Sea Day #5

We had an interesting final sea day of this cruise.  I played sudoku and, again, came in second.  Later did golf putting and tied for 2nd place.  That wrapped up the games for this cruise. 

Just after 3pm, we encountered a severe storm with lots of thunder and lightning, and even some hail!  During this time, the ship was hit with 60 mph wind  directly on the port side, causing the ship to list between 3 and 5 degrees!  The strong wind even forced some water through our balcony door.  I happened to be walking on deck 8 at the time and it was very noticeable.  

We spent the afternoon packing and getting ready for our trip home.

In the past Princess has always had a turkey dinner for the last evening.  But tonight they surprised us with prime rib!  To top it off, there was Baked Alaska for dessert.  A very delicious send-off meal.

So now we have to complete our suitcase packing and set them out in the hallway to be picked up.  In the morning we will get our shuttle to LaGuardia for our afternoon flight home.  It's been a very enjoyable anniversary cruise!  Next up, Seattle and Alaska in 57 days.

Charleston, SC

Today we visited Charleston, SC, a quaint southern town and the farthest south we go on this cruise.

I had a very early (8:00 am) meeting time today for my excursion to Patriots Point, home of the USS Yorktown and USS Lafferty museum ships.   Since the dining room did not open until 7, we decided to have breakfast in the buffet for a change. The Yorktown was docked across the bay from our ship.  In addition to many WWII and later airplanes, it had the actual Apollo 8 capsule (which the Yorktown picked up after it landed) and a mockup of Friendship 7, John Glenn's Mercury capsule.  The hanger deck of the Yorktown was filled with vintage WWII planes while the flight deck had jets from the 60's and later (picture on the right). 

Also alongside was the WWII destroyer Lafferty, known as the ship that wouldn't die. (Follow the link for details.)  It was hit several times, but the crew was able to put out the fires and save it.  I admit that I was so excited about touring the ship that I neglected to take a lot of pictures.  

Note: click on any picture to enlarge!

 While I was gone, Mary headed out to the local City Market to do some shopping. The market was just behind the US Customs House pictured on the right.    The pictures show a grey sky since it rained a bit while we were out, but both of us missed the heaviest showers. 

As we left Charleston this evening, we sailed past Fort Sumpter, where the first shot of the Civil War was fired. It's on a peninsula, but is isolated at high tide.  I was glad to be able to get a picture of it. 

Tonight was out last sail-away of this cruise since tomorrow is a sea day and then we dock in Brooklyn.   It's been a very enjoyable cruise!

Sea Day #4

 

Another relaxing Sea Day...  Mary got this sunrise picture  since we were up a bit early today. A few shipboard activities and plenty of time to relax while enjoying these amazing smooth seas.  

After Sudoku, we went to the port talk for Charleston, SC.  The travel consultant had some good insights into what to do, including visiting a rather large craft sale very close to the ship.  Next was a bridge talk, by two of the 3rd officers.  They are on duty on the bridge for 4 of every 12 hours, 7 days a week for 4 months.   But if there's a drill, when they are not on the bridge they often have to participate.  They have 2-3 months off before their next assignment, but sometimes have to do a week of annual requal training during that time.  One person asked about work-life balance; the best answer to that question was by the female officer who had her boyfriend on board! 

During lunch they made an announcement that the Emerald Princess would be passing us on its way from Charleston to Norfolk.  We finished our dessert and headed out on deck to watch for it.  The two ships sounded their whistles to greet each other.  We sailed on that ship twice, once in 2009 and again in 2010.  

I tried my hand at beanbag toss against the assistant cruise director.  Mary got this picture of us playing.

Tonight was a formal night.   "Land and Sea" was on the menu, featuring a beef tenderloin and a lobster tail.  But our special dining upgraded us to a rib eye steak and lobster tail!  YUM!  My dessert was a pistachio dome (formerly a Chocolate Journey for any Princess cruisers).  Very delicious!

The production show "Encore" was put on this evening. It was not one of our favorites, but Princess has reworked it and it is much improved!  The original one had the dancers just posing at times, and in this version they had some fabulous expressive dances. 

On to Charleston tomorrow!

Norfolk

 

We had a typical early morning routine, arriving in Norfolk. But our docking location was right across from the USS Wisconsin! Of course I had to visit it. On the left is the view of it from our ship. And I had to take the classic look back from the bow. I did the self-guided tour since none of the guided tours would work out with our scheduled excursion.  It was nice, as  I enjoyed walking around the ship, and seeing a lot that was below decks.  It was not very well marked so I had to do a lot of back-tracking. But, overall, it was very enjoyable.  

Our afternoon scheduled excursion was a boat tour of the harbor on the Victory Rover.  Docked near our ship were several ships undergoing refurbishment (see the helicopter carrier on the left).  When we reached the naval base, along with  a large number of supporting ships, there were lots of cruisers and destroyers in port (picture on the right) and even two nuclear subs (picture bottom left).  

But the highlight was seeing the USS Gerald R Ford, the largest carrier in the US  Navy fleet (bottom right).   

It was a superb 2-hour ride past the naval station and back.  

We enjoyed a nice dinner this evening, Mary had a huge plate of scallops while I had fish and chips.  Nothing special planned for this evening, but we will follow the Tigers game and will watch game 6 of the Stanley Cup. Go Oilers!

Sea Day tomorrow!

Sea Day #3

 Another relaxing sea day, I sure love not having two port days in a row!

After breakfast I came in second again at Sudoku. This was a harder puzzle and took the usual winner nearly 4 minutes to finish, up from her 1:50 win the last time. My second place time was 7:25.  Also tried goofy golf  (which was not so goofy) next, but no luck there.

