Last Sea Day 8-(

Tomorrow we arrive at a rainy Port Everglades to end this seven-day family vacation.  We've had a great time and enjoyed being on the ship with our family.

This morning we discovered there was a "Celebration of Chocolate" in the buffet.  There was a chocolate fountain along with chocolate pancakes, french toast and oatmeal, among other items. Even cookies dipped in white chocolate!  Yum!

We had a quiet day, with Mary getting some sun in the morning while I played more pickleball.  We had a pretty large turnout, maybe 12-15 players, so we played games to 7 instead of 11 for a quicker turn around.  It was great exercise!
Mary and I had a first today - instead of lunch in the buffet or at the grill, we ate lunch in the dining room.  We ate with Andy and Melissa, enjoyed our meals, and decided we will do this again.  After lunch Mary started packing while I played some card games with Katie, Andy and Melissa, and then it was my turn to pack.

Dinner tonight was nice, with some great desserts and the traditional Baked Alaska parade. You can see a sampling of our desserts on the left (apple pie al la mode with vanilla sauce and "ice cream bombe").



And so our cruise comes to an end.  Our suitcases are packed and set out for pickup.  We fly home tomorrow, back to the cold and snow.  But we take very warm memories with us. 

Second Last Sea Day

We had a nice day at sea today.  Had breakfast with Andy, Melissa and Sylvia (M's mother), and lunch with Katie and Bill.   I played some pickle ball in the morning while Mary caught some rays.  I did win another medal at Bocci this afternoon but came in second at Speed Sudoku this morning.  Have to try and do better at that tomorrow.

Dinner tonight was lobster, with two great desserts: Mary's favorite Floating Islands (left) and a pistachio Chocolate Journey (right). 
Only one more dinner to enjoy with our family before we fly back to the north country Sunday.

The production show tonight was called Bravo and we enjoyed it a lot, in fact Mary said it's her new favorite show.  While Born to Dance, which we saw previously, featured the dancers with some singing, this show featured the singers with some dancing.  When we think back about the quality of the production shows on the Celebrity Constellation last fall, it causes us to appreciate Princess more and more. 
One more sea day then we are off the ship.  These seven-day cruises are just too short.  But that makes us look forward all the more to the 14-day cruise we have coming this June!

St Maarten

We woke up this morning to an announcement that we were cleared to disembark at St Maarten, but it concluded with "..and be on board by 5:30pm when we set sail for Fort Lauderdale."  While we still have two sea days to go, that was a reminder that this cruise is nearing its end.

This morning son-in-law Bill and I sailed in the 12 metre challenge, where two boats from the 1987 America's Cup competition sail against each other.  We had a great time.  Mary took these pictures from our ship.  That's our boat on the left.  The other boat had a better start but we closed within 1 boat length by the end of the race.  As our captain said, "tell them they came in second-last."

After lunch we headed into town for some shopping and to visit the Yoda Movie Experience, run by the guy who designed Yoda and many other Star Wars figures.  The picture on the left shows a view of the St Maarten beach. On the right is son, Andy, in front of the Yoda shop/museum.  Being a Star Wars fan since age 3, he really enjoyed seeing this.

This evening we enjoyed dinner then played some games as a family, before heading back to our rooms.  Looking forward to several on-board activities tomorrow on our sea day.

St Thomas

We spent today visiting St Thomas in the US Virgin Islands. After we docked (I enjoyed watching as the pilot actually backed the ship in), we headed to the Sky Ride to the top of a mountain to get an overview of the bay and the city.  We had a few small rain showers while we were waiting to go up, and on the top. Here you can see our ship, and in the other photo an overview of the bay. 
The picture at the right shows Katie, her hubby Bill, me, Andy, and Mary at the top of the ride. 

We had a nice dinner tonight with Surf and Turf featured on the menu.
Enjoying a quiet evening before heading to St Maarten tomorrow. Looking forward to doing an America's Cup excursion there, where you sail in a boat that has competed in an actual Americas Cup sailing race.  

Sea Day

We had a fairly quiet sea day today. I had a few morning sports activities planned, but the high winds and rain put a stop to that.  We had burgers and chips for lunch in our room.  We played a game called Apple-to-Apple with the kids this afternoon which was a lot of fun.  Later I played Carpet Bowling and won!  I got a medal for my prize.  Mary and Katie went to a shopping show and got port guides for our two ports.

