Caribbean Princess in St. Thomas

Before I get started with anything about the day I have some thank yous I'd like to dole out today. 

• Thank you to those who understand the importance kind words have on others. To those who understand choosing to be joyful makes all the difference. And to everyone who has been emailing me to share stories of  your own encouraging words/dollar bill projects, please continue to spread your love and gratitude. 
• Thank you to the gals working in the International Cafe on the Caribbean Princess. You give my husband a reason to get out of bed in the morning, no matter how much pain he is in. Readers, if you see any of these ladies, please give them a hug and tell them thank you for their kindness to Ed.
  

• Thank you to John Padgett from the Carnival Corporation for allowing me insight into the inner workings of the Medallion roll-out process and for the support you've given me as I work at delivering an honest account of my experiences on the ship. I hope you've found my coverage fair and factual. And thank you to the team - from Vicki and Francois to Korli and Andrew. All of you have been extremely helpful and supportive as I've asked my dozens and dozens (and dozens) of questions. 
• Thank you to those people who understand how much work blogging from a cruise ship every day really is. While I'd like to say I can sit down at the computer and type something up in a few minutes time, I can't. I have to think it through quite a bit before I ever start writing. Then I write and re-rewrite and proof it. I then post it and BAM, find mistakes. As much as I'd like to be perfect I'm not. I enjoy what I'm doing and if what I share is a little bit helpful to others I'm a really happy camper.

Okay, back to the day. 
Hello from St. Thomas! Three visits to St. Thomas and three visits to The Smoking Rooster. Can't beat days like this one.

The guys doing the smoking had already finished up for the day. Darn!

But Tish, the server who has been taking care of us these past few visits, had already put in our drink order before we ever sat down. Thanks, Tish! 

She's also the one who last week recommended an amazing drink, the Blue Parrot Tail. Oh, my. Just look at all the rum that Lily the bartender puts in that thing!

And the BBQ at The Smoking Rooster? It's just darn good.

Today we even had live music today from St. Groovus.

It was a no other place day. What's that? I wrote about it here over a year ago.

Medallion™ Update:

To make the progression of the roll-out more clear I've grouped the posts by week. You can find today's post here.

Want to see the progression of the roll-out? I started on Caribbean Princess back on August 18. Check out how we got here:

Sept 1-8 updates can be found here.

August 25-Sept 1 updates can found here.

August 18-25 updates can be found here.

Encouraging Words Money Pocket Drop Off:
I left it in a sugar container at International Cafe. Two couples who are blog readers know exactly where I was sitting.

Can you believe I ran out of labels today?

Tomorrow we are off to San Juan.

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

Tutorial Tuesday - How to Make Towel Animals

Ever thought about how towel animals are made? Me, too. Thanks to our gracious cabin steward, last week I found out how to make a dog and rabbit.

Take a look at my guest instructor at work!
You can find the video here:

A Letter I Wrote

Those who know me know I believe in the power of the Universe. I believe in The Secret. I believe in the power of positive thinking. That if you look for the good you will find the good. I believe life is flippin' amazing and each day will be amazingly awesome.

I also believe in the writings of Pam Grout. Check her out here. Along with the powerful books she's written, she's the one who gave me the idea of doing the encouraging word money pockets. When I hear the stories of people who have wound up finding the ones I've dropped off I am awe-inspired at the power a few kind words can have on a person. I also have people telling me about their own encouraging word projects. Just today I had an e-mail from someone sharing that she is planning on handing out 70 of them in honor of her 70th birthday. How amazingly awesome is that?

A couple weeks back I e-mailed Pam and told her my story. Today she featured my email in her More Stories to Rock Your World section. Check it out here.  I'm guessing you can figure out which one is mine.

Yep, life is flippin' amazing.

Caribbean Princess Itinerary Change

The Captain just announced we will have an itinerary change because of Hurricane Isaac. We will skip St. Kitts, St. Lucia, Antigua, and St. Maarten. We will instead be visiting San Juan, Amber Cove, Grand Turk, and Nassau.

To those in the path of Hurricane Isaac, Florence, and Helene we are sending positive thoughts your way.

Caribbean Princess Sea Day, Sept 10

Happy Monday! Here's my view today.

