Live (sort of as usual) from the Celebrity Silhouette 10/20/22

[StartrainDD]

10 hours ago, abbydancer said:

Is anyone still reading?  If so, I will continue posting one or two a day.  

 

Thanks!  

Yes, still reading!  As we were sailing away from Funchal I caught this rainbow.  All the best!

 

 

[raudacruise]

Still following.

[abbydancer2003]

Thanks for the replies, and all the patience with me.  I appreciate both.

 

So onward to the 7 straight sea days - longest string we've ever had without a scenic cruising day.

 

Silhouette day 8

 

Today is our first of the 7 straight sea days.  

 

We decided not to try for breakfast, so after putting out our 30 items of laundry (2 of 4 bags - we’ll have to do 3rd soon) we went to the retreat lounge.  I think the morning coffee there is Americano, so I’m not thrilled with that, but other than that it was nice.  

 

We spent some time there talking with friends who were already there, and then met our Catan friends at the World Class bar for a game of Catan.  Apparently the buffet was too crowded for playing so we went there.  

 

After playing, they invited us to join them in main dining.  We accepted, so we headed off there.  They seated us at a table for 4 and it was a very nice lunch, although the area was a lot more crowded than Luminae, and  also than when were were on the Eclipse in Aqua, and eating lunch in main dining.  I had the all beef hotdog, and it was Ok at best.  I won’t be using that as a back up in future Luminae lunches.  Overall it was very nice eating with them and I look forward to seeing them in April.

 

After lunch, we tried to go to the retreat Sundeck, so I could work on my class, and my blog, but it was closed, so we headed to the sky lounge and I did stuff until my battery was about to give out.

 

So back to the room, plug in the computer and continued until it was time to do afternoon trivia.  We’re not doing all that well, and two of our 5 person team deserted us.  Oh well.

 

The back to the room to dress for dinner.

 

We first went for drinks in the lounge, and then decided to go to the show.  It’s new (for us anyway), show called Cosmopolitan, and features scenes from different places.  We were taken into the center balcony by Lijo, and found Pat so sat with her.  Soon we were joined by Lu and Susan.  We also had another CC couple, Steve and Judy there.

 

The show was good, and a change from the shows we’ve seen lots of times.

 

Following the show we headed to the restaurant, and had dinner with Lu and Susan.

It was nice, and I remembered to take my food pictures.

 

We started with a watermelon chunk in balsamic as an amuse bouche.

 

 

A note on this.  SInce I don't like fish or ham, there are several Amuse Bouche's I don't eat.  I ended up with a lot of watermelon and other fruit in balsamic.  It's better than on some ships where I just get a piece of fruit.

 

I wanted the sunchock soup, but our waiter disrecommended it, so I had the bruschetta  with tomatoes, cheese, and olives.  Everyone else had lamb chops to start, and said the were good.

 

 

 

I then had the filet mignon and Glen had risotto, since his appetizer was meat heavy.

 

 

I was the only person who had dessert, and I chose pineapple upside-down cake from the main menu.

 

We said good night to Susan and Lu, and then went to the back room (we’d been eating in the front room), and chatted with Pat, Steve and Judy.  After they were done, we went to the grand foyer and caught the end of Jayne Curry’s atrium show.  Very crowded, and maybe she should have been in the sky lounge.

 

After that room and bed.  Sea day 2 of 7 tomorrow.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[TeaBag]

I'm still reading and enjoying your blog.  Your pictures of Tenerife were so different from what we saw because we didn't go on a tour having been there before.  We loved Madeira and would love to go back and maybe get better weather. It would have been so nice to get a good picture from the peak but we were socked in like you.

[abbydancer2003]

5 minutes ago, TeaBag said:

I'm still reading and enjoying your blog.  Your pictures of Tenerife were so different from what we saw because we didn't go on a tour having been there before.  We loved Madeira and would love to go back and maybe get better weather. It would have been so nice to get a good picture from the peak but we were socked in like you.

I'd do this itinerary again in a heartbeat.  I loved all the ports.

Also, so glad we met in line for customs.

[boxkite]

abbydancer, following along and enjoying your recount of the cruise!

[abbydancer2003]

Silhouette day 9

 

Today is the second of our sea days, and last night we had the first time change, as the clocks went back.  Because of that (I love Fall Back) we went to breakfast. 

