Caribbean Princess Sea Day, Sept 16

Hubby is an International Cafe guy. When on the ship a Red Eye is his choice. An espresso with regular coffee, just as strong as can be. But he does hear (and see) lots of specialty coffees being ordered. Salted Caramel Mocha Frappuccino. Iced Skinny Cinnamon Dolce Latte. Caramel Macchiato Frappe. And passengers get frustrated by the order they receive.

More than likely your specialty coffee won’t taste like the one you usually get at your local coffee shop at home. The baristas in the International Cafe may have been internationally trained in Italy, France, Europe, or the Philippines. They follow ship recipes, not the big chain coffee house recipes. Remember, the word “International” is in the name of the ship’s cafe for a reason.

For the best service and highest likelihood of your order being accurate, don’t stand in the long line at the counter. The lines are about speed and getting you in and out. If you have a somewhat-complicated beverage, have a seat. The server in the area will take your order and clarify what you are asking for. Ask for a to-go cup (sometimes called a take-away cup) if you need to grab and go. And if you’d like to sit and stay awhile you might be lucky enough to learn about life in Montenegro, Romania, Peru, or the Phillipines from your server.

And remember...at the International Cafe all coffees and teas – both plain and specialty – carry a cost. (If you want a free regular cup of coffee head to the dining room or buffet.) Since most people like one or more coffee beverages a day, many people choose to purchase a coffee package. For one price it entitles you to a certain number of specialty coffees and teas per cruise. Previously, paper punched cards were issued. However, Princess is transitioning to an electronic system where the package is loaded onto your cruise card. You can still pay per beverage if you’d rather not purchase a package.

Baristas can show off their skills when it's not too busy.

Tonight is formal night and the balloon drop. We'll be in bed long before the balloons fall, but here is a video that Amela (one of the dears working in the International Cafe) filmed for us last week. Take a look if you're interested. Thanks, Amela!

And thanks to our talented cabin steward who graced us with another towel animal today. This time a little bird in her nest.

Off to Nassau tomorrow. Last port stop of our trip.

Tonight's sunset from Lido deck.

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 how we got here with the Medallion? I started on Caribbean Princess back on August 18. Check it out:
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:
Left somewhere in Crooners.

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

Caribbean Princess in Grand Turk

Hello from my favorite cruise port beach in the world, Grand Turk!

How can you not love a beach when you walk off the ship and see this? And to be the only ship in port? Oh, yeah! But we didn't get to see the beautiful water shown in this picture I took years back.

Grand Turk, along with the other islands in the Caribbean, are having a big issue with sargassum this year. So today when we walked off the ship, this is the color of water we were greeted with instead.

Instead of this...

We got this...

So yeah, it was really bad. I'm so very thankful we've been there when the sea grass hasn't been an issue. I didn't swim today; I didn't snorkel. I just took some photos and headed back to the ship, knowing the pristine Grand Turk we know and love will be waiting for us another day on another trip.

Grand Turk at its finest. Just not today.

The remainder of the day was spent on sleep (and more sleep) and catching up on the on-demand movies. I don't watch TV or go to the movies at home so I have a lot of catching up to do. Hubby is feeling a bit better so he's out and about around the ship again so I can have some much needed alone time.

Not going out in port meant we had to eat back on the ship. Yet we've had it with the horrible service in the buffet. It's unfortunate the service is so dreadful as the new menu is quite good. I don't know if the problem lies with the crew working the tables, the one supervising them, or the management. But it's the worst we've ever seen on a Princess ship. We've been here on this ship going on a month now and it has been a consistent problem. Something has to change or we won't be coming back, Medallion or not. Some people are buffet people and some aren't. The buffet is something that best fits our needs when cruising so it's important that it's a good experience for us. Now that's it. I'm done talking about the buffet service.

A few more hodgepodge items:

• I talked to our steward about why the sheets on the twin bed configuration slip off so much easier than with the queen bed setup. The queen beds (which are really the twin beds pushed together) have a mattress topper on them. The twin beds just have a mattress protector which is a bit slick, which in turn makes the sheets slide around more.
• The first couple weeks of this trip we had an insert in the Patter called The Crave. It listed all the food venues, hours, and special food item times like for the Tex-Mex buffet or Ramen station. This week The Crave has disappeared. I'm guessing they received feedback that people weren't reading it? 
• We received our 20% goodwill credit for the itinerary change due to Hurricane Issac. I'm betting our 20% was the smallest credit issued to anyone on the ship - hubby and I each received a whopping $67.60. (Yeah, we paid only $338 for this last minute 10 day cruise. Crazy, right?) It can be applied to a future cruise or existing booking not yet paid in full. We have a December Grand Princess cruise hitting the final payment date next week so we will apply it to that one.

Tomorrow is a sea day, our last sea day of our 31 day long cruise on the Caribbean Princess. It's almost over.

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 how we got here with the Medallion? I started on Caribbean Princess back on August 18. 
Check it out:
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:
Somewhere on deck 5, of course.

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

Caribbean Princess in Amber Cove, Dominican Republic

Hello from Amber Cove! First time in the Dominican Republic for us. Woo hoo! We love visiting places we've been to multiple times and we also like exploring new places. But hubby is still down and had to stay on the ship so I didn't venture far by myself. I did wander around the port area.

I sure wish I had worn my swimsuit. While there is no beach nearby, pools in the port area were just gorgeous.

With plenty of empty seats. 

I grabbed some lunch at the Coco Cana Lounge. Here is their menu.

For someone who wanted to spend a whole bunch of money (like over $1000) they had overwater bungalows. The water didn't look that clear, though.

And for those needing a ride to or from the ship, they had plenty of pedicabs. Drivers work for tips.

