Heading Home

Our day started very early since Princess had us meeting at 7:20AM for transportation to the airport for our 2:00PM flight. I was hoping our transport would be more like 9:00.  We got up at 5:30 to have breakfast, showers, etc and arrived at the lounge at 7:15 only to be told to head out to the bus where we were nearly the last ones on board.

Arrived at the airport by 8:30. Due to the long wait I booked us into an.airport lounge where we could relax and enjoy some refreshments, food, and fast internet.  It was money well spent (and saved buying lunch!). 

We had a 3 hour flight to Reykjavik, followed by a 2 hour layover and a 6 hour flight to New York City where we will stay the night.  As of this posting we've been up for about 20 hours. During the second flight Mary got some great pictures of Greenland, including this one.  We really appreciated being Saga Class on IcelandAir - that is their reasonable-priced business class. We enjoyed large seats with lots of leg room, beer or wine, and meals on both flights.  It was a nice way to end a cruise.

We are returning to Detroit tomorrow, and that ends another wonderful trip. 

Leaving the Regal Princess

It was nice to have a sea day on the day before we disembark.  A bit relaxing and back to a more casual list of activities. As with other sea days, I went to Zumba, we saw the last classic comedian lecture which contained clips of skits by comedians he had not covered in prior lectures (including the entire Who's on First skit), and I played bridge in the afternoon before we packied our suitcases and headed to the buffet for dinner.

We were surprised at breakfast by having a major chocolate display, including this chocolate fountain!  You could pick chocolate oatmeal, waffles, pancakes, muffins, donuts, tapioca, and cookies dipped in chocolate. 

I know I've posted several dessert pictures on this blog, so I could not resist posting one more -- my last Princess dessert (at least for this cruise!).  Peanut butter pie and blueberry cobbler with vanilla sauce.  YUM!  Back to eating healthy next week.....

Tomorrow we have to leave this beautiful ship, flying from Copenhagen to Reykjavik Iceland, and from Iceland to NYC. It's been a great 14 days, but lots to do once we get home.  

Rotterdam, The Netherlands

Our excursion today was to visit the Tulip festival at Keukenhof.  Mary and I both agree that pictures cannot do justice to what you actually experience when you are there.  To be surrounded by so many flowers of many different colors, artfully arranged in various flower beds was truly amazing.
Mary found a reference that there were over 7 million flowers in this 79 acre garden!  And after walking several miles around it today, I believe it. Everywhere we looked was a new picture waiting to be taken!  We did constrain ourselves a bit and it took me a while to sort through them and select these to add to my blog.
There were also many tulip fields in the distance but those pictures were not as impressive as these.
Mary and I did each enjoy a whipped cream waffle there for lunch today.  It was neat to enjoy them while sitting on a bench surrounded by these beautiful flowers.

Click on a picture to enlarge it, the top one is Mary trying out some oversized but colorful wooden shoes.

Brugge Belgium

Today we visited Brugge, Belgium.  We had a 1/2 day shore excursion which was a lot less taxing than yesterday's full day trip.  We had beautiful weather as you can see in this picture. After a lengthy walk around the town we took a boat ride on the canals, then had a lunch break for Belgian waffles.  Mary had chocolate and whipped cream n hers while I had mine with nutella and bananas.  YUM!!!  They were delicious.  After our waffles I enjoyed a Belgian light beer.  I can now confirm what our Belgian guide said when asked "Do you like Budweiser?"  His reply, "No I drink real beer. "

After our enjoyable day we had reservations at the Crown Grill, Princess' steak house.  It was a very enjoyable way to end our day with a great meal, courtesy of Crucon, our travel agency.  Here's what we had for dessert: 7 Layer S'mores, YUM again! 

On to the tulip festival in The Netherlands tomorrow.

Cherborg, France (REPOST)

If you are getting this for the second time it's because the original post disappeared from my site after sending the email.
Today we had an all day shore excursion to visit the D-Day sites. We were scheduled to leave when the ship docked and return at 6:00pm, the ship’s All Aboard time,  We did leave pretty much on time, but returned at 6:30,  time the ship was acheduled the leave!  We had 3 more busses behind us so at least we were not the last ones to board the ship.  Sure glad for the Princess shore excursion guarantee.

We had a lot of stops today so I’ll be brief.