 

Following that, we went back to the room and I went to the casino.  As usual, I lost a bit and cashed out.  I then went back to room to try to get stuff done, then back to the casino.  

 

After that, we headed to lunch, where I had my second modified Luminae burger.  Instead of fries I had potato chips.

 

After lunch we went to the retreat lounge until it was time for progressive trivia.  We didn’t do well and since there were only 3 of us, we decided to disband.  Our leader said she’d been holding seats from about 2:30 to 4, and didn’t want to do that.  That was OK with us.

 

So we went back to the room so I could fight with the internet some more.  This time I did it on the balcony.

 

We did our normal evening thing, which was go to the lounge and chat with friends.  The show tonight was the second show by a British group called the Fly Boys, who sort of mash up jazz and rock.  We enjoyed the show.

 

After that, dinner at Luminae again.

 

And then my usual evening final internet fight, and then bed.

 

[abbydancer2003]

Silhouette day 10

 

Today was yet another sea day, and yet another hour bleed off.

 

Today was also another laundry day.  We now do the bags before going to bed the night before, but this time Glen decided he wanted to press two items, so we called Lujo for coffee and two more bags.  However, we decided to go to breakfast before they got this.

 

I ordered an omelette with bacon and hash browns.  In Luminae, though, all breakfasts come with some asparagus and a fingerling potato, so I had redundant potatoes.

 

After breakfast the laundry bags and coffee had arrived.  We did have some of the coffee.  We’ll send the press items out tomorrow morning in two bags (we each get one).  A note on laundry - Celebrity limits items in a bag to 30 total (so 15 each).  We get 4 free bags over the cruise.  So we do them when we have over 15 each.  Each time, on a 14 day cruise, we had more than 15.  So it was a matter of pick and choose.  The goal was to have enough clean clothes to make it to the 3rd day of the Princess cruise, because we’ll get our laundry from that back that day (we ended giving them 2.5 bags the second morning).

 

After our coffee we met Arie and Cheryl for Splendor today.  We met in the World Class bar again, because it’s harder to get a good table in the Ocean View after breakfast.  When we finished playing Spendor I introduced them to Fluxx, a fast card game that has constant rule changes.  It’s fun, fast and easy.  

 

Following that we had lunch in Lumanae.  By this time, we were on round two of the same menus, so nothing to report.

 

Today was Jane Curry’s second theater show and it was mid afternoon.  As usual she was very entertaining.  Today, she did Dancing Queen and asked the audience to dance while she ran through it dancing with people.  Glen and were on deck 5 on the side, and so we danced it the aisle.  It was fun.  We also learned she and her family will be doing some sort of entertainment venture in Florida for 6 months.  I guess she’ll be performing at various venues.  

 

We went back to the room, and watched the end of two different movies on two different channels.  First was Lego Star Wars (wish I’d seen all of it) and then Battle of the Sexes.  I then got us lattes from Al Baccio 2 (in the buffet), and then went to the Casino to play slots for a while.  

 

At 6, we headed to the lounge for a while, and then headed upstairs for our dinner at the Lawn Club Grill.  I was really looking forward to that, as this venue is only on two ships.  

 

We headed to deck 15, and ended up at the Porch.  The manager there directed us to the Grill, where we were quickly seated.  The temperature was fine and there was no wind.  

 

One of the nice things about this restaurant is the view of the ocean - there was a stunning cloud formation as we sat down.

 

Our server soon came by and told us to share a flatbread.  We picked half Margherita and half pepperoni.  It was, of course, simply a fancy name for a thin crust pizza.  It was pretty good though.

 

 

Following that, I visited the salad bar.  On this ship it was just a green salad, pretty much the same as you’d get in any buffet.  The menu does say it has composed salads and cheeses, and this time, it didn’t (when we went on the Reflection it was much more like the menu).

 

By the time we’d finished our salads, the sun was setting and the view was still fantastic.  Here’s the clouds as the sun set.

 

For entrees, both Glen and Lu ordered the burger.  It looked pretty good.  Here’s a picture of Lu with her burger.

 

 

I ordered a ribeye with a baked potato and sides of creamed corn and baked beans.  It was great.

 

 

 

I finished with carrot cake.

 

It's too bad that this restaurant is only one two ships.

