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ccrain
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« Reply #1 on: May 14, 2011, 10:37:27 AM » |
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4-30-2011
One of those near perfect days on a cruise. Lots of fun, entertainment, dancing, food and new friends.
The day started, actually, quite early, with the time changes. I was awake at 0400, or 0700 Colorado time, which is actually quite late for me. I really tried to go back to sleep, but that didn’t work, so it was up and coffee time at 0600. I was able to update the travel log as well before breakfast at Sabatini’s.
Well Judy and I managed to stump the chef at Sabatini’s this morning. Judy requested biscuits and gravy, which they had no idea how to make, and I requested Eggs Florentine, for which they were unable to make the sauvignon sauce. So Judy had toast and Canadian bacon, while I had sauceless poached eggs over sautéed spinach on English Muffin. But it wasn’t actually half bad.
After breakfast we had time to do our mile on the Promenade deck while Judy waited for her Heirloom Lei class with Eula. The heirloom leis are crocheted and much more complex. I went to acupuncture clinic to gather information about using acupuncture for Judy’s motion sickness. If the seas kick up on the way home, we might give it a try.
Judy had the busiest day. She did lei class, followed by Ukulele class, followed by Origami class, followed by Hula class. I kicked around with the acupuncture class, a port lecture on Kuai’i, line dance class with Kelly, but in doing so we missed several interesting lectures, a rum tasting event, a kona coffee tasting event, the wine tasting club and pool games. As we’ve always said, the best sign of good cruise is too much to do and too short a time to do it in.
We did lunch in the HC. Standard fare. Nothing special. At 5pm Toby had a ballroom dance practice session with canned music in Explorer’s, so we hit that for a while. Then Passion came on and played until we left for the MUTS showing of The Social Network, which was a pretty good movie. After the movie we did some snacking in the HC, then hit the room to watch a Movie on DVD and finish the daily blog.
A fun filled day. We were also notified that we would be on at Chef’s table on Sunday, tomorrow. The culinary event of the cruise. We can hardly wait!
5/1/11
For our last day at sea prior to Hilo, Judy was the busier of both of us, and we had Chef’s Table to look forward to.
Heirloom lei class with Leialoha was her first stop. The heirloom lei’s today were crocheted, which Judy really enjoys, and the lei’s are really good.
Ballroom review class with Toby covered the Cha-Cha, the Merengue and the Waltz which was taught during the previous week. Not sure why a review so early in the cruise, but it was a good session.
I watched a bit of Megamind at MUTS during lunch while I waited for Judy to get done with her Ukulele class.
Judy continued her Ukulele Class with David. Now she’s seriously considering buying a Ukulele. How about some more yarn for lei’s? Its cheaper.
Toby then had a special Line Dance class featuring the New “Ultimate Deck Party” line dance. A combination of electric slide, YMCA, thriller, the disco line dance, the money line dance and can’t touch this. A lot to learn in a little amount of time and it will be interesting to see how it goes during the deck party on Honolulu night.
Chef’s Table – this was probably our 5th or 6th chef’s table and it was pretty good. Not one of the best, but still well worth the time and extra charges. Only 9 of us at this chef’s table, which made for a much more intimate setting and a lot of conversation with the other passengers.
Appetizers were Foie Gras on Brioche (our least favorite), Tuna Ceviche (very good), new potato and caviar (we’re just not caviar fans) and Tempura Coconut shrimp with thai sauce – really good as well. Champagne was good.
Second course was Porcini Mushroom Risotto – it just needed a touch more salt, but otherwise was very good.
Third course was strawberry sorbet with cracked pepper and grey goose vodka. The bloody mary sorbet remains our favorite, but this was pretty tasty.
Fourth Course was lobster thermadore, diver scallops, filet mignon and rack of lamb. All very good. The lobster thermadore was new and different at this chef’s table. Other tables have had just straight lobster tail.
The cheese course was gorgonzola on walnut bread with a balsamic vinegar and port wine reduction. Not as flavorful as past cheese courses have been, but pretty good.
