The Grand Hawaiian Adventure. A trip report with Patters, Menus, Elvis, and ...

Question: Have you done the Sactuary, and is it worth spending $80 for two of us for a day? Are the regular pools very crowded? Thanks!

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Once breakfast was done, it was time to check in with DW to see if she was up to making it to the Meet and Greet that was scheduled this morning.

DW was still not recovered in time to make it to the Meet & Greet, so off I go alone. Our Meet & Greet was scheduled from 11 till 12 in the One5 Lounge. There were 37 from our roll call that attended, as well as 9 of the ship's officers.

Gimer(Stan) made all the arrangements to set this up, and he did a fantastic job. He has done these before, and you could tell he was experienced. He had name tags printed for everyone. He had a gift for those celebrating anniversaries. He had a gift for those making their first trip to the islands by cruise ship. Hmmm, could that be spam?

He also had photo prints of the photo of the ship done that I had taken earlier that morning, as well as book markers. Kudos to him for a job well done.

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Question: Have you done the Sactuary, and is it worth spending $80 for two of us for a day? Are the regular pools very crowded? Thanks!

 

 

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I have not done it, and it would not be worth it to me. I never saw more than a half dozen people in the Sanctuary. The last few days of the cruise, they had drained that pool for maintenance.

We spent most of our pool time at the Calypso Pool, and never had a problem finding a couple of loungers.

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I have not done it, and it would not be worth it to me. I never saw more than a half dozen people in the Sanctuary. The last few days of the cruise, they had drained that pool for maintenance.

 

We spent most of our pool time at the Calypso Pool, and never had a problem finding a couple of loungers.

 

 

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Thanks for the info. I probably will just lay out at one of the regular pools.

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I had organized a slot pull for the afternoon, with everyone to meet at the casino entrance between 1:00 and 1:30. I had talked to the Casino Manager the day before, so they knew we would have a group coming in. Princess provided a couple of giveaways, and those went to the two players that won the most for our team of players.

We had 20 show up to play. Each player contributed $21 and got 7 pulls on a $3 max bet machine. There were not many dollar machines in this casino, so we had to wait a little for the machine we played to free up.

We didn't have a big win, but we didn't end up broke. Everyone got $18 of their original $21 back, except the one that won the most for the team got $35 plus one of the giveaways. It was a lot of entertainment for only $3. It was a good way to spend a day too cold for the pools. It only made it to 58 degrees today.

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Thank you so much for posting the patter. I see that if times stay the sameish.. i will be able to do the activities I am interested in with no conflict. Silly question... for the eukelali (spelling sucks) do they provide the instruments or do you need to bring one with you from home?

If you want to borrow one of the ship's ukuleles, be one of the first in line for the sign up.

Question: Have you done the Sactuary, and is it worth spending $80 for two of us for a day? Are the regular pools very crowded? Thanks!

 

 

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I do half days for 20 bucks all the nice sea days and some ports I decide to stay on board. I think it is 1-5pm, after a few visits you can go around noon or so if it not busy, I tend to leave around 4ish if the wind picks up. The lounges are great, I read and sleep in the ocean breeze and it is heavenly. They bring a menu for nice healthy treats , You pay a small service charge. You can walk to the buffet if you want too. The calm sea days are so delightful I would never cruise without a few visits to the spa area. The Island has it on the back and it is the best, so quiet no pool and private bathroom. I say go for half a day on lovely days and you will be glad you did.

PS I HAD THE BEST NAPS IN THE SANCTUARY IN MY LIFE.

kitegirl, Grand Princess has 60 ukuleles to loan out for those wanting to play. At each sessions, they hand out there ukulele from three large plastic bins.

Grand Princess Gift Shop, Calypso Cove had 13 ukuleles for sale, at the beginning of the cruise and they were all sold, by the end of the cruise. These ukulele were supplied by the Hawaiian Ambassador, made for him and sold under the name of "Da Kine", by Brian Vasquez. A few did bring their own ukuleles to join in.

If you have sailed with Princess before, you should receive notice of the Welcome Back event in your cabin. This was held late afternoon in the Princess Theatre.

Not a real large showing, but they did hand out drink vouchers that you could use in any bar or lounge on the ship.

I did hear some people complain they couldn't use it for a more expensive drink and just pay the difference, or others upset because they didn't know the voucher had a limit. Guess they never read the back side.

Some people can't be happy, even when getting something for nothing.

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After going to the Welcome Back event, I walked down to check out the dinner menu for tonight. It is 5:00, and I still have my shorts on, and I am on my way to change for dinner. There are a number of old people waiting in line already for the doors to open for the 5:30 seating. Not sure why. I don't think they are going to give your seat to someone else. They shouldn't run out of food this early in the cruise. Maybe they are just use to getting early bird specials.

Anyhow, there is also another guy milling around in shorts when the dress code police come out of the dining room and says to the crowd, "No shorts in dining room, no shorts in dining room!!!" I, of course, ignore him since I am just there to check the menu and I still have a half hour to get ready.

One poor lady in line with a pair of capris on starts to freak out.

Lady: I thought these would be okay. I will go change.

Dress Code Police: No, you are fine, it is just the men. No shorts.

Lady: Okay, I will go change.

Dress Code Police: No, just the men. No shorts.

So it looks like they will be enforcing the Dress Code.

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After showing DW the menu for the evening, and putting on proper attire, we head for the dining room for our early seating. By the time we get there, the early bird crowd has made it in, and no one has taken our seats. In fact, we have four extra seats at our table for two tonight.

