LIVE - Caribbean Princess, Aug. 2, 2014

[Colo Cruiser]

Man overboard! Yikes! :(

[coldinerie]

OMG Man overboard! Cruising for 30 years and NEVER heard that announcement. Glad he/she is ok, but yikes!

[geoherb]

Another beautiful day at sea today. I was up in time to watch the sunrise from the upper decks. I took a lot of photos of the pools and a few of the buffet offerings. A few passengers were stirring around. So far, as of 7 a.m., no chair hoggers were out.

 

Today’s activities in the Patter are the usual offerings from the spa, casino, and shops. They’re showing Mama Mia on MUTS this morning for the second day in a row. The arts and crafts offering is napkin folding. They don’t do as many fancy napkin folds as they used to. Perhaps tonight at formal night we’ll get more than a plain flat fold. We’ll miss the morning trivia for our meet and greet. I’m looking forward to seeing more people from our rollcall. Other activities we’ll try to do include jeopardized trivia after lunch and the maybe watch the bar wars. I participated once. I’d like for DH to try. And we will play the afternoon trivia and maybe fit in a time to swim sometime during the day. It was funny that all three couples at our table were at the spa pool yesterday—all of us at different times.

 

Tonight’s production show is Born to Be Wild. We may have to go after dinner so that we can enjoy the champagne waterfall event before dinner.

[jenseib]

whoa! Man overboard is scary!!!!

[Nan_Sea]

A question please. Is the spa pool open to everyone?

[geoherb]

A question please. Is the spa pool open to everyone?

The spa pool is adults only, but there's no charge for it. I think a lot of people think it's part of the Sanctuary, but it's not on the Grand-class ships like it is on the Island and the Coral.

 

The chair hogs came out later. We went up to the spa pool around 9:30 and all the chairs were taken with towels, books, suntan lotion, etc. I go to the pool to swim, so it’s not a big deal to me other than I hate to see people breaking the rules and getting away with it. I tried to stir up some trouble by telling a couple of women that no one had returned to the chairs for over 30 minutes. They said they wouldn’t want to cause a scene when the people returned. The funny thing is that no one came back to those chairs while I was there for another half hour. I wish Princess would enforce the rules.

 

We had a nice turnout for our rollcall gathering. About 20 of us showed up. Captain Yeomans dropped in. He says he sends his regards back, Pia. Several other officers came by as well, including the maître d’ and the hotel manager, someone from the guest relations, and two head waiters. Thanks to our organizer for making it one of the best ones we’ve attended.

 

So far, the Internet has been great. I’ve been able to sign on, post, and sign out in two or three minutes. DH used about 33 of his minutes this morning checking his work emails and responding. He hasn’t learned how to log off and on to save them, but he’ll still have enough for the rest of the cruise.

 

We missed putting out our request for the formal night canapes in our cabin. I’m still enjoying the chocolate-covered strawberries our TA sent us. DH can’t eat them because of the tiny seeds. Actually he should not be eating any of them.

[pablo222]

I went to the gym to continue my walking. There were several open treadmills and the other gym machines available.

 

Do the treadmills on caribbean open when the gym opens, or

at a later time?

[caribill]

We missed putting out our request for the formal night canapes in our cabin.

 

If you call room service, you can still order them.

[seababe]

:rolleyes:Thank you Thank you for the live reports I will do it next week

Just two questions

1. Will Captain Yoeman's be on Sat ? He was one of our favorite Captain will miss him~ Happy retirement

2. Who is the Head Chef we are going to Chefs table #8 ♥ it we look at it as an excursion :o

Have a fine Cruise Seababe & Seabouy

[geoherb]

Do the treadmills on caribbean open when the gym opens, or

at a later time?

I don't know. I'll never be up there early to find out in person, but I'll try to ask one of the fitness instructors if I see one. I did not go this morning since DH was willing to walk laps on the Promenade Deck.

 

Thanks, Caribill, for the info.

 

Seababe: I believe Captain Yeomans is staying on for at least one more cruise. The Chef Cereda is the head chef.

 

Rumor has it that the passenger who went overboard jumped and that he will be put off in St. Thomas tomorrow. None of the officers who were at the meet and greet this morning confirmed this info publicly.

 

We enjoyed a relaxing lunch in the dining room with our tablemates from our spring break cruise on the Ruby Princess. It was good to catch up with them again. Afterward we played jeopardized trivia with a couple whom we sat beside at yesterday morning’s trivia. Our regular teammate did not show up. We did fairly well, but bet too conservatively on the final question. We would have won if we had bet it all. I was hoping that the final question was going to be difficult. I knew several other teams had more money than we did going into the final question. One problem was there were a ton of teams and the trivia was running over schedule by about 20 minutes. The people there for line dancing were getting antsy. When we’ve played before, the leading teams had to tell how much they were going to bet before the answer was revealed. We could have cheated and added more to our wager but the water bottles they had for prizes weren’t worth cheating for.