After a very enjoyable port talk about Norfolk, we headed to lunch - it was Pub Lunch day!  Here are our two dishes:  fish and chips, and bangers and mash.  I wonder who knows us best and can guess which was Mary's and which was mine. 

Princess has a "Back to the 80's" theme with their in-room movies.  We've already watched Flashdance, Ferris Bueller, and When Harry Met Sally, so today was E.T.  

After dinner we attended the Captain's Party.  It was nice music accompanied by the usual "Thank You"s for being a returning guest.  They had a random drawing for bottles of champagne which we did not win.  The most- cruised passengers had 2015 days!  WOW!  It was interesting to see how many people were downing 3 and 4 free drinks at the party.  

Tonight's production show was called "Spectacular", another new show, and featured all the singers and dancers. It had a throwback theme with songs from WWII and the 60's to 80's.  It featured a lot of acrobatics to accompany the dancing. 

On to Norfolk tomorrow!

Boston

 

Today we visited Boston. Our main activity was a 4 hour afternoon excursion to drive around Boston and Cambridge.  But before we could go ashore, we needed to participate in a full US immigration verification.  Apparently the US Border Security group does a spot check on random cruise ships to make sure all paperwork is in order.  The challenge was that everyone on board, both passengers and crew, had to appear before one of the 7 agents.  Doing the math, that's over 400 people per agent!  We were given an appointment time of 8:45, and when we got in line, it went nearly the length of the ship!  Fortunately the line moved pretty fast and we were done in just over 1/2 hour.

After lunch we headed for our bus tour.  We immediately noticed the temperature as the heat wave caught up with us.  At one point we saw a bank sign giving the temperature as 95 degrees.  Besides being air-conditioned, the ride was interesting, with the typical very talkative guide. Our first stop was at old Trinity Church which was established in 1733.  It is across the street form the John Hancock building. Here's the church reflected in the John Hancock building's glass.

Once we crossed the Charles river (picture on left) we were in Cambridge. At Harvard, due to recent student protest issues,  access to the core campus is restricted to people with a Harvard ID.  That part of the campus is surrounded by an 8' iron fence with gates. So we did not get into the main campus.  But we saw some of the buildings and had time to shop for Harvard merchandise.  

Our next stop was for the Old North Church.  This was a 40 minute walk (in 95 degree heat!) but was well worth it.  On the left is a nice statue of Paul Revere with a shot of the Old North Church on the right.  

When we got back we were both quite exhausted. I grabbed a beer and Mary some ice water to cool off.  We ended up going to dinner much later than usual.  Mary's creme brulee dessert had a smiling face so I wanted to include a picture.

Sea day #3 tomorrow as we head to Norfolk.

Sea Day #2

A few random thoughts about the cruise, then on to the activities of the day.

Princess has changed how they celebrate events. No more birthday or anniversary signs on the door.  8-(   Instead they have signs pop up on the video boards as whomever is celebrating an event walks by.  I can see how this could work well for birthdays, but it does not work well for anniversaries.  Today, 3 days after our anniversary, this sign appeared as we approached the elevator. I had a similar one appear last Friday on two occasions.   There is apparently no way to have the sign say "Mary and Bill", even if both of us are standing in front of the sign.  

While on the sailboat yesterday we got some great shots of our ship.  If you click to enlarge it, our cabin is in the middle of the ship where the cabins stick out a bit.  We get great forward views from that location!

Our smooth waters and cool temperatures continued today, but that ends tomorrow when we hit Boston...

I played in a couple of cruise events today.  After coming in second (again) at Sudoku, I played Ring Toss (came in 3rd), then Golf Pong (passengers vs crew);  each group had to sink putts in 5 holes.  Everyone was having trouble scoring, but I was able to win the event for the passengers!  All in all, a fun day. 

Overall we had a quiet day. We watched a movie in the afternoon.  We had sun on our balcony, and Mary really wanted to sit out there, but it was too windy and cold.  Dinner was good and I saw that people like to see dessert pictures so here's what we had tonight. Mary's is on the left and mine on the right.

We had another production show, On The Bayou, tonight. Once again, it was a new one!  It was set in New Orleans and we recognized most of the music and enjoyed the dancing.  Photography was allowed so here are two of Mary's pictures. The finale is pictured on the right.

On to Boston tomorrow!

Halifax

Today was our third time to visit Halifax.  We visited the famous Peggy's Cove on our last two so we skipped that this year and took a ride on a sailboat. 

But first, we slept in a bit, went to breakfast, I came in second (again!) at Sudoku, and then we went ashore. Mary did some shopping in the markets on the dock while I trekked to the HMCS Sackville.  I like to visit this ship each time we come to Halifax since it is nearly identical to the ship my dad sailed in the Pacific during WWII.   It was a full mile to the ship so I got in a very good walk.  

After we had lunch (burgers on the Lido deck -- which always brings back fond memories of Mary's dad because this was one of his favorite things to do on a cruise ship), we headed out for our shore excursion.  It was a short walk to the ship for a very leisurely and relaxing boat ride along the coast of Halifax.  We had great weather - sunny, 70's, with a modest wind. 

Our boat, the Silva, is on the left with Mary and I on board on the right.  It was a 3 masted schooner than had 4 sails when all were raised up.  

The objective of the cruise was to see some of the pretty homes along the Halifax waterfront.  Mary got some great pictures of them and I selected the one on the left as an example.  

When it came time to raise the sails, I volunteered to help. It was quite a bit of work, but I did get the mainsail fully raised.  All in all, it was great 2 hours spent on the water.

Dinner tonight was pretty good.  I thought I'd post pictures of our desserts, Mary's on the left and mine on the right.

Tomorrow is another sea day as we head to Boston.