This evening was formal night and we had a nice dinner, but the desserts were even better.  I had a hazelnut Chocolate Journey (left) and both Mary and I had Bananas Foster (right).




Our waiter brought us a plate of cookies and on our way out, Mary snapped this picture of the Bananas Foster' being made!

The evening show was Born to Dance, one of our very favorite shows.  We were excited to share seeing it with Katie since she was a dancer all through grade school and high school.
It was a great show and you could see that the dancers really loved doing this show.

St Thomas tomorrow!

Princess Cay Day

We had a nice day today.  After sleeping in a bit this morning we had breakfast then got ready to tender to the princess private resort in the Bahamas.  Once there we walked around a bit, then Mary headed to a glass bottom boat excursion which, unfortunately, was cancelled.  Meanwhile Katie and I walked the beach and got some sun before meeting up for lunch. We had a beautiful, sunny day with temps in the upper 70's and just enough cloud cover to keep the sun from from getting too warm.
Once we got back to the ship I played in a golf putting challenge, and then Katie, Bill and I play Wii Bowling before heading to dinner.

After an enjoyable dinner Mary and I headed to the Beatle Maniacs show.  They sang many favorites and changed costumes to reflect the major phases of the Beatles career.  It was an audience participation show and the entire audience sure cooperated; we were dancing in the aisles!

Later Princess put on a light and fountain show on the top deck.  It was a 7 minute show with the water show synchronized to music.  It was neat to see it and share the viewing with the kids. 

Sea Day tomorrow with lots of on board activities!

On Board the Regal Princess

We had a good day getting on board the ship.  Our shuttle from the hotel was running late so we did not get on until nearly 1:30 which meant we had a late lunch in the buffet.  It was a bit frustrating to be delayed like that, but in the end it all worked out.

We are in a mini-suite for this cruise and is it spacious!  We have a couch, chair, two TVs, plenty of end tables, and a very large desk. One of the nicer features is a large bathroom with a full size tub instead of the shower that is just a little larger than you.  8-)

Princess has some new technology they are implementing - Medallions.  When you walk up to your room, the door unlocks and your picture appears!  Also it shows if you are in the room or not.  This will eventually be spread to let you see all pictures of you in the photography lab, be able to order food or beverages from anywhere on the ship and have them delivered, and track your individual preferences for drinks and the like.  But for now you can use it to find others in your party, provided they give you that permission.

We had a table for seven for dinner and had a nice meal and conversation. Of course we had Pina Colada chilled soup, a tradition for the first night dinner.  Mary and I both had pork while others had prime rib or other entrees.

There was a nice opening production show called Sweet Soul Music featuring all the favorites from Motown!  It was a good way to introduce all the singers and dancers.  

Later tonight we had a special treat - a full lunar eclipse!  It did not happen until nearly midnight, but Mary and I stayed up and she got a few pictures.  It was publicized as a Blood Moon, but that totality was not going to happen for quite while so we just saw the start of it.

On to Princess Cay, their private island in the Bahamas.

Heading South

We boarded our flight to Fort Lauderdale just as the first major snowstorm of the year hit Dearborn.  We had a few inches of snow on the ground as we left and a lot of cold weather is due over the next few days with forecast wind chills dropping into the single digits tonight.  Our flight took longer than usual due to the snowstorm which meant we had to de-ice.  We were on the ground for over 55 minutes after leaving the gate.  First to queue up for de-icing, then the runway we were about to use was closed for plowing so we had to taxi for 15 minutes to another one.
This is our family celebration for Mary's and my 45th wedding anniversary.  We have brought Andy and his wife Melissa, and Katie and her hubby Bill along.  Melissa's mom Sylvia has joined us also. We sail tomorrow on the Regal Princess.

Tonight we are enjoying a quiet night at our hotel.  It has a nice pool, but we did not use it since we got in late afternoon and it was getting a bit chilly.  But we enjoyed the 77 degree weather when we landed, much warmer than Michigan.  We ended up with 6" of snow back home.

More to come tomorrow once we are on board our ship.