JamieLogical's Live from the Emerald Princess 12/18-01/02

[JamieLogical]

31 minutes ago, catgirl411 said:

It might be because we are in a mini suite but I love the closet hallway outside the bathroom. We also have a lot of shelf storage in the room across from the sofa.  Storage in this room in general is better than any of our Celebrity or even Oceania cabins.

 

I feel confident that is because you are in a mini suite. Those are much larger rooms than the normal balconies, which is what we are in and what we are nearly always in when we cruise, no matter what cruise line. I think the only time I wasn't in and normal balcony on a cruise was when I got a really good deal on a Sky Suite on Celebrity after the restart. Unlikely to do that again since the pricing is usually much too rich for my blood. So I can only compare a normal balcony on this ship to normal balconies on all the other ships I have sailed.

[sunviking90]

16 minutes ago, JamieLogical said:

 

I feel confident that is because you are in a mini suite. Those are much larger rooms than the normal balconies, which is what we are in and what we are nearly always in when we cruise, no matter what cruise line. I think the only time I wasn't in and normal balcony on a cruise was when I got a really good deal on a Sky Suite on Celebrity after the restart. Unlikely to do that again since the pricing is usually much too rich for my blood. So I can only compare a normal balcony on this ship to normal balconies on all the other ships I have sailed.

As far as I know the closet area is the same in a mini suite and a standard balcony cabin. We’ve cruised in both. The minisuites in the Emerald do have a lot of extra storage under the former TV cabinets though. 

[catgirl411]

Just now, sunviking90 said:

As far as I know the closet area is the same in a mini suite and a standard balcony cabin. We’ve cruised in both. The minisuites in the Emerald do have a lot of extra storage under the former TV cabinets though. 

Yep, I have been in a regular balcony cabin on Coral Princess and it had the same “dressing” area closet but the horrible shower that JamieLogical has described. In the mini suite you get a tub/shower that is pretty narrow but significantly better. And yes, the shelving where the tvs used to be is great.

[catgirl411]

Btw, hubby and I share the disappointment of not having the Bills game broadcast yesterday. We brought our Bills stuff hoping to see the game. But at least they won! Unfortunately the next game is Monday night and our flight doesn’t get back to Toronto until after 8 pm.it’s a 2 hour drive home so we will have to listen toWGR on the way home.

[JamieLogical]

2 hours ago, catgirl411 said:

Btw, hubby and I share the disappointment of not having the Bills game broadcast yesterday. We brought our Bills stuff hoping to see the game. But at least they won! Unfortunately the next game is Monday night and our flight doesn’t get back to Toronto until after 8 pm.it’s a 2 hour drive home so we will have to listen toWGR on the way home.

 

Our flight is supposed to get us into Rochester in time for the game. Fingers crossed we don't have any delays!

[JamieLogical]

Yesterday was Christmas! We decides we want to do a family breakfast in the MDR all together, so weet up with Matt & Meghann at 8:00. We had a lovely breakfast with grits and delicious grilled ham.

 

 

 

 

After breakfast, I thought I would try to get some laundry done. I figured no one would be spending Christmas morning doing laundry, so I wouldn't have much competition for the machines. Boy, was I wrong!

 

We are on Deck 15 (Lido deck) and there is no public laundromat on our floor. So first I lugged my laundry down to 14 then all the way to the aft of the ship (our room is forward of the forward elevators. When I opened the laundry room door, there were already 3-4 people crammed in there using the 2 washing machines and 2 dryers that I guess are supposed to be shared by everyone on decks 14 and 15.

 

I decided to go down to the next deck. Then the next, then the next. On 14, 12, and 11, the laundry room was in between the mid ship and aft elevators. When I got to 10, there was no laundry room in that spot, so I pulled up the deck plan and found that on 10, the laundromat is forward, right near the forward elevators and spans the full width of the ship, so there are twice as many machines.

 

When I got there, one of the dryers was out of order (I had noticed out of order machines in some of the other laundry rooms as well). All of the machines were in use, but I was very hot and tired from carrying all my laundry all over the ship at that point and there was an empty chair, so I decided to wait for a washer to open up.

 

While I waited I went ahead and acquired the necessary tokens to complete my wash. You need big tokens for the washers and dryers and little tokens for detergent and dryer sheets. The machine at the first token I tried to use to buy detergent, so I had to then purchase another token. The whole token buying process seemed to confuse everyone who came through the laundry room.

 

As I waited, several other people came through searching for empty machines. Right as the first washer opened up, the lady was unloading it and these two other women came in and acted like they were going to load their stuff in and I jumped up and said no no no. I had been waiting for a machine for a good 15 minutes at that point. Fortunately the woman who was unloading it had seen me waiting and those other women just walking in and made sure I got access to the machine first.

