Mexican Riviera Cruise Day 10

Today was our last sea day as we continue heading towards San Francisco, passing San Diego early this morning.  Fortunately the seas are a lot calmer today, altho we still have noticeable ship movement.  Due to the heavy seas last night both Mary and I took seasickness pills and slept well all night. However when we woke up this morning we both were lacking energy.  So much so that after going to breakfast we laid back down and slept another hour!  I slept thru Zumba so I walked a mile on the deck instead. 

After having lunch from the grill in our room I headed to bridge and Mary to the DJ Bob Ray show on The Beatles. After that came printing boarding passes, packing, and the other last day things-to-do. 

Dinner will be in the buffet tonight since we both agreed that the dining room menu did not have any appealing entrees. 

So this concludes my blogs about this trip since all this is left is to leave the ship tomorrow and fly home. 

Mexican Riviera Cruise Day 9

Today was our second last sea day as we head north to San Francisco.  We're still sailing near the Baja California peninsula and should sail past San Diego by the morning.  I had my usual sea day activities today, Zumba and Bridge, and we went to DJ Bob Ray's 3rd lecture which was about One Hit Wonders.  

After having very quiet and smooth seas for 8 days, that changed today in a big way!  Starting early afternoon our mid forward cabin got quite bouncy so we both headed to the Piazza which is on deck 5 in the middle of the ship and stayed there all afternoon since it had much less motion than our cabin.  We did head to our cabin to change clothes for dinner then headed back to deck 5 to the dining room.  There seems to be a bit less motion this evening, but occasionally we do get jostled around a bit. We're hoping the seas calm down tomorrow for our last sea day as we continue north. 

What made today very special is tonight's dinner which was Mary's all time favorite.  She had a crab and caviar appetizer followed by a main course of  lobster and prawns with Floating Islands for dessert (merengue floating on a vanilla sauce).  YUM!  

After dinner we went to one of Princess' best production shows - Born to Dance - followed by a special performance by These Guys in the Piazza. We always marvel at the Born to Dance show as it covers all the major Broadway musicals.  

Mexican Riviera Cruise Day 8 - Cabo San Lucus

We had great day in Cabo!  Our morning excursion was one of the best, with a boat ride to see the famous arch, followed by a short bus ride for more views of the bay.  This was clearly the best port day on our cruise.  Beautiful scenery and weather combined with a super excursion. 

Our morning started very early as we had to be ready for our tender ride to the town by 7:15 am.  Once there we boarded a large catamaran that took us to the southernmost point of Baja California and around it into the Pacific Ocean. Both Mary and I took so many pictures -- we just could not stop, it was that pretty. Lots of sunshine and very pleasant (mid 70's) temperatures made for a great boat ride.  Ours was the only boat there that early;  by the time we got back into the bay at least 6 small boats were up close to the arch and the sea lions that rest near it.  We could see this area from our cabin balcony where our ship was anchored, and for the rest of the day, every time we looked, there was a swarm of small boats there.

Our next stop on the excursion was a restaurant with fabulous views of the bay.  We were treated to a refreshing adult beverage as we enjoyed the sunshine and the views.  What a relaxing way to end the morning. 

After doing some shopping, we caught a tender back to the ship, enjoying an open air ride on the top deck. We enjoyed a relaxing afternoon, reading books, getting some sun, and doing emails.  I did take a break to participate in a golf putting game in the Piazza, but did not do very well.

Tonight we saw great show by a group called These Guys.   They are a singing quartet who put on a great show with music ranging from The Temptations, to Jersey Boys to Chicago to barbershop quartet and a whole lot in between!  If you ever get a chance to her them I highly recommend it! 

Our ship is now headed towards San Francisco but we won't think about that yet!

Mexican Riviera Cruise Day 7 - Mazatlan

We had an early excursion this morning, a bus trip showing us the highlights of Mazatlan.  We were driven through "The Golden Zone", filled with 4- and 5-star hotels with beach views.  There was a shopping stop which included tasting Mexico's own Pacifico beer.  Also we saw a cliff diver (amazing!), lots of rocky coastline, and a pretty cathedral.  

After  having burgers for having lunch on our balcony, I played goofy carpet bowling (think bocci with lopsided balls) and then golf putting.  I came in tied for 2nd in both events. After sail-away we went to dinner (Italian night!) and then watched the NCAA championship game.  

Cabo San Lucas tomorrow.

