Western Caribbean Cruise on the Caribbean Princess - Embarkation Day

Okay, Universe, I get it. Stop making plans.

A week ago, hubby had a fall in the airport and we didn't get to 5 O'Clock Charlie's. So today on our turnaround day we were going to leave the ship, walk over to Panera Bread to grab some breakfast, then take the Sun Trolley down to the beach. Hang at the beach until Charlie's opened at noon. Then grab a drink, some lunch, take the trolley back. Stop at Walgreen's to reload our candy stash for the crew.

Great plans, right?

Super plans! Until this hit when we were in Panera. See that blue dot? That's us in Ft. Lauderdale.

And the storm didn't just hit and go away. A good solid two hours of torrential downpours and thunder and lightning. Strong enough and close enough to shake the windows of Panera. And cut the power for a bit. The storm kept coming and coming and coming.

5 O'Clock Charlie's plans were scrapped. As we sat in Panera the time just kept ticking away. 11:00, 11:30, 12:00, 12:30. We had another Medallion™ meeting we wanted to attend back on the ship at 1:30 and time was not on our side.

We made a brief attempt to get a movin' and got as far as Starbucks. We tried to wait the next wave of storminess out as long as we could but...tick...tick...tick.

In the pouring rain we then walked from Starbucks to Walgreens - with a detour thrown in because the sidewalk was flooded. Thank goodness we had hats with us but everything was drenched anyway. I'm sure the Walgreens cashier has seen some folks looking pretty raggedy so I'm sure we fit in just fine. We got back to the ship wet as wet can be (oh well, it's just water, right?) but unfortunately were late for our meeting. Yes, we went straight to the meeting without stopping at our cabin. And yes, we attended it with our clothes completely soaked.

But actually, it worked out splendidly. It was the Q & A session at the end I was wanting to attend anyway. If you remember, last week I attended the Medallion meeting presented by John Padgett, the Chief Experience and Innovation Officer for the Carnival Corporation. That day I also started using the Medallion around the ship and made a video of it. You can find that post and video here. Well, today I had a question the gal presenting had to direct to John Padgett to answer. (Did you know if you stand near the mirror inside your cabin with the Medallion in your pocket your door could unlock? At least for us it does. Don't worry, they're working on it.)

Back to John...John was kind enough to sit down with me for a one-on-one about the Medallion roll-out on the Caribbean Princess. Not just my mirror question, but some of those questions you've been so anxious to know the answers to. I learned so much! I'll be sharing portions of our conversation throughout the week. Thanks for your time, John!

Which leads me to today's Medallion Class™ update:
I've combined my updates to make the progression of the roll-out more clear. 
August 18-25 updates can be found here.
August 25-Sept 1 updates can found here. 
Sept 1-8 updates can be found here.

Encouraging Words Money Pocket drop off:

Something exciting happened with one of the money pockets I left in the buffet. Hubby was grabbing some food before muster drill today and one of the buffet stewards was cleaning off the tables. And she had yesterday's encouraging word money pocket in her hand. She had found it today! I'm always excited when a crew member is the one that finds it. (Unfortunately hubby clued her into the fact that I was the one leaving them around the ship. Guess my secret is out.) 

Where did I leave today's? In the restroom at Panera Bread. 

Tomorrow is a sea day and I'm going to listen to the Universe this time. No plans.

Except to check out tonight's sunset. Spectacular!

As usual, if you have any questions or comments, please click on the envelope icon at the top right of this screen.

Caribbean Princess Sea Day, August 24

Today is our last sea day and it's a cloudy one.

And we're totally okay with that. While most folks are heading home tomorrow, we'll be on the ship for a while still. Plus neither one of us needs any more sun right now. And it's laundry day.

Although we are Elite and get free laundry, we don't always take advantage of it. We used to send out laundry a couple times a week but found having our clothes running through the ship's laundry that much were wearing our clothes out faster. So now we supplement free laundry with using the laundry room and doing some things in the sink. Hubby's the laundry guy so he's off doing it down on Deck 10 since there isn't a laundromat on our deck. The pricing and purchasing system is like this one on Golden Princess a couple months back, $3 for a wash or dry, but...an FYI for anyone coming on the Caribbean Princess soon - the token machine is empty on Deck 10 and the token machine is out of service on Deck 8. Unless they get the token machines filled or fixed, just head to passenger services to purchase your tokens.

In addition to laundry this morning, we attended an informational session for folks staying on for the next cruise. It's a smart decision for Princess to start offering this meeting for folks new to the process. We do back-to-back cruises a lot so there wasn't anything new said we didn't already know, but kudos for Princess for offering general information and having staff on-hand to answer any questions afterwards. They also had specialty dining folks there taking reservations for next week so those staying on had first choice of times for next cruise. We're trying to come away with a zero balance due after these three weeks so I don't think specialty dining will be on our list for this trip. (Although we may splurge for the $12 per person charge for Planks BBQ.)

If you'd like to see what kind of info in-transit passengers get, you can take a look here.

Otherwise today we have a pretty lazy day going on. I was hoping there was an Arts & Crafts session going on but no luck today. The other day - St. Thomas day - I wanted to go to the Arts & Crafts session being held in Sabatini's. But my route to Sabatini's was blocked. Workers had the doors to hallways surrounding Sabatini's and the photo gallery blocked for Medallion™ work. The Captain had told us there was work happening around the photo gallery but I didn't expect it would interfere with my crafts. Ugh. Later I found out the craft session was moved to Explorers. Oh well.

Which leads me to the newest Medallion™ update:
I've combined my updates to make the progression of the roll-out more clear. 
August 18-25 updates can be found here.
August 25-Sept 1 updates can found here. 
Sept 1-8 updates can be found here.

Tomorrow is turnaround day for us, disembarkation day for others. The ship has a couple excursions for passengers in transit, the Everglades Boat Tour one and the Las Olas Waterways one, but we'll be catching either the bus or trolley to make our way down to 5 O'Clock Charlies. Remember, that's the place we didn't get to last week on our Ft. Lauderdale Un-Adventure Day because of hubby's fall.

Looking for the Patter for today? It's right here.

Want to know where I'm leaving today's encouraging word money pocket? In the Planks section of the buffet at lunch.

As usual, if you have any questions or comments, please click on the envelope icon at the top right of this screen.

Back to Florida tomorrow!