Saturday, March 30, 2019

Grand Princess Embarkation Day

You know it's going to be a good day when your favorite bartender makes you a purple concoction without you even asking.
 And a view of San Francisco on a beautiful day like this one?
Yep, it doesn't get better.

Only one bummer item so far today...since we were on this same ship a few short months ago in a cabin two doors down from this cruise's cabin we have the same cabin steward. The same cabin steward who was pretty dang bad last year.  I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt, but by the mess in the cabin we found when we arrived (an empty water bottle in the safe? hairs on the bed? sticky substance on the desk?) I don't know how much benefit of the doubt I should be giving him. 

Otherwise all is good with the world. A sea day is up tomorrow.

Today's Patter can be found here, for those interested. 

Grand Princess California Coastal Cruise

So where are we headed this time? Nothing too exciting, but hey, it's a cruise!
Map showing the port stops for Classic California Coast. For more details, refer to the disclaimer below and the itinerary port table on this page.
We've got a San Diego Padres game thrown in there, plan on getting some fish tacos in Ensenada, and ???

If you're looking for the Patters for the week you can find them here:

Friday, March 29, 2019

Last, Last Minute Plans? Oh, Yeah.

This past week it has been spring break here, and although we had originally planned on going a cruise, it just didn't work out. On the eve of the day I was about to cancel (and incur some cancellation fees) we received word (thanks, V!) that the cruise was oversold and they were looking for volunteers to shift to another cruise. Get a new cruise for free and all receive all our money back from our original cruise? Yes, please.

So it left us at home doing not much of anything. Actually, that's not exactly true. Between college basketball and Major League Baseball starting their season hubby has been glued to the TV. He's a big sports fan and a huge (like a really, really, huge) baseball fan. And that's what started these new plans in motion. Like, just a few days ago. Talk about last minute!

*It started with trying to get him to a major league baseball game that would fit around the classes I teach with Community Education and at the library. Didn't want to have to reschedule any of his doctor appointments, either.
*Which led to tickets to a San Diego Padres game on an afternoon in April.
*Which led us to finding out the Grand Princess will be in port on the same day we will be at the game.
*With the ship having a long, full day port stop in San Diego.
*With a ship having our favorite bartender and an assistant waiter who calls us his "parents" on it.
*Where the bartender will be on his last cruise before going back home and our assistant waiter "son" heading back home a couple weeks later.

So we were excited we might get to see our guys one last time during their contracts. Which got us to thinking...why not just take that cruise?

But it was sold out. Oh, well.

But then a couple days later that sold-out cruise on the Grand had a few inside cabins left - at nicely discounted prices - with cruise line airfare to San Francisco half the price of what we would pay to get to San Diego.

The stars aligned for us and we headed off to San Francisco today.
A beautiful day to be in the air
We'll stay the night and then our last, last, minute California Coastal cruise will be coming up tomorrow. As usual, I'll be reporting live from the ship. Stayed tuned.

And as usual, I also spent some time printing and cutting and gluing
to get ready for this trip. Yep, I'm still working on the
Encouraging Words Project.

Wednesday, March 27, 2019

Read Cruising with Confidence for Free!


How can you read CRUISING WITH CONFIDENCE: HOW TO BE A FIRST-TIME CRUISER  for free?

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Happy reading (and listening)!

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