Grand Princess Sea Day

Hello from the cool waters off the coast of California.

After having spent the last two weeks in nothing but shorts and t-shirts, this weather is a shock to the system. Long pants and sweatshirts, even when inside, are the clothing choices today. It’ll be warmer in a couple days, but right now it’s just brrr.

Today is a sea day so the ship is buzzing. Lots of activities to found everywhere you turn. I even made it to the arts and crafts session, crepe paper flowers. Take that, Royal Princess! We made roses, and mine isn’t nearly as pretty as the other competitive trying-to-impress people at my crafting table. But maybe good enough to fit in our bouquet. Can you tell which one is made from paper?

Why can’t people on cruise ships just come as they are, be who they are, and not feel the need to show off and one up each other?

We have no need to fall into that trap. We’re back to an inside cabin this week, not planning any excursions, have no specialty dining reservations, and no spa appointments. Oh yeah, and we eat at the buffet. We did have something new at the buffet today. A supervisor was walking around, handing out surveys. Here’s a copy:

It really is too early in the cruise to give out impressions, but I filled it out anyway. I do hope they give it out the first day on next week’s cruise so I can fill it out based on 10 days of service and food, not just one day. We did have quick drink service today, though!

Some other things of note about the ship:
*Yes, it’s decorated for the holidays. Just today they added little decorations to our cabin mailboxes.

*Quad cabins have the bunks on the wall, not in the ceiling. As we booked a guarantee cabin we didn’t even realize we had a quad cabin until we came in the room. Hubby tried his best to get in and out of our bed with the bunk protrusion sticking out, but after one night he’s realized he just can’t do it. So we had to ask the cabin steward to move them into twins. Much better for hubby, for sure.
*I forgot the Grand has the smaller closets. The tradeoff is that the bathrooms and showers are larger. We never used all the space in the larger closets anyway so it is fine for us.

*The TVs are not on-demand and they are still the smaller screens. We’ve had big screens on Princess ships all year but not on this ship.
*Today Christmas and holiday movies are running all day on channel 27. Hope they have it every day!
*The internet sucks in the cabin. I loved the super speedy, super reliable, unlimited MedallionNet on the Caribbean Princess. I flew through my minutes and hubby’s minutes using slow internet as we did the transatlantic on the Crown Princess. I trudged through the frequent dropped connections on the Royal Princess. But here on the Grand, I keep getting the taking too long to respond crap when I'm trying to work in the cabin. I say crap to that.
*Yesterday we had the fastest mini bar swap in history. I called before muster drill when hubby was taking a shower. They arrived with the swap before he even got dried off and dressed. Now that’s fast.
*The new bar menu is starting next cruise. New wines, new drinks, new ingredients in drinks. Bartenders are saying it’s a huge switch. I’ll be on next week so I’ll try and get new menus posted then.

I wasn’t planning on posting all the Patters, but there are folks coming on next week who might find them useful so I’ll go ahead and do them for this cruise. You can find them here.

I am doing something different with the encouraging word money pockets for this cruise. I am putting them in the Wake Show box each morning. Even they need the warm fuzzies! (The Wake Show is the TV program filmed everyday where the cruise director goes over the happenings of the day, announces birthdays and such, and has trivia questions.) So shh…don’t tell.

Off to another sea day tomorrow.

Grand Princess Mexican Riviera Cruise

Hello from the Grand Princess! Yep, we're headed out again. Two back to back cruises and our cruising year will be over. It's a great way to end it. We specifically booked this ship to see both our favorite bartender and a jr waiter who calls us his parents. Which means I'll finally get some decent drinks in my system and lots of love!

Based on how today went, clearly the Universe thinks this is a great idea.

We grabbed the hotel shuttle at 9:30 am and were back at the airport by 9:50.
Checked in with the Princess reps and were on a bus by 10:30.
Arrived at the port long before 11:30 and were able to check in right away and board the ship with very few lines anywhere.
At 11:35 I was sitting having my special drink made by my special bartender.

He went on break at 12:30 so we went to the dining room for lunch, something we rarely ever do.

Here’s the embarkation day lunch menu:

Orange soufflé for dessert, please.

When we sat down at our table for two, guess who was pulling out our chairs for us? Our jr waiter we came to see. He usually works Club Class but it wasn’t too busy so he and his waiter were assigned to the regular side of the dining room. In our section. I tell ya, that kid did not stop smiling during the whole meal. Our waiter even commented that he had been talking for days about his parents coming onboard. (Even though we really aren’t his parents, we love that kid. No matter where he is around the world, we send him care packages of snacks and candies.)

When we got back to our cabin, we had a special surprise waiting for us. A beautiful bouquet of flowers from that same “son” of ours.


Our cabin steward arrived, and (surprise!) introduced himself. Finally a cabin steward who might get it right this time.

And another surprise - we also broke the 72 hr laundry notification = no most traveled guest party streak. We received the 72 hour notice AND also the invitation to the luncheon. First time we’ve made it into the top 40 with the so many elites notice.

For those who are just looking for the entertainment, movies, and clocks forward/clocks back here ya go:

The only thing today that happened today that wasn’t fortuitous is our crew member pal leaving today got sick. The doctor has quarantined him in his cabin and he can’t leave until right before the ship leaves. So we didn’t get to see him.

After muster we’re heading back to our special bartender and I might just have another special drink. We have three sea days coming up in a row. We’ll see what kind of trouble I can get in/stay out of.

Our Itinerary (Twice)