 

The fact that one of the dryers was out of order was really gumming up the works. The dryers already took longer than the washers and there were 4 loads in washers at any given time, but only 3 dryers to transfer them into. Fortunately I was doing a load of darks and a load of lights and they were small enough that I could combine them into one dryer when it got to be my turn.

 

 

In all, it took me just under 3 hours from the time I finished breakfast to the time I had a hamper of clean laundry. Then I had to get up the elevators, which turned out to be a whole other thing. There are 4 forward elevators. One had been out of service the whole cruise, so really there were 3. Well yesterday morning, another one went out of service, so we were down to 2. I waited and waited and waited and finally an up elevator came, but it was already full. By the time the next one came, there was quite a crowd gathered and waiting for it. I was ready to tackle someone to get on that elevator. I was soooo done.

 

I got my laundry put away just in time for lunch. We had a vague notion of doing the MDR for lunch, but when we got down there, there was a line all the way down the hallway, almost to the casino. We had somewhere to be at 1:00, so it was up to the buffet for us. I think lunch has been the most disappointing meal in the buffet this cruise. I scrounged up something, but I think I will stick to MDR, Slice, or Salty Dog from now on.

 

After lunch, we had to get back to the room and change, because Matt & Meghann had gotten ups reservations at the Sanctuary as a Christmas gift. We met up with the. There and lounged for the full afternoon. It was less shady than I anticipated, but the lounger was comfy, they brought us lunch (if only I had known!), high tea at 3:00, and drinks throughout. It was quite pleasant. Also, despite being hot outside, there was a strong breeze at the top of the ship that kept it comfortable.

 

 

I was a little disappointed that the pool up there was closed, but not shocked. The ship was rocking and rolling and the water was sloshing *everywhere*. They had blowers trying to dry out the carpet inside the spa. But we were able to get into a hot tub for as long as we could bear it.

 

I used the restroom inside the spa before getting in the hot tub and it was the only "modern" bathroom I had been in on this ship. It looked like the bathrooms on the newer or revolutionized Celebrity ships or the Breakaway & Breakaway Plus class ships on NCL. Made me rather homesick for those two lines.

 

After having gotten on a wait-list for specialty dining, since everything was booked up for the full cruise. This resulted in us having a 5:30pm reservation for Crown Grill suddenly show up on our account. We had our reservation at the Sanctuary until 5:00, but ended up leaving a smidge early so I could acquire coffee and get changed.

 

I ordered coffee to be delivered to my room as I was leaving the Sanctuary with the hope that I could drink it while I was getting ready for dinner. Needless to say, that did not happen. I was hesitant to actually change my clothes while waiting, so I did everything I could think of to get ready aside from undressing. Eventually I ran out of those things to do and Clayton got back to the room, so I had him on door duty while I changed. Then I was on door duty while he changed. And then we got to the point where we thought we might not get the coffee before we had to leave for dinner and I was just about to cancel the order when it showed up.

 

I drank it as quickly as I could, since it wasn't in a to go cup, and then we got down to Explorer's Lounge to pick up a pre-dinner drink.

 

Dinner in Crown Grill was great. We were one of only 4 parties there, so I don't know what the deal is with reservations. I guess just a staffing issue so they can't seat more tables? No idea. But it was nice and quiet and all the food was excellent. The service was great!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I am glad we still have our reservation on the 27th as well. After dinner we went to the Effy store because there is this long running joke that Clayton needs to buy me jewelry on this cruise. But then my stomach turned against me so it was back to the room.

 

 

We watched the very Christmas-y movie, Maulin Rouge and went to bed.

 

Day's Drinks: Mimosa, Mojito x2, French 75, Lemon Drop x2

[megaphone84]

22 hours ago, JamieLogical said:

“I had a special holiday cocktail called a Merry Berry and Meghann had some horrifying green Martini called a Grinch, I believe?”

The Grinch was not that bad! Looked way worse than it tasted!

 

in re below- can confirm; very drunk- truly we made the most of that night and man that pizza saved my life! 

 

22 hours ago, JamieLogical said:

 

We decided that pizza was the better option, so we went up to Slice. Then we all were very drunk and went back to our rooms to pass out.

 

[nini]

1 hour ago, JamieLogical said:

Yesterday was Christmas! We decides we want to do a family breakfast in the MDR all together, so weet up with Matt & Meghann at 8:00. We had a lovely breakfast with grits and delicious grilled ham.

