mk-ultra

Applying the credit (using the card # and PIN) on Princess' web site was also sort of a PITA. It really didn't like the card info being cut-and-pasted. It kept rejecting it until I typed the numbers in myself. In the end, it works. 🤷‍♂️ Whatever. Free $40 for the trouble. Gonna rinse-and-repeat.

Thanks. Browser (Firefox) was definitely the issue. For whatever reason it doesn't play well with the payment page. Switched to Safari and it went straight through. Will report back on applying my $500 credit to an upcoming cruise.

Yay... AARP IT trying to purchase a card (using any credit card). Will try again later. Something went wrong with your payment. Please try again or contact AARP Rewards Support at 1-866-451-6305

I guess it's fine, casually, but I'm not going to bother to memorize another strategy, grid and deviations to play it. Shame, because it's the only hand-dealt game on the ship. 0.58% (Fun 21) vs. 0.5%, played 100% correct BS (which I couldn't do with Fun 21).

Muchas gracias 🙂

I really appreciate the info here -- and I totally get the "applying it once onboard" for OBC bit, but I'm still unclear about how to use the cards to apply them to a pending cruise that still has a balance due (instead of towards OBC). Is there a Princess URL to do this yet, or is it a phone call? Heck ya, on a $6K cruise, this could be a tidy sum ($480) applied towards the fare.

Annnnnd... that's a wrap! Did the schlep my own luggage disembark right as the gangway on deck 7 opened. Perhaps the 10th person off of the ship. Straight into a taxi with no waiting. Easy peasy lemon squeezey. Next up: Virgin Voyages; Scarlet Lady out of Miami in March. Virgin to Virgin.

So, fantastic trip. I was up ~$5K stricly on blackjack. Tonight being our last night, bet all the cash. Strictly black chips. I had set aside $1K to lose at the casino. I haven't counted it out yet, but cruise is definitely more than paid for. Mucho purple chips.

Fun 21. Very much in the don't do category.

Last full day onboard. Sea day. Woke up to a creaking cabin and decent rainfall -- and people stumbling around like pachinko balls. Honestly, the seas aren't very high, but it's enough to make everyone walk wonky. The rain has stopped, but we're still chugging through some minor rollers. Somebody on the bridge dialed the speed down so we aren't going whack-whack-whack at perhaps 30 degrees to the rollers any longer. Other than this early AM we've had nothing short of fantastic weather.

Still sticking to 100% Spanish onboard. It’s hilarious. I entertain myself.

Tonight is the cruise's second formal night. I decided to play dress-up. I thought what I had packed would look good together. I look like a car crash at a flea market. Whatever. No me importa.

Switched to 100% Spanish two days ago. Casino dealers are totally perplexed. Old white boy no longer speaks English? My Spanish sucks. Very fun. Getting very politely corrected by folks who can help. Love, love, love.

For risking my neck in the casino to the tune of x-thousand dollars: free chocolates. Count them.. Uno, dos, tres, quatro: doesn't get much better than this. I'll take it, muchas gracias.

This was the second time I’ve watched one do an unplanned water landing.

Today: Cabo. Doing some sort of farm-to-table food tour. It's absolutely gorgeous out! Cabo is a tender port, so off to join the other cattle in the theater for roll-call.

Small 4 person helicopter had an engine failure. Inflated the floats on the skids and did a no-power landing on the water safely. Textbook kinda job.

So far, so good. It's been working well.

Well, that was entertaining. Robinson D44 popped the floats and made a graceful autorotation splat. You don't see that very often. Looks like everyone is OK.

So there's this little old lady who has been the bane of my existence since arriving at the cruise terminal. She's an expert-level line cutter. Totally without shame. As luck would have it, my first two excursions included her. She just shuffles herself right in front of you. Lines are for the weak. I finally had enough after the 4th or 5th time. She shoved into line right in front of me (again). I tapped her on the shoulder and pointed to the 15 or so other people waiting their turn. She played dumb and ignored me. So, very unusually for me, I just stepped around her and pushed myself back into place. Look lady, I've spent about 6 months of my life living in China. I can do the this as well as you can.

So, first two shore excursions done. Day before yesterday, it was a 1.5 hour bus ride from Manzanillo out to Comala (in Colima) to visit the Hidalgo museum. Small museum. Bus ride out came with a good narrative from our guide. So so lunch in Colima on the city square. Not a bad excursion, but I wouldn't repeat it with a 3 hour bus ride investment. Yesterday's excursion was a 1 hour boat ride from Puerto Villarta to Majahuitas Cove. Nice little resort-ish thing on the beach. Those that wanted to snorkel could stay on the boat for a bit to be motored out to the dive site -- then return for some beach time. Free beer. Perhaps two hours there. Then off to Yalapa, another 30 minutes or so away. Very nice. Lunch served onboard while motoring. Everything in Yelapa is on your own dime, but I managed a couple of huge margaritas and camarones al coco. Constant rain of sky-divers, which was cool. Then, putt-butt back to port for an hour. The boat crew puts on a pretty hilarious (and fun) show... and had a lot of people on their feet (my dumb ass included) dancing to YMCA and other stuff. Yelapa: Mazatlan today. Cancelled my JetSki shore excursion because I tore the daylights out of my rotator cuff a few days before the cruise. Didn't book anything to replace it. I'm just gonna head ashore and wing it.

Adios, Manzanillo.

Honorable mention goes to any culture (Turkish, Greek, anywhere in the Middle East) where coffee is made by simply pouring very hot (not boiling) water over a bunch of coffee grounds. To that, you add an obscene amount of sugar and arm yourself with a cigarette and a glass of water. When you smile after a couple of sips, you’ll show your satisfaction by displaying all of the coffee grounds between your teeth. Your breath could knock a buzzard off of a shitwagon if you do it correctly.

I’ll fight you to the death with this opinion. The best coffee on Earth is just coarse ground medium roast whatever prepared in a percolator. The percolator is the weird carafe thing with a fabric insulated extension cord you inherited when your grandparents kicked the bucket. It has a two-prong plug, so electrocution is always an option. Plug it it — it’s fun watching it burble in the little glass thingy on the lid.

Annnnnnnd... awful coffee procured. They should be paying me to drink it. Blech. I'm not even a coffee snob, but this swill... [OLD MAN EARLY AM RANT ABORTED]