Our first stop was a village where a paratrooper got stuck on the church steeple. They keep a life size dummy of him hanging up there for the tourists (click on the picture to enlarge so you can see him.) Next was Utah beach, one of the two beaches where the Americans landed. It was nice to be able to walk the beach and see what they faced

The American Cemetery at Omaha Beach was next. This was very moving. Mary enjoyed seeing the invasion maps which showed where her dad served. The museum had displays of equipment carried by typical GIs and that her father probably used.
We arrived at a small beach town for lunch around 1:00 pm. It was a very nice lunch with wine and a pasta and chicken main dish.

After lunch we headed to Arromanches where the Allies built a temporary harbor in only 10 days after the D-Day invasion. They used prefabricated modules built in England and towed them across the English Channel. That was quite a feat! Some of the modules still exist as ruins after 74 years. Check out both the foreground and background of the picture. Last we headed to Point du Hoc, a German bug battery that had to be eliminated early in the invasion since it could cover both American beaches.

Now we are on our way to Belgium for a tour of the town of Bruge.

Another Sea Day

Today was a very special sea day since I got to do the Ultimate Ship Tour!  There is a fee for this (paid for by my retirement gift cards), but I'd heard many reviews that it was well worth it, and having experienced it, I heartily agree.  It started at 8 am which was quite early since we had to move the clocks forward 1 hour again last night. The group was limited to just 16 people and we toured many crew-only areas.  Unfortunately no cameras or personal pictures were allowed due to being in secure areas of the ship.
Here's what we saw:

1. Medical Center - a 7 bed hospital with full lab and x-ray
2. Princess Theater - backstage for a talk by the stage manager, got our picture taken on the stage, then visited the dressing room to see the costumes and talk to two of the performers.
3. Main Galley - place where nearly all food is prepared for the ship. Saw many areas including the soup & sauces, breads, vegetable, pastry, and meat preparation stations.
4. Store Rooms - Stores Manager talked about what it takes to order supplies and store them, especially for this 14-day cruise.
5. Photography Studio - where all pictures are color-balanced and printed.
6. Print Shop - Where all the paper items are printed.
7. Engineering Control Station - where all ship systems are monitored and managed
8. Forward mooring station - place where all the forward lines are managed to tie the ship up to the dock. This included seeing the anchor and anchor chain.  Very cool!
9. Bridge - Met the captain who talked about the challenges involved in docking the ship as well as how they keep the ship stable to give the passengers the smoothest ride.   A group photo was taken here.

Overall the tour was scheduled to take 2 1/2 hours, but ended up taking nearly 4 hours!  

After lunch I played bridge and Mary watched some movies.  Dinner tonight featured prime rib.  When the waiter delivered mine he said "Who do you know in the kitchen?", based on the huge size. No, I was not able to finish it!

When we got back to our cabin I found that my gifts from the Tour had arrived.  I was amazed at what was included:

• A Princess Robe
• A Princess apron
• A framed 8x10 picture with the captain on the bridge
• A personalized pad of note paper
• Three 5x7 photos from other locations on the tour.

Quite the haul!

On to France tomorrow for our Normandy tour. 

Cruise Day 8

Today we had one change to our regular sea day routine, since the port lecturer boarded the ship yesterday.  She missed boarding a week ago since she was in Miami, our ship was in Fort Lauderdale, and her luggage was in Tampa!  But now she is on board so we had two port lectures today, about Cherbourg and Belgium.  Today's Classic Comedian presentation was about Carol Burnett. But to make room for the port lectures and due to a large content, he is splitting it into two talks, one today and one tomorrow. In the afternoon I played bridge and Mary watched a movie.

Tonight was the last formal night on the cruise and that means lobster! Mary enjoyed her favorite meal, with a caviar based appetizer, a main course of lobster, and floating islands for dessert.  I also enjoyed lobster but had a special Chocolate Journeys dessert (Chocolate Journeys is a series of special chocolate desserts created for Princess by a famous chocolatier).

Tonight's production show was titled "Bravo!' It's a new show that we had not seen before. It turned out to be nearly all singing and was very formal.  Unless you are into opera, you can skip this show.