Dessert was grand marnier chocolate mousse. This was very good as well and went well with the dessert wine.
Country Western Night – this was country western night. Line dancing, cotton eye joe and the bang bang game. Judy, once again, got to the final four, but no further.
We did some late night dancing with Passion, but time went back another hour, so we have extra time to sleep tonight.
5/2/2011
In Hilo today. Yes, we walked to Wal Mart. Before anyone goes “HUH?”, here’s the rationale. We are not in Honolulu during the swap meet, and we’ve run out of souvenirs from our last visit to Hawaii for Christmas presents. And we want to walk over to Todais for lunch in Honolulu. We’ve also done the Volcano tours last time in HI, plus the fact that excursions in HI are expensive!
So Wal Mart in Hilo was the perfect choice to pick up gifts and some new HI shirts for the cruise in October. It was about a 3 mile walk, we bought a bunch of stuff and then came back on the shuttle loaded with gifts.
Tomorrow we will start passing out gifts. We are going to pick on our wait staff in Sabatini’s in the morning. We asked what they wanted this morning and one of them said “bath gel”, so we found some fruity scented bath gels at wal mart for him. And we will give some chocolates and macadamia nuts to the other guys – yeah, we’ll even give bath gel guy some chocolates as well.
Other than the grand expedition to wal mart, we didn’t do much else except nap and catch up on some sleep. Napping on the balcony while it was pouring down rain was really interesting and restful. Thunder and lightning was also around which made for interesting light shows last night.
We weren’t very hungry for dinner, so we went to “Words and Music”, a little dancing in Explorer’s to Passion, then a light snack in Horizon Court before heading off to bed.
5/3/11
A great day of cruising starting off with a breakfast in Sabbatini’s. The omelet was spot on this time. Spicy and tasty. No one else showed up for breakfast for over an hour so we got personalized service from the guys.
The only down side of the day was lunch at todai’s in Wakiki. The walk over was nice, with no rain, limited sun. We went through the Ala Moana mall and looked around several shops, and bought a few more things at Hilo Hatties. But the buffet sushi at Todai’s has really gone downhill. Only 6 or 7 different kinds of sushi, none of the exotic types and the rolls were just so so, and no sashimi at all. I had to make sashimi by just stripping off the fish from the sushi. No unagi, no uni, no clam, no tako, no yellowfin, no white fish. I’ll need to find another sushi place for our trip in October.
On the other hand, we had some great shaved ice from a truck along the street back to the ship – passion fruit orange. Very nice and refreshing.
The plan for the evening was dinner on the balcony overlooking Honolulu as the sun set and the lights of the city came on. Dinner was one of the Princess menus, not too extravagant or memorable, but elevated greatly by the setting. Perfect temperature, no breeze, drinks, dinner and a great view. An excellent dinner.
After dinner we went to the Wheelhouse to dance to the Rick Kilburn quartet and talk to a few other couples dancing there. It was very relaxing and enjoyable and I finally got into the groove with just the right beat foxtrot.
Then there was the “Ultimate Deck Party” and the ultimate line dance. Not a lot of people joining in. This was not a party crowd, so the cruise staff invited the dance troupe to give them a hand and it was great to dance with them. It was a good energetic hour of dancing. But after that, the party quickly wound down and after doing several miles and several hours of dancing, we hit the hay to unwind and sleep to the sounds of the sea as the ship glided to the Nawiliwili.
5/4/11
Kuai is our favorite island that we’ve been to. But it really is challenging for walking. We started off this morning, once again, in Sabatini’s and intended to walk to wal mart to swap out a shirt and pick up supplies, but a tropical downpour put a damper on that. Instead we took the shuttle to K-Mart and walked over to Wal-Mart. That was a challenge for sure. No sidewalk and no bike path into oncoming traffic, but we got there in one piece.