 

 

 

 

After breakfast, I thought I would try to get some laundry done. I figured no one would be spending Christmas morning doing laundry, so I wouldn't have much competition for the machines. Boy, was I wrong!

 

We are on Deck 15 (Lido deck) and there is no public laundromat on our floor. So first I lugged my laundry down to 14 then all the way to the aft of the ship (our room is forward of the forward elevators. When I opened the laundry room door, there were already 3-4 people crammed in there using the 2 washing machines and 2 dryers that I guess are supposed to be shared by everyone on decks 14 and 15.

 

I decided to go down to the next deck. Then the next, then the next. On 14, 12, and 11, the laundry room was in between the mid ship and aft elevators. When I got to 10, there was no laundry room in that spot, so I pulled up the deck plan and found that on 10, the laundromat is forward, right near the forward elevators and spans the full width of the ship, so there are twice as many machines.

 

When I got there, one of the dryers was out of order (I had noticed out of order machines in some of the other laundry rooms as well). All of the machines were in use, but I was very hot and tired from carrying all my laundry all over the ship at that point and there was an empty chair, so I decided to wait for a washer to open up.

 

While I waited I went ahead and acquired the necessary tokens to complete my wash. You need big tokens for the washers and dryers and little tokens for detergent and dryer sheets. The machine at the first token I tried to use to buy detergent, so I had to then purchase another token. The whole token buying process seemed to confuse everyone who came through the laundry room.

 

As I waited, several other people came through searching for empty machines. Right as the first washer opened up, the lady was unloading it and these two other women came in and acted like they were going to load their stuff in and I jumped up and said no no no. I had been waiting for a machine for a good 15 minutes at that point. Fortunately the woman who was unloading it had seen me waiting and those other women just walking in and made sure I got access to the machine first.

 

The fact that one of the dryers was out of order was really gumming up the works. The dryers already took longer than the washers and there were 4 loads in washers at any given time, but only 3 dryers to transfer them into. Fortunately I was doing a load of darks and a load of lights and they were small enough that I could combine them into one dryer when it got to be my turn.

 

 

In all, it took me just under 3 hours from the time I finished breakfast to the time I had a hamper of clean laundry. Then I had to get up the elevators, which turned out to be a whole other thing. There are 4 forward elevators. One had been out of service the whole cruise, so really there were 3. Well yesterday morning, another one went out of service, so we were down to 2. I waited and waited and waited and finally an up elevator came, but it was already full. By the time the next one came, there was quite a crowd gathered and waiting for it. I was ready to tackle someone to get on that elevator. I was soooo done.

 

I got my laundry put away just in time for lunch. We had a vague notion of doing the MDR for lunch, but when we got down there, there was a line all the way down the hallway, almost to the casino. We had somewhere to be at 1:00, so it was up to the buffet for us. I think lunch has been the most disappointing meal in the buffet this cruise. I scrounged up something, but I think I will stick to MDR, Slice, or Salty Dog from now on.

 

After lunch, we had to get back to the room and change, because Matt & Meghann had gotten ups reservations at the Sanctuary as a Christmas gift. We met up with the. There and lounged for the full afternoon. It was less shady than I anticipated, but the lounger was comfy, they brought us lunch (if only I had known!), high tea at 3:00, and drinks throughout. It was quite pleasant. Also, despite being hot outside, there was a strong breeze at the top of the ship that kept it comfortable.

 

 

I was a little disappointed that the pool up there was closed, but not shocked. The ship was rocking and rolling and the water was sloshing *everywhere*. They had blowers trying to dry out the carpet inside the spa. But we were able to get into a hot tub for as long as we could bear it.

 

I used the restroom inside the spa before getting in the hot tub and it was the only "modern" bathroom I had been in on this ship. It looked like the bathrooms on the newer or revolutionized Celebrity ships or the Breakaway & Breakaway Plus class ships on NCL. Made me rather homesick for those two lines.

 

After having gotten on a wait-list for specialty dining, since everything was booked up for the full cruise. This resulted in us having a 5:30pm reservation for Crown Grill suddenly show up on our account. We had our reservation at the Sanctuary until 5:00, but ended up leaving a smidge early so I could acquire coffee and get changed.

 

I ordered coffee to be delivered to my room as I was leaving the Sanctuary with the hope that I could drink it while I was getting ready for dinner. Needless to say, that did not happen. I was hesitant to actually change my clothes while waiting, so I did everything I could think of to get ready aside from undressing. Eventually I ran out of those things to do and Clayton got back to the room, so I had him on door duty while I changed. Then I was on door duty while he changed. And then we got to the point where we thought we might not get the coffee before we had to leave for dinner and I was just about to cancel the order when it showed up.