The highlight of tomorrow is my doing The Ultimate Ship Tour!  It starts at 8:00 and takes passengers into many all crew areas like the engine control room, bridge, and medical center.  I am looking forward to that VERY much.

Visiting the Azores

We woke up to big family news today!  We have a new great-niece, Rachel Ann, who was born shortly after midnight to our niece, Mary Ann.  At 7 lbs 14 oz she came into the world at a very healthy weight, and from what we hear, both mom and baby are doing fine.

We arrived at Ponta Delgada, the capital city of the Azores, on schedule this morning and were already docked at the pier when we woke up. It was overcast at first, but the skies cleared so that we could see this pretty port city.  The island is famous for having as many cows as people and produces organic milk and cheese products due to the cows only feeding on grass.

Our excursion today was a bus trip to Crater Lakes. As we approached the lakes we drove into the low hanging clouds, so that when we arrived nothing was visible.  Our guide said that the weather can clear quickly, so we got out.  As we looked, it started to clear so we could first see the shoreline, then a lake, and finally the second lake!  But 5 minutes later it was shrouded in clouds once again.  Mary snapped this photo when the weather was the clearest.  The two lakes are supposed to be different colors with closest lake being green while the farther one is blue, but we could not see the color of the second lake.

Tonight for dinner we enjoyed calzones at Alfredo's, the on-board pizza restaurant.  They were good, but not up to Joey Fratelas' (Findlay, OH) standard.

We have a sea day tomorrow so after two more time zone changes (which will being us 6 hours ahead of Eastern time) we will arrive at Cherbourg, France on Tuesday. 

Cruise Day 7

After hearing Dancing Queen in the production show last night, this morning they put Mama Mia on the big Movie under the Stars screen!  Mary watched the whole thing and I watched most of it after going to Zumba. What great timing!
After lunch I played bridge, but my partner and I miscommunicated on several bids so I expect we'll be in last place when the standing come out. Oh well.  I learned a lot about modern bridge bidding as I was still bidding like I did in college and this messed us up on 2-3 hands.

After dinner we attended the Captains Circle party (this is a thank-you for people with 5 or more Princess cruises), and heard various statistics about the passengers on board (3 most-frequent cruisers have all spent more than 1000 days on Princess!) and more about the new Sky Princess ship coming out in 2020.  Mary and I both enjoyed free rum punches and hors d'oeuvres. 
On to the Azores tomorrow!

Cruise Day 6 - Last full sea day before the Azores

We continue to enjoy these sea days but I must admit it will be nice to get to the Azores Sunday.  We broke our morning routine today by not going to the Classic Comedian lecture since it was on Jackie Gleason, who we aren't interested in.  Instead I played corn hole.  To win a prize you had to get 3 of 5 beanbags in the hole and I only got 2. So I did not win a Princess coaster. 8-(   Oh well.
We went to pub lunch today.  I had bangers and mash while Mary had fish and chips. Yum!
At bridge I found out my partner and I finished 3rd yesterday. So after being last the first two days, we've now come in 4th and 3rd out of 12 teams.

After dinner we went to one of our favorite Princess production shows - Born to Dance.  It features the Princess Dancers and tells the story of the Broadway Musicals and the unsung role of the dancers.  It's a made-for-Princess show by an Oscar winning director and choreographer.  Best of all it finishes with Dancing Queen from a certain someone's favorite show, Mama Mia.

Cruise Day 5 - half way to the Azores

We had yet another relaxing day today.  Zumba in the morning followed by a Classic Comedian lecture on George Burns.  Before the presentation various quotes from George and his wife Gracie scrolled across the screen so Mary took a picture of this one. The lecture was very interesting as it told the story of how George turned into the straight man for Gracie, then launched a very successful solo career after her passing.
I did better at bridge (experience helps!) as we came in 4th of 11 pairs yesterday and seemed to do pretty well today.

Mary went to a movie about P.T. Barnum in the afternoon.  At dinner tonight we claimed my special retirement dessert gift from Princess.  We finished it off after we had our entree and a Cherries Jubilee dessert. It was delicious!
Mary was able to capture this sunset picture tonight.  She has tried every evening since the clouds cleared, but there were often clouds just at the horizon which blocked the sun.  But tonight she got a great picture.
Two more sea days before we visit the Azores!