Tomorrow we are off to the best cruise port beach in the world, Grand Turk. 

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 how we got here? I started on Caribbean Princess back on August 18. 
Check it out:
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 ran out of labels earlier this week and today I completely ran out of pockets. So I jotted a note on the pad from our cabin and used the dollar bill from the cruise ship origami tutorial last week and left it at the Coco Cana Lounge in port.

Caribbean Princess Sea Day, September 13

Hello from a warm and cloudy day at sea.

There were a couple things that happened last night worth mentioning. First, our new cabin steward rocks it in the animal towel department. He heard about our old steward doing my Tutorial Tuesday video onYouTube and I think our new guy is ready to show off his skills, too. Before we headed to the Most Traveled Guest Party he took about two minutes to make us this:

I think I might have to feature his work on a Tutorial Tuesday, too. It has been so fun to see the stewards excited to show off! And they both showed off more when they were the stewards featured in today's towel animal demonstration in the Piazza. (I'm including the video here so they can send it back home to their family and friends.)

The second thing worth mentioning that happened last night is one of the worst examples of a passenger's behavior I've ever seen. Sometimes at the Most Traveled Guest parties a passenger may use the time to complain about something. But last night, near the end of what was a great evening with great conversation (hi, Raymond!) the passengers sitting next to us called over the pastry chef. They proceeded to demean and degrade him and tell him how terrible of a job he did. The lady said it was a good thing he wasn't around the night before when she was forced to eat disgusting Black Forest Cake at dinner because if he had she would have jumped him. Like physically. She went on and on and on - and she was loud about it. It was embarrassing to watch. I have never seen anyone, let alone one of the top 40 most traveled passengers on Princess, be so abusive to someone on the ship. While we didn't intervene in the verbal beating, I did go find him afterwards and tell him her behavior was uncalled for. I also told him the peanut butter and jelly macarons from today's party (and last week's party) were to die for. And he gave me a hug.

So delicious!

Other things of note around the ship:
*The International Cafe gals are just amazing. Every morning along with hubby's coffee they deliver special treats. Today they were Dove chocolates with sayings inside the wrappers. We were both so anxious to see what the wrappers said that we ate all six chocolates.

*My $100 loyalty credit from this cruise finally posted. Woo hoo! So if hubby hadn't visited the medical center we would be walking off the ship after 31 days with absolutely no charges to our account. But even with the medical center charges we've done darn great in the ship spending department. Plus travel insurance will reimburse the charges.

*We get off on Deck 4 when going ashore in port. Yes, at every single port this entire trip. (Fort Lauderdale is the only place where they are different decks.) After spending so much time in Alaska where tides fluctuate greatly and they change decks frequently, it's nice to have the consistency of knowing exactly where to go. 

*After hubby's last fall he can't get out of bed by himself anymore. So to give me more room to help lift him out, we had to have the steward change our beds from a queen set up to a twin set up. The only downside is the sheets on the twin beds slip around much more than on the queen bed. Toss and turn too much and your bottom sheet winds up being half off the bed by morning.
*I got back to the cabin after lunch and we had yet another bouquet. Thank you, thank you!

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 how we got here? I started on Caribbean Princess back on August 18. 
Check it out:
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:
In Skywalkers as I was writing this blog post.

We're off to the Dominican Republic tomorrow.

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

Caribbean Princess in San Juan, Puerto Rico

Hello from San Juan! You know it's going to be a good day when the ship's bridge cam view looks like this all day.

We love San Juan. It's probably one of our favorite non-cruise places in the world. In fact, in all our visits to San Juan this is the first time we've arrived by cruise ship. Usually we just fly here and spend a few days eating, drinking, and relaxing. We know this town. And we are so happy to be back.

It's our first visit post-hurricane. When the hurricane hit and pictures and stories started coming back to the mainland from Puerto Rico, we were heartbroken. We still carry sadness in our hearts over the US government's response. While there isn't anything we can personally do, we can spend our tourist dollars here.

When we stay here we always avoid the cruise port (and cruise passengers) so we can have a more authentic Puerto Rican experience. But with hubby still not feeling sprightly, we couldn't veer too far from port. We bought him a t-shirt to replace his old San Juan one at home that has long since been faded and stretched out. We sat in the shade drinking fresh squeezed lemonade and watched the goings on around the food trucks.

Since the hurricane our go-to spot for breakfast, lunch, and dinner is closed on Wednesdays. So instead we stopped at Tijuana's. It's tucked away down by the water near the cruise port. You'd miss it if you weren't looking for it. Those are the kinds of places we like.

 We shared a delicious plate of beef fajita enchiladas with rice and beans.

It was a great day. I would have liked to do more, but with hubby it's just not possible to get too far from the ship right now. I have plenty of San Juan photos from previous visits, but here is one my all time favorites I took as we were getting ready to land at the airport.

How can you not love a city this beautiful?

Some other things from today:

*I went up to talk to our old cabin steward about his towel animal video I posted on YouTube yesterday. His family back home were so excited to see him making towel animals on the internet. His six year old son couldn't believe his dad knew how to do it! His wife has been sharing it with family and friends and posting it to Facebook. I am happy I was able to be part of him feeling like a movie star today.

*The gals in International Cafe saw the picture I posted of them yesterday and the thank you I wrote. They were surprised to see how important they really are in a passenger's life. One gal is sharing with her mom what we wrote. Her parents should be proud. 

We have the Most Traveled Guest Party tonight up in Skywalkers. Again, if I take food pics I'll post them when we get back.

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 how we got here? I started on Caribbean Princess back on August 18. 
Check it out: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:
Left on Deck 5. You can pretty much guess where.

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.