 

Following dinner we headed back to the room, where I was able to use wifi calling to talk to family and friends.  Interesting that I can barely use the internet on my laptop, but the phone works pretty well.

 

Another nice sea day comes to a close.  The clocks go back another hour tonight.

 

 

 

[abbydancer2003]

Silhouette day 11

 

Once again, we’re up way too early.  We ended up calling Lijo to give us more laundry bags and coffee.  We also discovered that our closet door wouldn’t stay shut.  He promised to take care of it.  We then had a nice talk with him for while.

The sunrise was pretty and is that a ship on the horizon?

 

After he left, and we had some coffee, we went to breakfast.  After breakfast, we headed to the lounge.  I wanted to know if there was a way that the concierges could print some documents for the class that I’m taking.  They gave me an email address to mail them to.  That was easy.

 

Next was game time with Arie and Cheryl.  We had fun, and played through part of lunch.  We decided to skip lunch, since we weren’t hungry.  We went back to get the printouts.  They had all but one, so went back up and resent it.  Eventually I got all my printouts.

 

At 3:30 we went back down for tea, since we’d missed lunch.  After a half hour I went upstairs to do trivial with Lu and Susan and their other friends.  We chatted for a while afterwards and the I went back to the room.  We watched some tv, and then at 7 headed to the lounge for a bit.  

 

It was very quiet there, with few people.  After we’d been there for a while, the captain came in.  We hadn’t met him at the officer thing, so I asked the concierges if we could meet him.  They eventually brought him over and we introduced ourselves.  We had a nice brief chat with im.

 

Next stop was the foyer to dance to the house band, and chat with friends.

 

We were heading into dinner right after Patricia arrived, so we had dinner with her.

 

Here’s some photos:

 

First, I didn’t like the amuse bouche, so they gave me my go-to one - watermelon in balsamic vinegar with a second fruit, in this case orange.

 

 

For my starter, I had the arugula and melon salad.  It was kind of pretty.

 

 

I believe Glen had the octopus (he’s a much more adventurous eater than I am).

 

For entrees, we both opted for the Chili-Yogurt Grilled Cornish Hen Spatchcock (makes me giggle)

I think it means flattened.

 

 

It was a bit too spicy for me, and did nothing to change my opinion that Cornish Game hens are too much work to eat.

 

I ended up switching to the meatloaf from main dining.

 

 

 

 

 

For dessert, I had the vanilla baba.  

 

 

 

 

We chatted for a while longer, and then headed to the room for the night.

 

Edited December 6, 2022 by abbydancer

[abbydancer2003]

Forgive the spurious extra meatloaf picture above.  I can't seem to edit it away.

[offtopic]

Following along, great pics, thank you.

[LuAnn]

On 12/4/2022 at 10:58 PM, abbydancer said:

Silhouette day 10

 

Today was yet another sea day, and yet another hour bleed off.

 

Today was also another laundry day.  We now do the bags before going to bed the night before, but this time Glen decided he wanted to press two items, so we called Lujo for coffee and two more bags.  However, we decided to go to breakfast before they got this.

 

I ordered an omelette with bacon and hash browns.  In Luminae, though, all breakfasts come with some asparagus and a fingerling potato, so I had redundant potatoes.

 

After breakfast the laundry bags and coffee had arrived.  We did have some of the coffee.  We’ll send the press items out tomorrow morning in two bags (we each get one).  A note on laundry - Celebrity limits items in a bag to 30 total (so 15 each).  We get 4 free bags over the cruise.  So we do them when we have over 15 each.  Each time, on a 14 day cruise, we had more than 15.  So it was a matter of pick and choose.  The goal was to have enough clean clothes to make it to the 3rd day of the Princess cruise, because we’ll get our laundry from that back that day (we ended giving them 2.5 bags the second morning).

 

After our coffee we met Arie and Cheryl for Splendor today.  We met in the World Class bar again, because it’s harder to get a good table in the Ocean View after breakfast.  When we finished playing Spendor I introduced them to Fluxx, a fast card game that has constant rule changes.  It’s fun, fast and easy.  

 

Following that we had lunch in Lumanae.  By this time, we were on round two of the same menus, so nothing to report.

