sea
12 flights
19 hotels
7 National Parks
2 NASCAR races
2 Major League Baseball games
3 road trips

Whew. Like I said, more to come on that in the next week.

Tomorrow we have San Francisco, then three sea days on our way back to Puerto Vallarta, Manzanillo, Mazatlán, and Cabo San Lucas. Then two sea days, a day in San Francisco, then home to cold and snowy Boise, Idaho. As said in Frosty the Snowman...busy, busy, busy.

For me that’ll mean busy being a cruiser, not busy being a blogger. At least for 10 days. See you soon.

Grand Princess Sea Day

We have a sea day today so it’ll give me a chance to share more about the ship:

• Crafting sessions are held twice a day when at sea. They did do one crating session (quilling) while we were in Puerto Vallarta but it had a slim turnout so was repeated twice again today with much better participation. So far all craft sessions have been in Sabatini’s.
• The bar staff is a bit stressed at the moment and their stress level will only get worse. They have been undergoing training this week in preparation for the bar menu changing next cruise. It’s a huge change. New cocktails are being introduced and new alcohols will be found some of the standard drinks. Wines are changing, too. Bar staff aren’t quite sure how they will be balancing (and storing) old stock and new stock at the same time. It’ll be an adjustment for passengers and personnel alike. 
• The ship is looking old. Like I’ve said before, furnishings are worn and carpets are badly stained. The calking in the cabin and public bathrooms is looking pretty black, almost mold-ish looking. And just the other day at the pool I noticed dozens and dozens of missing tiles. It’s like they have just given up on deep cleaning and repairs. I’m guessing they are waiting for dry dock (which is several months away), but some of these things could have been better maintained than this.
• I’ve been dropping off the encouraging word money pocket each and every day in the Wake Show comment box. It was mentioned once on the Wake Show early on in the cruise but I haven’t heard a word since. Just like every other one I place somewhere, I hope the person who needs the encouragement in that very moment is the one finding them.
• I heard that on the Sapphire Princess unused internet minutes weren’t rolling over on back to back cruises. I checked with the internet manager here on this ship and was told they would not roll over for us, either. She even said it was always that way – you lose your unused minutes. Uh, no. We’ve done plenty of back to backs and have found they usually roll over automatically. Only when I pushed a bit about losing so many minutes did she agree to adjust it for us. Once the next cruise begins we will have to visit her again and she will add the minutes to our new cruise, but only if we had, in her words, “a significant number of unused minutes”. I don’t know what she is considering significant. 30 minutes? 100 minutes? I’m not sure if this is a new policy Princess is implementing or not, but it could potentially be a big pain. Since the internet sucks so bad on this ship, it could be an even bigger pain over the next week for me. I already blew through my allotment in the first few days of this cruise so hubby has graciously allowed me to tap into his minutes today to be able to publish this blog post. If we don’t keep a “significant” number of minutes to roll over, there may be no blog posts next week. And no photos uploaded for the rest of this cruise, for sure.
• They are still showing holiday movies on channel 27. We’ve watched several so far, most with titles that escape me. White Christmas must be a singalong version because when the songs begin, the lyrics pop up on the screen. 
• This morning we saw dining room waiters marching through buffet cheering with pompoms, dressed in sleeveless tuxedo tops and shorts. It looked like some kind of party but we didn’t figure it out until later. There was an interdepartmental tug of war competition at the pool today. I was at the craft class and missed it but it looked like it was going to be a fun activity to watch. Next cruise, I guess.
• As we’ve been leaving port, they’ve had live music on the Horizon Terrace at the back of deck 14. It’s nice to have that as a secondary sail away celebration location.

One more sea day tomorrow!

Cabo San Lucas

Hello from Cabo San Lucas! It is another beautiful day.

Most of the time when I come to Cabo, I go snorkeling. While the snorkel by zodiac raft is the best of all the snorkel excursions (believe me, I’ve done them all several times over), for the first time ever here I decided to go with a non-snorkel tour.

I cleared it with hubby last night. He felt comfortable enough on the ship with me going off and doing my own thing. So I did.

Whale watching it was. I’ve enjoyed whale watching in Alaska year after year and in Hawaii as well. But I do have to say, today beat them all. When you are partaking in a rum punch before 9:30 am as you pass by El Arco the day can only get better.

And by choosing to sit downstairs by the large open windows, you can avoid the 100+ other people piled on top of each other upstairs and not have to fight for a spot to see all the creatures.

Plenty of open windows and clear views.

Just hitching a ride.

Wait, me too!

The dolphins were nearby, too.

I could describe everything I saw in terms of whales, but I’ll just leave you with the pictures. You can add your own words. But boy, they sure make a big splash and a loud noise when breaching.

If this was the last port of our cruising year it would be a great way to go out. But we have one more of these cruises. Two more sea days to get us to San Francisco and then we’ll be starting this same itinerary all over again.

Life is flippin’ awesome.

Mazatlan, Mexico

Hello from beautiful Mazatlan, Mexico.

We’ve been here several times and sometimes I call it beautiful, sometimes I call it exhausting, and sometimes I call it just too stinkin’ hot. But today it is definitely beautiful.

Take a look forward.

And aft.

Off the starboard side of the ship. (Although in our case today, the starboard side is where the port is located.)

Out the port side of the ship. (Which is water, not port today.)

The port in Mazatlan is a working port. You cannot just head off the gangway and walk your way anywhere. You must take a shuttle (I call it a trolley) to get from the pier to the area away from the pier.

How close do you get to the containers? Like, really close.

There is shopping, a restaurant and bar, massages, and taxis and tours. You can even walk to town from that area using the blue line. The blue line is actually painted on the road to guide you to the safer touristy areas. If you want to venture farther for some sun and sand, head to the beach. Just a heads up – people can be aggressive in hawking their wares. You may need to tell them, many of them, no more than once.

But there is no better place to relax.

 Just be sure to watch the water conditions. Go in during a red flag day and you might get beat up by the surf. I learned my lesson years ago on that one.

What about a visit to the cliff divers? I could tell you some stories on how that works, but you’ll need to see it for yourself. It’s all about the money and not nearly as awesome as it sounds when you are being hassled for tips. I’ll just leave you with a picture instead of a run down our past negative experiences.

But today was about the crew. Some crew head off to the place that will provide them the kitchen (for a price, of course) and allow them to spice up their fish just like at home. Another spot is where you might find crew who are short on time. That’s where you would have found us today, with our "son" and his friend.

After getting off the trolley shuttle, take just a few short steps through the hallway and you’ll see this place.

The Green Bar is close enough for crew to stop in, grab some food and drink and sit for a visit, and then head back for duty. The drinks are strong and cheap. Food isn't bad either.

We ate, drank, and chatted the afternoon away. It was a good day. Off to Cabo tomorrow!