Mexican Riviera Cruise Day 6

Today was our second port day, but we didn't have a lot of interest in the Manzanillo area so we stayed on board the ship.  And with nothing scheduled all morning we actually slept in to 8 am!  

We enjoyed a relaxing morning with Mary catching some rays and me doing some walking and reading. The major excitement of the morning as watching the crew do a full emergency drill. 

I did win the corn hole contest today (had to keep up that strong Midwest tradition!) for which I won a Princess water bottle, a necklace (for Mary!) and a wine bottle stopper.  Later on I came in 3rd in a golf putting challenge. 

We enjoyed a very nice dinner in the main dining room, especially the special Princess Chocolate Journeys dessert which combined chocolate, vanilla and coconut.  YUM!   After dinner we heard a superb singer, Josh Young, sing the songs of  Andrew Lloyd Weber.  What a powerful voice!  

Tomorrow we get up early for an excursion at Mazatlan which includes seeing the famous cliff divers.

Mexican Riviera Cruise Day 5

Today was Puerto Vallarta day!  It was nice to get to a port for a change. We had a fairly busy day 

The day started out with a shopping visit to town. After Mary got a diamond necklace while on our Alaska cruise last July, she was thinking about getting some diamond earrings.  I priced some in the ship's jewelry shop, and they were fairly reasonably priced.  At our visit here in port to the Diamonds International store, however, they had some Crown of Light earrings (more facets, meaning more sparkle) at a very attractive price so...  I think the picture gives away the answer!

After lunch there was a ring toss competition in the Piazza.  Three rounds, each from a longer distance, and guess who won!  I had the highest score in each round among the 15 competitors and won a Princess water bottle for my efforts. 

Our afternoon excursion was a sunset cruise on a sailboat.  We hoped to see some whales, but I only had one "blow" sighting off in the distance.  It was very pleasant sailing, but after the crew made the first turn, the boat had a very uncomfortable tilt which made staying in your seat rather difficult.  They also got us back to the pier 15 minutes after the sail away time so our group was the last one to board the ship.  We did get some beautiful photos of the sunset, as well as a few of our ship.

After dinner we watched the Motor City production show -- great Motown music and dancing to go with it. 

Mexican Riviera Cruise Day 4

Our VERY smooth cruise continued today as we sailed on to Puerto Vallarta.  Today's activities were a near duplicate of yesterday - Zumba, a third DJ Bob Ray lecture, bridge and catching some rays in the afternoon.  Bob Ray's lecture on the Beach Boys was intriguing and we came away with a greater appreciation of the intricacies of their songs.   We also attended a lecture on the history of chocolate that was remarkably informative... unfortunately we didn't win the raffle prizes, all of which were chocolate in various forms. 

Tonight's dinner in the dining room was chilled coconut soup followed by spaghetti carbonara.  YUM!  After dinner we headed to the production show, Stardust.  The singers sang many familiar songs from the pre-rock and roll era accompanied by the Princess orchestra and the dancers. 

Tomorrow is our first stop in Mexico. 

Mexican Riviera Cruise Day 3

We've had a VERY smooth cruise so far.    This morning we had a second lecture by  LA DJ Bob Ray. This one was about the Motown sound, telling its history and how it broke racial barriers. Tomorrow's is on the Beach Boys and we are looking forward to that one.

The weather took a turn for the better today with clear skies all day and a lot of sun.  The temperatures even warmed up enough that many of the deck chairs on the top deck were occupied.  With our balcony facing the sun, we enjoyed catching some rays from there in the afternoon. Besides that, just some of the normal shipboard activities. We attended a port talk to get maps of the cities we will be visiting, I played bridge and Mary watched part of a movie.  Tonight was a formal night but after looking at the menu, Mary and I decided to eat in the Horizon Buffet.  But before we went to dinner Mary caught this sunset picture from our balcony. 

We saw a very good production show this evening - British Invasion.  It brought back a lot of memories with tunes form the 60's and a few from the 70's.  

Our last sea day is tomorrow then we have 4 ports in a row.

Mexican Riviera Cruise Day 2

Today was our first full sea day, so not a lot to write about. This morning stared off with Zumba while Mary watched one of her favorite flicks Mamma Mia, at the outdoor movie theater.   We met up at the first of four presentations on the history of Rock and Roll by Bob Ray, a famous DJ from LA.  We found it interesting, and plan to attend his future sessions.  After lunch at the grill I went to play bridge while Mary checked out a Discovery workshop   Later there was a paper airplane contest in the ship's atrium where you had to fly your plane through a hoop.  Mine did not come anywhere close.  