 

I drank it as quickly as I could, since it wasn't in a to go cup, and then we got down to Explorer's Lounge to pick up a pre-dinner drink.

 

Dinner in Crown Grill was great. We were one of only 4 parties there, so I don't know what the deal is with reservations. I guess just a staffing issue so they can't seat more tables? No idea. But it was nice and quiet and all the food was excellent. The service was great!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I am glad we still have our reservation on the 27th as well. After dinner we went to the Effy store because there is this long running joke that Clayton needs to buy me jewelry on this cruise. But then my stomach turned against me so it was back to the room.

 

 

We watched the very Christmas-y movie, Maulin Rouge and went to bed.

 

Day's Drinks: Mimosa, Mojito x2, French 75, Lemon Drop x2

 

So very true; I have learned to not do laundry on a sea day. We were on the Emerald in May and I went up to the Aloha deck to do mine and was shocked at how this was the smallest laundry room I have ever been in on Princess! It was the quarantine deck but it was open. Somehow I waited for a washer and gave up on drying our clothes. I just hung them up in our room.

The laundry rooms quiet down much later in the day.

[XBGuy]

5 hours ago, JamieLogical said:

 

The fact that one of the dryers was out of order was really gumming up the works. The dryers already took longer than the washers and there were 4 loads in washers at any given time, but only 3 dryers to transfer them into. Fortunately I was doing a load of darks and a load of lights and they were small enough that I could combine them into one dryer when it got to be my turn.

 

 

 

 

A tip to future Princess cruises using the self-service laundry rooms.  Yes, the dryers do seem to be slow.  When using the dryer at home, I always clean the lint filter before starting a load.  On our very first Princess cruise, I took a load of laundry to one of the self-service facilities.  When I pulled the lint filter out of the dryer I could not believe the amount of lint that was trapped on it.  There was no way that air could flow through it.  Your laundry may still not dry as fast as you would like--similar to the "watched pot never boils" phenomenon--but cleaning that lint filter will help.

 

[sunviking90]

8 hours ago, XBGuy said:

 

A tip to future Princess cruises using the self-service laundry rooms.  Yes, the dryers do seem to be slow.  When using the dryer at home, I always clean the lint filter before starting a load.  On our very first Princess cruise, I took a load of laundry to one of the self-service facilities.  When I pulled the lint filter out of the dryer I could not believe the amount of lint that was trapped on it.  There was no way that air could flow through it.  Your laundry may still not dry as fast as you would like--similar to the "watched pot never boils" phenomenon--but cleaning that lint filter will help.

 

On the Emerald in November a crew member came in the room regularly to empty the lint traps. They were very diligent.

I’m surprised to hear some machines are still out of order as this was the case for us too. There are so few machines too. The laundry rooms on the Royal class are much larger.

[graphicguy]

On 12/25/2022 at 9:24 PM, JamieLogical said:

 

Our flight is supposed to get us into Rochester in time for the game. Fingers crossed we don't have any delays!

I’m actually going to be at that game.  Looking forward to it!

[JamieLogical]

17 hours ago, XBGuy said:

 

A tip to future Princess cruises using the self-service laundry rooms.  Yes, the dryers do seem to be slow.  When using the dryer at home, I always clean the lint filter before starting a load.  On our very first Princess cruise, I took a load of laundry to one of the self-service facilities.  When I pulled the lint filter out of the dryer I could not believe the amount of lint that was trapped on it.  There was no way that air could flow through it.  Your laundry may still not dry as fast as you would like--similar to the "watched pot never boils" phenomenon--but cleaning that lint filter will help.

 

 

I learned LONG ago when I lived in apartments and had shared laundromats, always check the lint filter before starting a load in the dryer. Also living with my husband, he doesn't always remember to clean out the lint trap. I should just be thankful he does his own laundry! 

[JamieLogical]

Yesterday was a port day, Puntarenas, Costa Rica. We did not have an excursion booked because the Sloth Sanctuary excursion I wanted to do was sold out and I hemmed and hawed about another excursion until it was too late. Matt & Meghann originally had an excursion booked but ended up cancelling it when they realized it would be almost 6 hours on a bus to get to/from the actual excursion.

 

So the four of us decided to just get off the ship and wander around a bit. We did breakfast in the buffet, got out sun screen on, and headed out onto shore around 10:00. We knew there wouldn't be much to do, because mose of the attractions and activities for this port are long drive onto the mainland, as Puntarenas is a long archipelago.