 

Today was Jane Curry’s second theater show and it was mid afternoon.  As usual she was very entertaining.  Today, she did Dancing Queen and asked the audience to dance while she ran through it dancing with people.  Glen and were on deck 5 on the side, and so we danced it the aisle.  It was fun.  We also learned she and her family will be doing some sort of entertainment venture in Florida for 6 months.  I guess she’ll be performing at various venues.  

 

We went back to the room, and watched the end of two different movies on two different channels.  First was Lego Star Wars (wish I’d seen all of it) and then Battle of the Sexes.  I then got us lattes from Al Baccio 2 (in the buffet), and then went to the Casino to play slots for a while.  

 

At 6, we headed to the lounge for a while, and then headed upstairs for our dinner at the Lawn Club Grill.  I was really looking forward to that, as this venue is only on two ships.  

 

We headed to deck 15, and ended up at the Porch.  The manager there directed us to the Grill, where we were quickly seated.  The temperature was fine and there was no wind.  

 

One of the nice things about this restaurant is the view of the ocean - there was a stunning cloud formation as we sat down.

 

Our server soon came by and told us to share a flatbread.  We picked half Margherita and half pepperoni.  It was, of course, simply a fancy name for a thin crust pizza.  It was pretty good though.

 

 

Following that, I visited the salad bar.  On this ship it was just a green salad, pretty much the same as you’d get in any buffet.  The menu does say it has composed salads and cheeses, and this time, it didn’t (when we went on the Reflection it was much more like the menu).

 

By the time we’d finished our salads, the sun was setting and the view was still fantastic.  Here’s the clouds as the sun set.

 

For entrees, both Glen and Lu ordered the burger.  It looked pretty good.  Here’s a picture of Lu with her burger.

 

 

I ordered a ribeye with a baked potato and sides of creamed corn and baked beans.  It was great.

 

 

 

I finished with carrot cake.

 

It's too bad that this restaurant is only one two ships.

 

Following dinner we headed back to the room, where I was able to use wifi calling to talk to family and friends.  Interesting that I can barely use the internet on my laptop, but the phone works pretty well.

 

Another nice sea day comes to a close.  The clocks go back another hour tonight.

 

The burger was really good!! 🙂 🙂 I think I look "blown away" by the size!! 🙂 

 

 

[abbydancer2003]

Silhouette  day 12

 

And here we go with another sea day.    I think today is Halloween.  

 

Once again, up early, so went to breakfast.  After breakfast, Glen went up to the room, and I went to the lounge because we were having trivia there.

 

I joined Susan and Lu for it.  We did OK, as we usually do.

 

After trivia, we were meeting Donna and Frank from Cruise critic in Luminae.  The cruise is almost done, and we hadn’t met yet, so lunch seemed like a nice idea.  They were there when we got there and we had very nice lunch.  I’m very glad we did get to spend a bit of time with them.

 

Following lunch, it was time for our usual afternoon activities.  We started with game time - today it was Catan.  

 

After that, I went to the sky lounge for non-competitive trivia with Susan, Lu and their friends.  We did, as usual, just OK.  We don’t give others our paper to grade, or turn it in, so hence Non competitive.

 

The day continued with the usual plan, off to the room to do stuff, and then to the lounge.  Tonight was Jane Curry’s last show (apparently she’s now out of sparkly dress to wear but had one left for this show) and she entertained as usual.  She also apologized to anyone who heard her 3 year melt down about the ice cream place not being open for breakfast.

 

Lou Ann and Susan were near us in the theater, so we had dinner with them.  I started with a beef carpaccio from the main menu.  It looked pretty correct and was quite tasty.

 

 

I followed up with the braised short ribs, also from the main menu.  They also have short ribs on the Luminae menu, but I like the main one better.

 

 

And a third picture of somebody’s entree.  I forgot what it was, though.  Maybe someone here can tell me.

 

 

We had a nice dinner, and then back to room.  I think tonight is the last of the hour back overnight.  

 

We are drawing near the end and I’m expecting the luggage tags very soon.  At night, we’ve resorted to watching MSNBC most of the time.  Next X cruise, I bring my DVD player.

 

After some computer time, bed time.

 

 

 

[abbydancer2003]

Silhouette day 13

 

Today is the penultimate (I love that word - hate the concept while on a cruise) full day of the cruise.  And as usual, we were up way too early.  At about 7, we gave up on sleep, and decided to go for a walk instead.  We went up to deck 15 and discovered we were walking against traffic on the commuter walking highway.  Good for all of them that actually get up early to walk.  While walking we did see the following:

 

 

Yup, the grass is real and they do mow it.