This evening's dinner was Surf and Turf which was delicious! After that we went to a  show of 50s and 60s music, before calling it a night. The group was pretty good, altho we are quite certain the songs they sang were  about twice as old as the musicians were! 

Two more sea days before our first port. 

Mexican Riviera Cruise Day 1

It's so nice to be back onboard a Princess ship!  After changing 3 time zones yesterday, we naturally woke up quite early this morning and were the first ones at breakfast when it opened at 6AM.  We had a relaxing morning waiting for our limo driver. After arriving at the cruise terminal at 11:45, we quickly passed through security, got our cruise cards, and arrived at our cabin by 12:20. We could see that famous landmark, Coit Tower, from the ship.

After enjoying lunch we walked around the ship.  When we got back to our cabin our luggage had arrived so we were unpacked and settled in well before the safety drill at 3:20.  Sail Away was at 4:15 and due to a very fast tidal current pushing us back, we needed help from a tugboat to get away from the dock. Even with that help it was not easy for the ship to depart.

We sailed past Alcatraz on our way out of the harbor, passing under the Golden Gate bridge at sunset. We were bundled up and getting blown around quite a bit since this ship was cruising fast into a headwind.  And we thought we'd left the cold temperatures back in Michigan! 

Dinner tonight included our favorite Pina Colada soup.  Mary enjoyed a pork roast dinner while I had prime rib.  YUM!  After dinner we enjoyed the Welcome Aboard show, and are looking forward to the rest of the cruise.

Heading West...

We started my retirement celebration trip today by flying to San Francisco.  It was a long travel day but with a reward of a warmer climate  here (60 degrees compared to 11 when we left home).  We're at our hotel, and tomorrow we have a car picking us up for the ride to the Grand Princess for a 10-day Mexican Riviera cruise.
So more blog posts to come!

Back Home Again.

Well, we made it home to a cold Michigan.  We must have brought some warm weather with us as it's supposed to hit 50 this week.

Our last day in Florida was a beautiful one -- sunny, clear and warm -- just like it's supposed to be.  Since the cruise lines need you off the ship early and our flight home was not until 5:35 pm we had a lot of time to kill so we signed up for an excursion  on the Carrie B to see the Millionaires Row and yachts, then take us to the airport.  We took a boat ride down the canals of Ft Lauderdale past huge homes and large yachts like this  house and a 300' yacht that belongs to Steve Spielberg who happened to be in town today.  

Anyone who has cruised out of this port has seen the famous 17th street drawbridge. Well, our excursion boat sailed through that bridge and into the cruise ship area where I got this picture showing 6 of the 8 cruise ships in port that day.  5 of them are obvious, but the bridge of the Grand Princess is barely visible just to the left of (and behind) the third one from the right.  The ship on the right is the huge Oasis of the Seas that can hold close to 6,000 passengers -- it's 2000 person crew outnumbers the number of passengers on the ship next to it!  

So it's back to work tomorrow.  Still over 200 days to our next cruise, but who's counting....

Last Day at Sea

While tendering to Princess Cay today for our second visit of this cruise on this beautiful, sunny day we got some great shots of the ship like this one. The colors look too-good-to-be-true, but that is how they look when the sun is shining.  But when we got back to the cabin the dreaded suitcase mat was on our bed, which means it is packing day.  We had to put our suitcases out tonight by 10:00 pm and need to be ready to leave the ship by 8:00 am tomorrow morning.  So it will be an early morning. 

Same as last week, I played an hour or so of beach volleyball and had a good time.  Playing on sand is great exercise due to the effort it takes to move.  We did not stay too long on the island today - only a couple of hours to get some sun, play volley ball and swim - then headed back to the ship for my last afternoon of bridge play.  

After our turkey dinner tonight, the wait staff held the Baked Alaska parade.  It's a nice Princess tradition which is held on the last night of a cruise.  If only we could take the chef and waiters home with us...

Last Day at Sea

Nothing really special today through the morning and afternoon

just a typical day at sea with walking, sunning, bridge and a James Taylor Movies Under the Stars concert and reading being the main activities.  We did have one special event when Mary spotted a rainbow from our balcony.  It was very cool since it went all the way down to the sea. Then at the Captain's Reception this evening we won a bottle of champagne!