 

I finally ate a piece of pizza by the Neptune Pool. They were doing the battle of the sexes bar wars up there. After all my Princess cruises I know not to be disappointed that the margherita pizza isn’t served as advertised. They never have fresh basil on top of it. And yet I always am disappointed. It would be easy to buy enough fresh basil to serve on it or else change the description on the menu. One of these days I hope they get it right either way. It’s not as bad as when Holland America described a dish by Marcus Samuelsson on the menu as including collards and they substituted cabbage. Why bother having celebrity chefs create menu items if you’re not going to follow their recipes?

 

We have a few minutes to relax until the next trivia contest. I have our bottle of champagne from yesterday chilling to take back. I hope our teammate shows up to enjoy it with us. If not, we’ll probably find a few folks willing to drink cheap champagne.

[Pia1913]

Do the treadmills on caribbean open when the gym opens, or

at a later time?

 

They did when we were last on.

[Pia1913]

 

We have a few minutes to relax until the next trivia contest. I have our bottle of champagne from yesterday chilling to take back. I hope our teammate shows up to enjoy it with us. If not, we’ll probably find a few folks willing to drink cheap champagne.

 

You just have the wrong teammates. ;) We sure didn't have trouble finishing the champagne, did we? :D

[ggprincess2004]

Both the Maitre d' and Chef Cereda will be leaving the ship on Saturday - cannot supply name of replacements yet.

[geoherb]

Do the treadmills on caribbean open when the gym opens, or

at a later time?

I checked with one of the fitness instructors. He said that most of the treadmills open when the fitness center does at 6 a.m. There are four on the left-hand side and four on the right that don’t open until later because they are above passenger cabins.

 

We lost at trivia with a couple of new players from Montreal and a teenager who lives near us in the city next to our hometown. We ended up with 12 right. The winning teams had 15. I should have guessed my first instinct for the number of letter in the Hawaiian alphabet. We also missed the question about where the Imola auto racing series takes place, choosing the wrong choice between two answers. But even with those answers, we would have lost. The prizes were the magnetic clips again. We have plenty of them at home, but it would have been nice to have won them for the new people on our team.

 

I brought the bottle of champagne to share with the woman from our rollcall, but she did not show up. The bar staff were very accommodating at providing us with glasses to drink it from. I remember one cruise where they weren’t so nice at doing so. The couple from Montreal helped us drink some of it. We finished the bottle upstairs at the Platinum/Elite/Suite event. Tonight’s feature was salsa and chips. I had hoped they would have guacamole again like they did on the Ruby Princess, but they did not. The featured drink was the mojito. Even after the champagne, I had to have one.

 

We are about to change into our formal wear (just sports coats, dress shirts, and ties for this cruise) and then head to the champagne waterfall event. I called about getting the canapés for tonight from room service. She said she would see what they could do, but that I really should have gotten order in earlier. So far, they have not arrived.

 

Half of our laundry came back this afternoon--just the underwear and socks. I guess the rest will show up eventually.

Edited August 4, 2014 by geoherb

[seababe]

Hi Geo~~ I love Cruise Critic have been a member since 1998 B/4 they changed

We know stuff B/4 the ships do:rolleyes: Thanks for the Updates I will keep watching

We are big time Trivia players too~ can really get cut throat~ Sometimes the pen will actually write the length of the cruise :o ~ I do like the Magnets they are good to hang stuff all over the cabins walls~ Mine are packed

R U getting off Sta?

[islandatsea]

Both the Maitre d' and Chef Cereda will be leaving the ship on Saturday - cannot supply name of replacements yet.

 

I checked with one of the fitness instructors. He said that most of the treadmills open when the fitness center does at 6 a.m. There are four on the left-hand side and four on the right that don’t open until later because they are above passenger cabins.

 

We lost at trivia with a couple of new players from Montreal and a teenager who lives near us in the city next to our hometown. We ended up with 12 right. The winning teams had 15. I should have guessed my first instinct for the number of letter in the Hawaiian alphabet. We also missed the question about where the Imola auto racing series takes place, choosing the wrong choice between two answers. But even with those answers, we would have lost. The prizes were the magnetic clips again. We have plenty of them at home, but it would have been nice to have won them for the new people on our team.

 

I brought the bottle of champagne to share with the woman from our rollcall, but she did not show up. The bar staff were very accommodating at providing us with glasses to drink it from. I remember one cruise where they weren’t so nice at doing so. The couple from Montreal helped us drink some of it. We finished the bottle upstairs at the Platinum/Elite/Suite event. Tonight’s feature was salsa and chips. I had hoped they would have guacamole again like they did on the Ruby Princess, but they did not. The featured drink was the mojito. Even after the champagne, I had to have one.