Cruise Day 4

Well, we are still at sea. I have heard that the Regal Princess Bridge Cam has been fixed and now shows our current status, as you can see by clicking the link.  Yesterday I relayed our standard at sea schedule.  We followed that today, except that I did some walking on deck instead of Zumba.   Today's featured Classic Comedian talk was about Danny Kaye.  Several of Danny's tongue -twister clips were shown along with a famous dance segment from White Christmas. Bridge play was much better today.  After finishing last the last two days we expect to improve significantly as my partner and I learn our bidding systems and I have a couple days of actual bridge play under my belt.

Since there are no ports to visit, you get more dessert pictures! On the left are my desserts this evening (Blueberry cobbler and a slice of an Almond-Coffee flavor layered cake) and the right is part of the dessert area in the Horizon Buffet. The picture only shows one of eight similar display cases.   YUM!

We had two late evening activities.  At 9:30 there was a 5 minute long light show on the top deck followed at 10:15 by a stargazing event.  Sorry, but no pictures from the star-gazing.  8-)

Cruise Day 3

Another routine sea day - very quiet and relaxing.  The big change is that we have left he rain behind and enjoyed a very warm, sunny day.
Our daily routine is now established.  I do Zumba in the morning, Mary and I attend the Classic Comedian lecture (today's was Lucille Ball), then head to lunch.  In the afternoon I play bridge while Mary watches a movie or other similar activity. The picture at the right are my lunch desserts from today: apple crisp with vanilla sauce, and carrot cake.  Note: The cookies were for Mary.

Tonight was the first formal night.  We did not see anything of interest on the dining room menu so we opted for the buffet.  After dinner we walked around the back of the ship and found the golf putting area... I could not resist grabbing a putter and taking a few strokes.  Later we sat on our balcony and watched the sun set in the distance.
So ends our second full sea day.  This is sooo relaxing!  Much better than being back home and enduring the winter-like weather they are having and having to deal with storm responsibilities at DTE.

Cruise Day 2

We had a restful day. The seas got rather rough last night but were calmer today.  Mary went to the first of a series of lectures on Classic Comedians in the morning.  This first one was on Bob Hope.  I went to Zumba followed by an organizing session for bridge play.  Zumba was supposed to be on an open deck but with the rain they moved it into the central atrium.
I played duplicate bridge in the afternoon.  We have a volunteer bridge director which is very nice since Princess does not sponsor one anymore.  Mary went to the movies and saw "Murder on the Orient Express" which she enjoyed.  Dinner was one of our favorites, spaghetti carbonara, bon appetit!

Princess congratulated me on my retirement with door decorations and a coupon for a special dessert.  Gee, I wonder how they knew.....

This evening the ship's dancers did a special show in the atrium.  We watched from an upper level and enjoyed.


One change from past cruises is how the internet works on the ship.  Princess used to only offer various per-minute plans, but now they offer individual device plans with unlimited connectivity.  As Elite members Mary and I each get one device for free which makes things much easier since we do not need to do a lot of writing offline to minimize the online minutes.  Another sea day tomorrow.

Cruise Day 1 at Sea

We had a good first day today: our hotel shuttle got us to the ship by 11:15, we sailed through the embarkation process, stopped off in our room, then headed to lunch.  We were surprised to check our watches while at our table and find it was only noon! That was amazingly fast, thanks to priority boarding.  After touring the ship with its very large central atrium, we spent most of the afternoon on our balcony enjoying the warmth and scenery.  Our luggage arrived right after the guest safety drill, so we easily got unpacked before the ship left the port at 4:30.  It was very windy so the ship had tugboats there to be sure it could make it out the narrow channel OK.

Dinner tonight was the traditional embarkation menu, with chilled Pina Colada soup, spring rolls, prime rib and roast pork. We enjoyed our meals as well as dessert.  YUM!
We heard about major power outages back in Michigan due to a large ice storm.  Fortunately our house has power. 

This evening was a production show called Soul Time.  We had not seen this show before and it was excellent.  Being on a larger ship the dance company was also larger than usual, with 4 singers and 12 dancers. They sang a lot of familiar Motown tunes mixed in with other songs. 
So that was our day.  The ship is riding fairly smooth in spite of the strong winds. Perhaps our cabin being low (deck 9) and just forward of the midship section helps keep the ride fairly smooth.