 

After that we went to breakfast.  At around 9:30 we were supposed to meet Fred & Kandi for coffee, since we really hadn’t seen them since boarding.  I got to Al Baccio a little early, but all the 4 tops were full.  I noticed a couple leaving, and they indicated I could have their table.  The wife left, but the husband and I chatted for a bit.  Soon after he left, Glen showed up so we ordered coffee.  I got a text from Fred that they were running a bit later, but we weren’t in a big hurry, so that was fine.  Apparently the Titanic lecture was running late.

 

A bit about the titanic lectures.  Steve Mattis is a passenger on this cruise, but sometimes he does Beyond the Podium lectures on the titanic.  He’s part of the group that the Vancouver friends (Ann & Ross) were with.  He’d offered, on the cruise critic roll call, to do some lectures.  And apparently, they worked it out so he could do several.  So Fred & Kandi were meeting us after.

 

About 9:45 they showed up and mentioned that Steve would like to join us, to meet me.  That was good with me.  Apparently, the list I kept on the cruise critic roll call doc helped convince Celebrity to let him do it.  About 20 minutes he did appear, and we all had a nice time.

 

We chatted until it was time to go to our daily game.  Today was was 2 rounds of Splendor, and chatting.  We learned that Arie and Cheryl and just booked a new cruise for April 2023.  It was the repositioning cruise of the Summit from Miami to New Jersey, and is in fact the same one we are on.  So there’s Catan, Splendor and Fluxx in our future.

 

After that, it was lunch time.  Today, I had the chilled blueberry soup from the main dining.

 

 

After lunch I went to the casino.  I think I won a little bit, offsetting the 30.00 I lost the first time, at least a little but.

 

Following the casino, I headed to the sky lounge.  I caught the end of the music trivia, and then the last round of the progressive, which we still didn’t turn in.  Tomorrow, they’ll announce the winners.

 

I still had OBC to burn off, so I went back to the casino.  I think I won a little, offsetting more of my initial loss.

 

As I was cashing out, Arie and Cheryl walked in to play roulette.  I decided to hang around see how they do it.  It was interesting to watch, and I learned how I could switch in case I ever want to. 

 

After that, I played out 5.00 in slots to show them how it works.

 

When I got back to the room, Lijo arrived with our laundry.  I realized then that I wouldn’t have to use the laundromat on Princess - I had enough stuff to last until we could get laundry back from Princess.  I also noticed that I was missing one sock.  We called Lijo, and he soon brought it back.  He said he’d photocopied the first sock.  (Ha ha).

 

After dressing for dinner, we headed to the lounge and then to the show, which was a show featuring all the aerialists.  It was pretty good.

 

We then went to dinner.  We were seated in the back corner, and realized that in that corner we could hear every conversation at every table in the room.  It ended up being noisy.  

 

I started with the double backed blue cheese soufflé’s from main dining.

 

 

It was good, but very rich.

 

Glen had a tuna thing:

 

We both had the rack of lamb from Luminae.  It was very, very good.

 

 

For dessert, Glen had the Luminae baked Alaska.

 

 

After dinner, we took a walk along the Promenade deck (such as it is).  Back in the room, we headed to the balcony to look at the moon.  Gorgeous tonight.

 

I then headed back to the casino for a bit.  One thing we noticed was that we still didn’t have departure information in the room.

 

After casino, bed before our last day.

 

 

[StartrainDD]

20 hours ago, abbydancer said:

We chatted until it was time to go to our daily game.  Today was was 2 rounds of Splendor, and chatting.  We learned that Arie and Cheryl and just booked a new cruise for April 2023.  It was the repositioning cruise of the Summit from Miami to New Jersey, and is in fact the same one we are on.  So there’s Catan, Splendor and Fluxx in our future.

 

Looking forward to seeing you again next April!  Merry Christmas!😃

[abbydancer2003]

4 hours ago, StartrainDD said:

Looking forward to seeing you again next April!  Merry Christmas!😃

Back at ya!

[abbydancer2003]

Silhouette day 14

 

Today is our last full day of the cruise.  We’re still up early, so we went to breakfast.  Before breakfast there was a great sunrise.