Well, that is after I had this view:

That's the onboard medical center. After a decent-feeling evening, hubby had a pretty miserable night. So off we went to the medical center first thing this morning. No broken ribs, just a problem with the muscles between the ribs. I didn't even know that was a thing. The doctor said it's not like rest will help because you have to breathe (which means those muscles aren't getting any rest), so it will take time to heal. Then throw in his back problem? We came away with plenty of pain medications. And charges to our onboard account. I know the doctor visit was $95 but I didn't even look at the med prices. I just don't want to know. And here we were trying so hard to walk off the ship with a zero balance due.  Plus my $100 loyalty onboard credit for this cruise is still not showing. They sent an email to the finance department yesterday but it's still a no-show. We have travel insurance so the doctor visit will be reimbursed, and I think they'll get the onboard credit straightened out, but dang. 

We got hubby some coffee, some breakfast, and one of the sweet gals from International Cafe also brought him a little snack from somewhere else. They like him and he likes them. I'll be doing a blog post in the coming days about the International Cafe on this ship. The vibe here is pretty darn great.

Not great? The service at the buffet still, well, just plain sucks. We've spoken to the supervisor multiple times and it seemed to get better for about two days. Then it went back to the super-slow service with non-engaging crew working the seating area. I feel like we've already used up our one going-over-your-head complaint for the trip when we had the issue with the gals smoking on the balcony next to us that wasn't addressed. The smoking one was safety related but the buffet one is service related. 

I really don't want to be seen as a complainer. (Although I guess I'm doing that right now.) Here's the thing - if this was your second or third cruise you might not think much about it. But we've been here going on four cruises now and and we see it's a consistent problem. We cruise a variety of Princess ships and we know what the standard of service is on other ships. Some of the hardest working crew members we know (and still keep in touch with) are buffet stewards. But we see that on the Caribbean Princess the majority of crew working the buffet seating area are not meeting those typical Princess standards. It has been the biggest disappointment on the ship.

Otherwise on this ship we've had nothing but great service. Even our cabin steward from the last three weeks is making a visit to our new cabin. A couple weeks ago some passengers were upset with him because their luggage was missing. We were staying on and so our luggage wasn't going anywhere, but hubby joked with him about our luggage being missing, too. The steward joked back and told us he put our luggage in our mailbox. 

Now in our new cabin, with our new room steward, on a different deck, we have mail from our old room steward. Our orange luggage - in our mailbox. Funny guy.

Random photo of the day - we've been on the ship for 23 days so far and I finally got to ride in the Shark Week elevator.

Medallion™ Update:

To make the progression of the roll-out more clear I've grouped the posts by week. You can find today's post here.

Want to see the progression of the roll-out? I started on Caribbean Princess back on August 18. Check out how we got here:

Sept 1-8 updates can be found here.

August 25-Sept 1 updates can found here.

August 18-25 updates can be found here.

Encouraging Words Money Pocket Drop Off:
I left it in the medical center this morning.

Tonight is formal night and they'll be no dressing up for us again. Tomorrow we're off to St. Thomas.

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

Caribbean Princess at Princess Cays

Occasionally I go back and reread past blog posts. I started the blog seven years ago to help me get through a rough patch of life. Then we had a good patch. Then a bad patch. Then a good patch. See a pattern? If not for documenting our lives in writing I would have forgotten the details of the bad patches. And the good patches. I know we need both. If not for the bad times we wouldn't appreciate the good times. If not for the good times we wouldn't be able to continue during those bad times.

I think we're in a transitional phase right now. Hubby's latest fall has landed him in a bad spot. He's needing help to even get out of a chair right now. He's become one of those cruisers he doesn't want to be. Those cruisers he sees who struggle to talk or move or walk. Those cruisers who are dependent on a traveling companion to take care of their every need. Usually those cruisers are in their 80s and 90s. Hubby is only 58.  It's a gorgeous day at Princess Cays and he's flat of his back in bed and I'm close by in Skywalkers doing some work. I see the blue water down below and it breaks my heart that I can't be snorkeling in it right now and am instead having to stay close so I can keep going back to the cabin to check on him. But it breaks my heart even more to know what he's having to go through.