The Princess Favorites portion of the menu is the same every night.

We found the lamb shank on the main menu tonight, and it would be our choice.

The lamb shank was tender and delicious.

There are usually a few special deserts, and some favorites each night.

I had the Banana toffee parfait, which was very good.

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Gimer.. Thank you for the info, we may rent one from home and take it with us... would hate to not get one to play on the ship. It sounds like fun to learn.

Princess recently updated the screen and the sound system for the Movies Under the Stars. We caught the first part of Inferno on the outdoor screen, but since DW still was not up to par from her round of sea sickness earlier, we made it an early night.

When we were on the Coral, they always had someone handing out popcorn, and wheeling around trays of cookies for the movies. Here, you had to pick up your popcorn at Coffee and Cones. I don't know if these guys didn't know how to make popcorn, or what. I remember how tasty the popcorn on Coral was, but here, it always tasted bland and stale. We never did get a good bag. Oh well, another complainer for free stuff.

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Tuesday morning, April 25

I wake to the sound of "I Got You Babe" playing on the radio. The passageway is deserted this early in the morning as I make my way to the International Cafe.

The same people are working, and they hand me lattes and a muffin to take back to my cabin. I rush to the balcony to see what port we are at today. What, no land again? I check the calendar to see if it says February 2nd, because it is starting to feel like Groundhog Day. Another sea day. But the seas look different today, so that is a good sign.

My tracker says it took 990 steps to make the round trip from our cabin to the Cafe. Sorry, but sometimes I forget to grab a photo before a bite disappears from my food.

The seas are much calmer this morning. At 6:00 a.m. the ship tracker on the tv says we are at latitude 32°16.15'N and longitude 134°26.72'W. The waves are only 2 feet high today, and we are traveling at 19.7 kts. We are now 679.5 miles from San Fransisco, and we have 1,382.6 miles to go to our first port at Lahaina. The temperature will climb to 66 today, so it is getting a little warmer.

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Sorry, but sometimes I forget to grab a photo before a bite disappears from my food.

 

 

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That's ONE bite?:eek:

That's ONE bite?:eek:

Well, maybe 2 or 3. The Patters for the second sea day list what events are scheduled today.

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We did our morning gym workout, then went to try a little Zumba in the Vista Lounge before breakfast.

We went to the morning trivia. Who knew that the horse had the largest eyes of any living creature? I think they must have forgot about the giant squid that has eyes the size of soccer balls.

We also checked out the Alternative Restaurant Demonstration in the Piazza. They were preparing several courses.

We never did see any large crowds at the specialty restaurants, except the Crown Grill for the free pub lunch one day.

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I had organized a pub crawl/poker run for the afternoon, so we met up with some of our roll call members at Crooners to start. Since it is early afternoon on a small ship, it is hard to find five bars that are open. The premise is pretty simple. We start at the first bar with a $5 buy in, and everyone draws an envelope that has a playing card. Repeat for five bars, then open the envelopes to reveal the hands, with winner taking to pot.

I used my drink voucher for a dirty banana to start out at the first bar.

We moved to different bars.

And ended up at the casino bar to reveal the hands.

Everyone enjoyed it so much, we agreed to meet on one of the return sea days to do it again.

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You are probably wondering about specialty bar drinks and their costs, so here is the first of three posts that will have the drink menus.

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I will say that the cost of drinks on Princess is $2 to $4 less than what they cost on Celebrity or Royal Caribbean.

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We didn't have a drink package for this cruise, but we had one included as a perk on our January Celebrity cruise. That package was about $20 a day more expensive than Princess.

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This was the first of three formal nights on the cruise. One thing about Princess is the passengers, for the most part, adhere to the suggested dress code for the dining rooms. There were probably 5% of the men with tuxes, and the remainder in dark suits. The women were all nicely dressed in their long gowns. I was surprised that one old guy showed up to the MDR wearing a ski parka and ball cap, and they let him in. After their announcement the prior day about shorts, I thought they would not be relaxing the dress code for anyone.

One thing I noticed was there was not a rental area for tuxes, although one couple we talked to said they were available. They planned to rent one to do a renewal of vows while onboard.

Tonight's dinner menu did not have lobster.

So why not make surf and turf from the beef tenderloin and the shrimp. It was a lot of food, but hey, I have been working out every day.

I didn't get a photo of the desert menu, but these were two good choices. DW had the chocolate raspberry desert, and I had the banana almond desert.

The waiter must of thought we could still pack away more food, so he brought this sampler over.

Sadly, we could only sample one.

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We love comedy shows. At home, we try to take in a comedy show once a week when they have new comedians performing. Doug Funk was the comedian in the theatre tonight.

He put on a very funny show, using members from the audience. After the show, we made our way to the Explorer's Lounge to play the majority rules game. We were only one answer away from toeing the top score. One that we missed, we talked about two possible answers and just chose the wrong one. If you have never played, you should try this one.

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Mark, still following along, I always enjoy looking at the patters, thanks for posting these and your beautiful photos. Leave it up to Stan (Gimer) for running a flawless meet & greet! :D

Cheers - Ken & Darlene

Mark, still following along, I always enjoy looking at the patters, thanks for posting these and your beautiful photos. Leave it up to Stan (Gimer) for running a flawless meet & greet! :D

 

 

 

Cheers - Ken & Darlene

Thanks for following still. You had some good pictures from Spam Jam posted. I looked to see if we showed up in any of them, and didn't see us. Looked for you in ours, and didn't see you.

They were still building the Spam canoe when I got a photo of it.

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