We did our shopping at Wal-Mart, swapped out a shirt, picked up some water and sodas and caught the shuttle back to the ship. We could have walked, as I found out going back on the shuttle, with plenty of room on the sides of the road, so note to everyone, you can walk from the harbor to Wal-Mart, or from the harbor to K-mart, just don’t try to go between the two until all the construction is done on the highway between the two.
Last night was movie night, or at least half the night! Judy wanted to see Tron – Legacy, so we had dinner and movie under the stars. The ship was rocking and water was spraying out of the pool and the wind was howling, so while Judy huddled under a pile of blankets, I retreated to the grill area to get out of the wind.
Our intentions were to then watch Burlesque on TV at 10pm. That worked for about 15 minutes when Judy dozed off. So much for watching the movie!
Tomorrow is Lahaina, but with the Zandam in port and traffic restricted into and out of the port, we are simply staying on board and enjoying the pools.
5/5/11
As it turned out, many people stayed on board for Lahaina. But we did absolutely nothing spectacular the whole day. We watched Megamind on MUTS in the morning, after breakfast, then watched some TV while napping. For dinner we did one of our favorite things for dinner. We did a white flight in Vines, Judy had 3 plates of sushi and I had two plates of Tapas. That was it. Nice and light.
We did intend to go to Skywalkers for the chips and guacamole, but the seas started out rough and got rougher, and it can be really bad at Skywalkers. So we deferred. We then danced at Explorer’s with Passion the rest of the evening before heading for bed.
We did lose an hour of time last night as time started moving forward again.
5/6/11
A wonderful day at sea. Formal night, but we decided to get dressed up anyway. The morning started, as expected, with rough seas and Sabbatini’s for some really good eggs benedict. HMMMM! With the seas rough over night and us traveling into the wind, it was a little rocky, but not too bad, although Judy wasn’t feeling too well.
Judy, once again, had a very busy day. Lei class with Leialoha in the wheelhouse working on the crocheted heirloom leis. I now have a selection of 5 kukui nut leis to wear at night. She’s working on the combination crochet/straw leis for her.
Ballroom class was Salsa with Armando. A very quick class. He taught 4 basic salsa moves, basic, cucaracha, baby steps and underarm turn in 20 minutes.
Kelly and line dance class focused on non-country line dances, including the hustle, which is one of our favorites.
Judy continued her Ukulele class with David. On the final night there will be a presentation by the Ukulele class playing for the Hula class. Judy has decided to do Hula, but she’s getting quite good at Ukulele as well.
The wheelhouse was filled with people for Hula class. Leialoha is basically building on past classes to get the group ready for the final production show on Tuesday night, Ensenada night.
Judy tried acupuncture for sea sickness. We’ll see how it works over the next few days. She did the whole treatment which was $150. I hope it works so she can enjoy the rest of the cruise. I suspect as we get closer to the coast and start bucking the currents, it might get a bit rougher.
Since we got all dressed up for formal photos, we decided to take several pictures at various stations. Out of the 30 or so photos, 5 actually came out ok!
After photos we had reservations at Crown Grill. Although the food up to this point has been ok, not bad, but nothing to write home about, the meal at Crown Grill was fabulous. The lamb was so perfectly cooked and seasoned, it needed no other accompaniments such as mint sauce. I even deliberately did not dip the meat on one chop into the sauce on the plate just to savor the taste of the meat itself. Judy had the filet and the lobster tail, grilled. Both were excellent and the filet was melt in your mouth tender and perfectly cooked. The sides were scalloped potatoes, grilled asparagus and sautéed mushrooms. Fantastic flavors. For dessert we had the berry and apple cobbler with ice cream. Hot, not too sweet, baked in the dish goodness. It was a great topper to a great meal.
Since we planned to dance tonight, we went back to the room and changed into something more comfortable and went to see Caliente, one of our favorite production shows. Great energy, great dancing, great singing, just a non-stop party on the stage that allowed the troupe to show off all of their dancing, and endurance, skills.