Since we already had a bottle of wine started that we planned to finish tonight, we had a quick change of plans and had our bottle of champagne this evening with the Lobster and Grand Prawn (shrimp) dinner.   We had one of our favorite waitresses this evening who took this picture for us. 

Tomorrow is a visit to Princess Cay for some more beach volleyball, then back to the ship for that most dreaded event - packing. 

St Thomas

The hints that the cruise is drawing to an end are mounting. First the eBags service (where they take your bags from the ship right to the airline for you), then a form about your flights home, followed by noticing the pill bottle is getting pretty empty and trying to avoid the "what we'll be doing next week" topics.  Ah well, that's life on vacation.

I was thinking about it being 28 degrees when we get home on Saturday and realizing that the outside temperature during our excursion yesterday was also 28 degrees!  Too bad there's that Celsius vs Fahrenheit thing going on...

As we got into town we spotted  a Lutheran Church, and being Lutherans we had to see it. The church was founded in 1666 and has quite a history.  It had one plaque on the wall in memory of a leader of a regiment that fought at the Battle of Waterloo. 

The harbor here is absolutely beautiful This pictures does not do it justice.  The blue of the water in the sun, all the sailboats and yachts, and a pretty town besides.  We went into town this morning for a while and did our final souvenir shopping.  After we returned to the ship we had lunch, got some sun, and cooled off in a pool.  After dinner we went to the Motown show, which was excellent! 

Tomorrow is a day at sea, then Princess Cay, then.............

St Maarten

While doing my morning email, I decided to check out the 5 day forecast for Dearborn.  BRRR!!  At least there is a "warming" trend all the way up to 28 by Saturday from sub-zero wind chills and a high of 16 today.  Guess that will temper my "complaints" about the heat and humidity on the islands this week.  But it is a good week on be in the Caribbean instead of Michigan.

They really pack the cruise ships in here as shown in this picture of a Welcome sign.  We had 6 here today as shown on this sign.  Ours was in the back of the second row from the left which meant we had  a very long walk just to get off the pier!  With 6 large ships docked, the town was busy, but not overly crowded - I suspect a lot of people were on excursions instead of hanging out in town. 

We've been to St Maarten once before, but only saw the Dutch side. After getting some quality shopping done this morning, our excursion this afternoon took us to the French side of the island.  There really is no border to cross, just an administrative division of the island that has been in place since 1648.  We had an hour to kill at an open air shopping area in Marigot, the capital of the French side, so we cooled off with a beer.  Check our that bling on her right hand -  a ring with an Alexandrite stone, a rare gem that changes color in different lighting.  Like I said earlier, we had a very good shopping trip in the morning! 

The 37 square mile island is the smallest island  in the world shared by two countries.   In this picture the Dutch portion is in the foreground while the French is from that spit of land that crosses the bay and farther in the background. Each side has its own currency and utilities, but it is a totally open border.  Our guide pointed out that the Dutch side has a 110v electric system while the French side is 220v!  

It was a busy, but very interesting and productive day.

San Juan Evening

We arrived at San Juan late in the afternoon today for a 5 hour stay.   On the way in we sailed past the Spanish fort that guarded the harbor entrance for many years.  

Mary and I walked into the Old San Juan area to get a taste of this city.  It was a 5-10 minute walk, but was mostly uphill and in high heat and humidity.  We were sweating before we were half way to town. 

We did some souvenir shopping then headed back toward the ship, but not before  stopping for a little liquid refreshment. While we rested we watched the end of the inaugural parade on TV, which was kinda cool.  We had to chuckle at how bundled up everyone was.  

That's abut it for today.  A typical morning (as I wrote about yesterday) followed by a busy afternoon.  

Tomorrow, St Maarten!

A Typical Day at Sea

Today was a typical day.  We went to the buffet for breakfast, enjoying oatmeal, eggs, corn beef hash, and banana pancakes. After breakfast I did Zumba while Mary got some sun before we headed to the Shopping Show (That's where a Princess Shopping person talks about the upcoming ports, their stores and where to get good deals.). 

Lunch was at the International Cafe (I had a sandwich, Mary shrimp salad), followed by sunning and reading time for Mary and bridge play for me.  That was followed by watching the Atlanta/San Francisco NFL playoff game while reading and relaxing, a nice dinner in the Da Vinci dining room, watching by the Baltimore/New England NFL playoff game (Go Ravens!)  on Movies Under the Stars 

Tomorrow we arrive at San Juan late in the afternoon for a very short, 5 hour stay, then on to St Maarten for a much longer visit.