 

Soon after, I noticed a ship in the distance.  First thing besides ocean we’ve seen in almost a week.

 

 

After breakfast I did a quick casino trip, then went to trivia in the retreat lounge with Susan and Lu.  I think this was the ship trivia day - we had questions such as how many glass elevators are there (8)?, what treats are there at tea time every day (scone, cream jelly)? etc.  We did well enough to get second place and got a luggage tag to show for it.  After that we were meeting with the future cruise guy.  It was very simple, we just bought some open certificates, since they were offering an extended validity.  

 

After that, Steve was doing his final titanic lecture (I think he did 4 or 5 total).  We decided to go.  This was his hodgepodge of random information.   He does a very good job and I can see why everyone loves his lectures.  

 

We didn’t have a lot of time, so we just did a main course lunch.  No starter, no dessert.

 

At 1pm they’d scheduled the promised second Harry Potter Trivia.  We ran into Christina and she said she’d meet us there.

 

So we headed up and as promised she joined us.  We did very well and tied for first.  The MC threw a couple more questions and we all got them right so she called it a tie.  For this we won a deck of Celebrity cards.  I think I just gave away a couple when we had to empty some drawers for the kitchen remodel we did earlier this fall.  You can get them from Guest Services.

 

After that, we met Arie and Cheryl for our last game of Catan.  It was fun as always, and while I’ve yet to win, I did do better than before.

 

After Catan, I went to join Lu and Susan for our last day of general trivia.  Today they would announce the winners of the progressive trivia, and the questions, not part of the progressive competition) were submitted by the team members on yesterdays scoresheet.

 

For us, it wasn’t much different than every other day.    

 

After that, it was another trip to the casino.  (I think over the course of the two weeks I earned 1.00 worth of free plays.  That would be one spin.

 

I went back up to the room to change for dinner and, when stepping onto the balcony, I saw this:

 

 

Yes, off in the distance that’s the Bahamas.  First land I’ve seen since leaving Portugal.  

 

We then did our normal go to the lounge, chat with whoever is there and have a drink.  Tonight I had my occasional slice of cheese with a breadstick.  I don’t know why they don’t have crackers as well, but this is standard for all ships with a retreat lounge.

 

The show tonight was the 3 singers still on the ship - Janye Curry, Fly Boys and Leslie somebody or other (never saw her show).  They each did a 15 minute short set.  It was good, although the order was Fly Boys, Leslie, Jayne.  Jayne, who’d said last show that she was out of sparkly dresses, came out in a Celebrity robe.  That drew a good laugh, but she removed it to reveal a very nice non-sparkly dress.  She really is a hoot and a lot of fun.  If it were my show, I would have put the Fly Boys in the middle, to break up the two female/soloists in a row.

 

We then went to dinner.  When we got there, Patricia was there with Judy and Steve, so we decided to join them for dinner.  Since there were 5 of us they seated us in the larger table that is between the two rooms.  The wait staff, however were our regular waiters, so it was all good.

 

We had a very nice dinner with our friends, and I do hope that someday we’ll sail with them all again.

 

I did take a picture of my very pretty dessert.  Once again, and the last, mystery food picture.  

 

 

On this cruise, I did bester then I usually do with food, so I’ll try to keep it up.  Maybe next time I’ll remember to record what I had so that I can identify everything.  

 

After dinner, we said our goodbyes and headed to the room to put our luggage out.  After we did that , I realized that I still had some business in the casino.  So I threw on my cloths for tomorrow and headed down.  I ran into Kandi there, and that was nice to see her.

 

After casino back to the room for our last sleep.  Next stop - Miami.

 

 

T

[Provence55always]

I enjoy your review very much. If you and your husband are ever in Belfast I think you would enjoy going to see a reconstructed of the Tantinic and it’s history.

[abbydancer2003]

Here we go with disembarkation day ...  yup!  It is going to be finished.

 

First, the sad view from our balcony today.

 

Miami at dawn.

Silhouette day 15

 

Disembarkation day. Sad, as always.  Because of the constant time changes we were up early, and packed and ready to go by about 7:45. I looked  We decided to go straight to the lounge.  There were lots of people lined up in the hall, going back about 2/3 of the way to the aft specialty restaurants.  