These kinds of moments are when it's time to dig deep. To truly live by the words on my tattoo.

The view up here in Skywalkers helps.

Look at that color of water. It matches the colors on the ship. So beautiful!

Having a cabin steward that uses the mailbox I made for our door helps. Look at the mail we had when I took hubby back to the cabin after his coffee. I guess I'll need to be filming this new steward for a towel animal tutorial, too!

Hearing from blog readers also helps. Thank you for the kind emails. I'm so glad you find this blog helpful in preparing for your travels.

Delivering the encouraging word money pockets helps, too. Today I left it in a sugar container at International Cafe. I met someone who reads the blog (hello, T!) not long after I left it there, so someone on the ship knows exactly where to find it.

And actually, doing the Medallion™ updates help, too. Writing them each day has given me the chance to go on a little treasure hunt, searching out new construction and screens and features. (It also helps that I have a bit of insider info.) It really has been fun to watch the progression of the roll-out over the last few weeks. I've also enjoyed listening to new passengers as they talk about it.

As you know, to make the progression of the roll-out more clear I've grouped the posts by week. You can find today's post here.

Want to see the progression of the roll-out? I started on Caribbean Princess back on August 18. Check out how we got here:

Sept 1-8 updates can be found here.

August 25-Sept 1 updates can found here.

August 18-25 updates can be found here.

Tomorrow is a sea day and then we're off to St. Thomas the day after. Based on the current tropical storm/soon-to-be hurricane out there I suspect we may need to change our scheduled itinerary sometime in the next few days. We are blessed no matter where we go.

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

Caribbean Princess Embarkation Day, Sept 8

Unfortunately, it happened again.

Three weeks ago hubby had a fall in the Fort Lauderdale airport. Today we had planned on being back in the same airport to fly home but decided to stay on for one more cruise. Since we weren't planning on being gone another 10 extra days we needed to walk over to Walgreens to stock up on supplies. And it was on that walk where it happened.

He fell. He's pretty darn sore and has a couple swollen body parts. The outside looks to be in better shape than the fall three weeks ago but he's feeling like this time he's in worse shape, especially when adding in the back that is acting up. We are so very thankful for the two crew members from Princess who were walking by and stopped and helped him up off the ground. They told us they worked in the engine room but we sure wish we had gotten their names. Anyone have any idea how we could track them down?

We also had another kind gesture happen today. When we were leaving our cabin this morning, the supervisor on our deck stopped to arrange the move of our things. I mentioned that we had received flowers during the week and wanted to bring them with us. They were looking a bit sad so he said he'd take care of it and get us new ones. When we arrived at our new cabin, by golly we had a new bouquet.

We also had something exciting today. I'd heard rumblings this past week about another special guest coming onboard today (no, not another member of the Love Boat cast). While Captain Stubing's visit was a highlight last cruise, this week we had a visit from Jan Swartz, President of Princess Cruises. She stopped by our Medallion meeting.

Jan and John. (Apologies for my fuzzy picture taking.)

She joined John Padgett on stage to talk about the Medallion roll-out. Like I've said before, the folks heading up the project, as well as those on the ship working on the project, have been nothing but gracious as I've been asking questions. I feel extremely fortunate to have them willing to give me some of their time. Thanks, everyone! (You know who you are.)

Again this cruise I'll continue to post daily Medallion updates. To make the progression of the roll-out more clear I've grouped the posts by week.  You can find today's post here.

Want to see the progression of the roll-out? I started on Caribbean Princess back on August 18. Check out how we got here:

Sept 1-8 updates can be found here.

August 25-Sept 1 updates can found here.

August 18-25 updates can be found here.

Encouraging Word Money Pocket Drop Off:
I haven't decided where I'm going to place it yet. I was going to do it this morning but with hubby's fall, then the Medallion meetings, then getting hubby medication and tucked into bed I haven't been back out. I'm guessing I'll find some super-secret place later tonight.

Tomorrow is another attempt at Princess Cays. After the conversation hubby and I had today, this week may be one of him staying on the ship and me going off and doing my own thing. After this last fall, he sees the writing on the wall and is feeling a bit down. It's either give up traveling or find some type of walker a one-hand man can use.

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