After Caliente, we had a nice chat with Kelvin, the CD. Really nice guy and we loved talking to him very much. Eric, his deputy, has really come a long way from our first meeting on this cruise in 2009. He and Kelvin play off each other perfectly on the morning show, making it a must see the first thing in the morning.
We also danced at the 50’s sock hop for a while before heading to the wheelhouse to spend some time with Rick Kilburn and his quartet. We stayed until almost midnight dancing in the wheelhouse. We had the place practically to ourselves and had a blast talking with Rick and comparing notes on Princess, cruise directors, other bands, etc.
A late night, but a really enjoyable day. The kind of days we love cruising for.
5/7/11
Another day at sea, but we are really getting to enjoy those a lot. Today would be a very busy day for Judy who did Lei making, Line Dancing, Ukelele and Hula class. I was content to simply kick back and watch some of those activities.
For dinner we decided to go back to Sabatini’s. We haven’t been since 2004, but since we know all the guys (David, Antonio, Ricardo, Dimitiri and Iulian), we decided to do it right, but only 2 bites from every dish. It quite didn’t work out that way, but it was close. The pizza was delicious, the anti-pasta pretty good, but the anchovies and marinated sun dried tomatoes were out of this world. The meats and cheeses fantastic, the past course incredible. I had the roasted chicken. Didn’t care for the filling in the roulade, which was chicken liver pate, but the roasted chicken was incredible. Judy had the grilled sea bass and almost refused to give me a bite, but she relented after extreme begging. I had the tiramisu for dessert, but Judy had the white chocolate mousse with lemoncello and raspberry. Her mousse was to die for. The single best dessert of the cruise. (She disagrees and thinks it was the cobbler in Crown Grill.)
This dinner was one of the best, very close to the Crown Grill, but for different reasons. It would have been a tossup between the two. Remarkably, although the dining room food is under seasoned, both restaurant meals were perfectly seasoned.
We saw Steve Carte, the juggling comedian’s show in the Vista Lounge. Not bad, pretty standard comedy and juggling combination. A bit more interaction with the audience and a little more zaniness.
Then it was more Wheelhouse dancing with Rick’s quartet. It is nice to have two good dance bands on the ship, and with alternating breaks on most nights so that we can jump between one and the other.
Lost another hour at night. Coming back losing those hours is kinda hard.
5-08-11
Happy Mother’s Day! Busy, busy day and Italian Night in the dining room to boot!
We started with Paso Doble. A fun dance to learn, but pretty intense and really hard on the feet with all that stomping around! Judy then did her Ukelele class with David and then skipped over to the ribbon lei class. I recorded her class on video and then went to the Life @ sea talk with Kelvin and other crew personnel. In the afternoon, Judy had her final Hula class before the big dress rehearsal for the final show on the final day.
Dinner was Italian, but quite frankly, disappointing. The head waiter cooking penne pasta in the dining room burned the garlic giving the pasta a real bitter taste. The eggplant parmesan, my usual favorite, was underseasoned and under cooked – both the eggplant was not sautéed properly and the mozzarella on top was not melted properly under the salamander. Judy sent back the penne pasta and tried the spaghetti and meatballs, which after a little salt, was pretty good. Service was spotty, not Princess’s best. One problem was that it was a sea day and the dining room got slammed at 5:30, but still not up to usual standards of the last couple of cruises.
Was it really bad? No. It really suffered in comparison to the emerald last November and we won’t go back to the dining room on the last formal night, choosing instead to do sushi and tappas in Vines, but it was adequate, just not up to what we’ve had in the past. That’s one problem with having a really great cruise, all the rest get compared to it and usually suffer in comparison. The Emerald in November, along with the Grand in April 09, are both in our top 3 for service and food. Near perfection is awful hard to beat.
Oh well. Good thing we went to Sabbatini’s the night before and had some really great pasta and service.
Dancing the night away between Passion and Rick Kilburn’s group was fun as we went from wheelhouse to Explorer’s and back. No lack of dancing that’s for sure. The bands are versatile and fun. We danced until our feet gave out and then hit the hay.
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