 

We are about to change into our formal wear (just sports coats, dress shirts, and ties for this cruise) and then head to the champagne waterfall event. I called about getting the canapés for tonight from room service. She said she would see what they could do, but that I really should have gotten order in earlier. So far, they have not arrived.

 

Half of our laundry came back this afternoon--just the underwear and socks. I guess the rest will show up eventually.

 

Thanks for all the info & updates on the cruise. Will be seeing you in 5 days:D:D!

[RobertoF]

Geoherb, I just want to say that I love your live reports. My dad is on this cruise so I am following along with your reports. It is the best real-time information available! Coincidentally, we were on the Ruby Princess last spring break, but it was the sailing after yours. If we are ever on a ship together I would be honored to join your trivia team if you would have us. We will be on the Vision of the Seas starting Saturday out of Fort Lauderdale, in case you are doing a B2B ...

Edited August 4, 2014 by RobertoF

[Pia1913]

Hi Geo~~ I love Cruise Critic have been a member since 1998 B/4 they changed

We know stuff B/4 the ships do:rolleyes: Thanks for the Updates I will keep watching

We are big time Trivia players too~ can really get cut throat~ Sometimes the pen will actually write the length of the cruise :o ~ I do like the Magnets they are good to hang stuff all over the cabins walls~ Mine are packed

R U getting off Sta?

 

Seababe, remember me? How's seabuoy?

[rdsqrl]

I'm really enjoying your Live.

 

For what it's worth, I found jeopardized trivia (on the Pacific in December) to be possibly the most annoying way to play trivia ever invented. It was a huge time suck. I don't mind long trivia matches; I just mind long trivia matches where for most of that time, you're simply sitting there and waiting for them to collect answers, mark them, update team scores, etc. But I'm such a trivia addict, I still had to go back the second time they did it -- just to get more aggravated. Sigh. Hi, my name is rdsqrl and I'm a triviaholic.

[PathfinderEss]

Enjoying your live thread, thanks for taking us along with you.

[counsdr]

Thanks again for taking me along!

 

Cheryl

[mollyanne]

I'm really enjoying your Live.

 

For what it's worth, I found jeopardized trivia (on the Pacific in December) to be possibly the most annoying way to play trivia ever invented. It was a huge time suck. I don't mind long trivia matches; I just mind long trivia matches where for most of that time, you're simply sitting there and waiting for them to collect answers, mark them, update team scores, etc. But I'm such a trivia addict, I still had to go back the second time they did it -- just to get more aggravated. Sigh. Hi, my name is rdsqrl and I'm a triviaholic.

 

Agree with this. It takes much too long to play!

[travellovers2]

I would like to know what you think of Grand Turk & Caicos. We have two new experiences on this cruise, the ship and the port. We're planning to rent a buggy to go around the island. We don't want to reserve it because who knows what the weather will be like at the end of August. :D

Edited August 5, 2014 by travellovers2

[geoherb]

Thanks, everyone. We did not get our canapes. But that is OK. I’ll be sure to get the card in on time tonight for tomorrow night’s formal night. We enjoyed watching the people at the champagne waterfall. Things were running behind schedule, so we did not stay for the captain’s speech because we wanted to make it to the dining room on time. The menu was not as impressive as I remember on previous cruises. Our last week-long cruise on a Princess ship was two years ago. I thought maybe the cutbacks to the menu on our last Princess formal night was due to it being on just a five-night itinerary. Nevertheless, we enjoyed our meal. The couple at our table from England decided to dine at the Crown Grill last night. They had seen our other tablemates and let them know.

 

Most men in the dining room made an effort to participate in formal night. A saw a few wearing tuxedos, a majority wearing suits and ties or sport coats and ties, a few wearing sport coats without ties, a few wearing dress shirts (some with ties) with slacks, and a few wearing more casual shirts and pants. I did not see anyone in shorts or T-shirts or polo shirts. They may have been there, but they weren’t seated around us. On the other nights, I’ve seen several men wearing shorts to the dining room. I’ve even seen a few with baseball caps on.

 

We went to see the Born to Be Wild production show after dinner. I don’t remember which ship we saw this on before. I recognized it when the pink Cadillac came out onto the stage. The singers and dancers were pretty good.

 

The CB is now sailing into St. Thomas. There are scattered showers around. I’m glad our balcony is half covered. I’m charging up my cell phone. I’m glad that Bertha did not keep us from making it here on schedule. The seas have been very calm so far. We would never have known that a tropical storm was just a few hundred miles away the first couple of days and nights.

Edited August 5, 2014 by geoherb

[kendon]

Both the Maitre d' and Chef Cereda will be leaving the ship on Saturday - cannot supply name of replacements yet.

 

One of the best chefs we've had!!