 

We went into the lounge and it was very crowded but we were able to find seats.Soon after, they started calling self disembarkation, and the concierges started leading some people out.  Steve and Judy had an early flight just before noon, so they left soon after we arrived.  We said our good byes.

 

They’d called a few early tags, and the concierges escorted those with airport transfers out, when at about 8:45 they announced a hold on disembarkation because of crowds in the terminal.  Someone said that there were 4 ships in, including the Allure of the Sea and a Disney ship, so we could be in for a very crowded airport.

 

I started chatting with Christina and her mom.  Her sister Teresa had gone off with the transfer group.  

 

At some point I went out and wandered to the back.  There wasn’t much of a line, but the Tuscan Grill, for Elite was completely full and overflow in Q’sine.  I thought about getting coffee there, since the Retreat Lounge just had Americano’s but I didn’t.  

 

I went back to the lounge.  Cristina told me that it took over an hour for her sister to get on her bus.

 

A further announcement came that they weren’t disembarking yet, but Al Baccio was still open.

 

At that point, around 9:15, I decided to to try to find my AA record locator.  However by then, the internet accounts had been disabled, and I didn’t have the number.  (I couldn’t find it online the night before).  The staff offered to check us in, but without the locator there was nothing they could do.

 

So we sat.  They started calling numbers again, but it was still slow going.  At about 9:45 Kristina’s dad was there to  pick them up, so I said good bye to them.  

 

By about 10:20, we were almost the only people there, so we decided, that since we were within 4 hours of our flight we should leave.  

 

Tajana escorted us out, as far as the gangway entrance.  We bid her goodbye, “clocked” out and walked down the pretty empty gangway.

 

However, once we arrived in the terminal there was a long line in the hallway.  I left Glen and walked to the front, it was quite a long walk.  I told the guys that our flight left in 3.5 hours, and he said we’d be fine.  Apparently they were holding people at the top of the elevator.  He said he didn’t think it would even take an hour.

 

At that point I called American to see about protecting onto the next flight.  The agent was friendly, but said they didn’t do that, There was only one business class seat on that, so we decided to stay where were were.  She did give me the reservation number so I checked us in while in line.

 

For about 25 minutes, the line didn’t move.  Then it moved a fair amount, and we were much closer.  About 15 minutes after that it moved.  Another 15 minutes later, it moved and the guy stopped it with us first in line.  He remembered me, so he let us go.  (The people in front of us were locals and had offered to let us go ahead, but I didn’t think that would make much of a difference.  I appreciated the offer)

 

We arrived in luggage claim, and there was a line there once people had their luggage.  It went almost to the bottom of the escalator.  So I got in it and asked a porter where we might find our luggage.  He said, because we were in a suite, claim 1.  So I sent Glen for it and waited in line.  About  10 minutes later he came back with time (I was in line between claim 2 and 3, so it was a bit of a hike for him.  He told me he’d used his air tag to find them.

 

We chatted with the people ahead of us.  Turns out she was on the roll call.  So it was nice to meet her.

 

The line went to the end of the hall and then made a U turn on the other side, leading to customs.  They were also holding people midway to allow clearance for porters, and were letting a batch of people through at a time.  

 

Eventually we got to customs, and because we were US citizens, we were cleared to enter and talk to an agent using a tablet to check us through.  He scanned our passports and we were out the door, approximately 90 minutes after leaving the ship.

 

It was about 11:55 and we found the cab line.  There were only about 6 couples ahead of us, so we decided to cab to the airport.

 

It took only about 10 minutes to clear that line, and we arrived at the airport just under two hours before our flight. 

 

We took our bags to the business class area, got them checked, and got our KTN (known traveler number) added, so we had TSA pre check.  That took about 10 minutes and we got to the gate (long walk) with enough time to grab some lunch.  Our flight left on time at 2:15 and was on time to LA at 5pm.

 

We’re here for two days, and then will board the Discovery Princess for a 5 day cruise to Cabo and back.  I will not be blogging it.

 

In conclusion, this was an outstanding cruise.  We made lots of new friends, and I’d go back to any of the ports in a heartbeat.  The ship was nice, the staff great. 

 

I may or may not blog the Crown Princess to Hawaii over Xmas, but I definitely will be back in February for the Solstice to the Mexican riviera.