 

 

 

Meghann had heard that there was an open air market near the pier so when a nice lady offered us a free map of the area and didn't actually try to sell us anything (I think maybe she was the official welcome/information person?), we asked her where the market was and she pointed us in the right direction. The market was really all just the typical tourist souvenirs. We walked quite a ways down the street that ran along the beach. We saw lots of ads for something called. "Churchill". Eventually we asked a woman in an ice cream truck what a Churchill was and learned it was some kind of crazy combination of snow cone and actual ice cream and loaded with fresh fruit and fruit flavored syrup.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Eventually we got tired of walking and decided we needed to find a place for a drink so we walked back towards the ship and found a place along the beach that had a guy outside passing out cocktail menus. We all had two rounds of drinks, watching some random cats walk/lie around.

 

 

 

After we had cooled off ever-so-slightly, we headed off to find a super

market that Meghann had looked up as we needed more sun screen and some bug spray. Rumor is the mosquitos are bad in Panama and Columbia, so we wanted to be prepared for that. The supermarket was definitely in a seedier part of town, but we all felt perfectly safe. There were a few other tourists shopping there as well. We found out required items as well as some chocolate cookies and some lemon shandies. We had learned earlier that Puntarenas allows open containers. Apparently they even allow drinking and driving, but not driving while drunk? So we opened our shandies and walked back toward the ship.

 

 

Matt was determined to try a Churchill, so we found place near the ship and ordered one with four spoons so we could share. On the top, there were apple slices in vanilla ice cream. A layer down was one kind of red snow cone with slices of banana. Below that there was a layer of loose powdered milk? Not mixes in, just the actual powder? Most of us have up at that point, but Matt persisted. Oh, they also gave us a side of just straight sweetened condensed milk that I guess we were supposed to have poured over the top?

 

 

By this point, we were all melting from the heat. None of us can comprehend how humans actually live so near the equator. Having all grown up in Western NY, Ohio, and Michigan, none of us have very high heat tolerance.

 

Back on the ship, we went our separate ways to shower and cool off. I had offered to do Clayton's laundry if he paid what he would have paid the crew to do it. There don't seem to be any by-the-bag laundry specials on Princess? You have to pay by the item, so you could imagine that adding up quickly!

 

So after my shower, I went down to the laundry room to get his laundry started, hopeful that with it being a port day and the shortest excursions being 5 hours, it wouldn't be as packed as the previous day. I was right. I was able to get both loads of his laundry started right away. Though it did get crowded a little later when his last load was in the dryer. At one point there were 7 people in there.

 

While the last dryer was going, I ran up to get some pizza from Slice as it was nearly 3:00 and I hadn't had lunch yet. I had already been warned that the food selection on the buffet wasn't great. After I ate and we finished up the laundry, we headed to the Wheelhouse for some card/board games. We had some drinks delivered via the Medallion app since the bar in the Wheelhouse wasn't open yet and we had a lot of fun. We all eventually quit though when Clayton got his third Yahtzee in a single game of Yahtzee!

 

We headed to the MDR for some dinner. I was really looking forward to this one because they had Goat Cheese Souffle on the menu. On Celebrity they have a blue cheese souffle on the menu and I hoped this would be similar. There were also some other fancy options, so everyone was excited.

 

Things went sideways quickly when I ordered a Lemon Drop while Meghann ordered a Sidecar. They brought us out two drinks that looked identical, except one had a twist of lemon peel in it and the other didn't. I tasted my "Lemon Drop" and it was disgusting. I had my husband taste it, as he knew what a Sidecar tasted like and it was in fact just a Sidecar with a twist of lemon. So I asked the server for a Lemon Drop again and did eventually receive the correct drink.

 

My appetizer was quite good. It was a little puff pastry bowl filled with shrimp and lobster with a bisque-type liquid as a sauce. My "souffle" was definitely a disappointment. It wasn't at all what I anticipated. While it had some cheese in it, it was mostly made out of cauliflower, which wasn't in the description at all. Meanwhile, Meghann's salmon was overcooked and Clayton's rack of lamb was dangerously undercooked.

 

 

 

 

 

We had to wait a VERY long time for them to clear our dinner plates and even longer for them to take out dessert order. As we were waiting for dessert, someone at the table next to us received something that looked exactly what I expected the goat cheese souffle to look like. After some conversation with their server, who was not our server, I found out that what I had received for my entree wasn't the cheese souffle at all! I have been given completely the wrong entree. And by then I was full and there was nothing to be done about it. I was so sad I wanted to actually cry. Had I not found out that a real cheese souffle had been an option, I would have just chalked it up to not being what I expected. But once I knew I had wasted my meal and missed out on one if my favorite foods, I was really upset. The worst was that the servers didn't even apologize for having given me the wrong food!

 

After dinner we went to Explorer's Lounge for a gameshow called Top, Middle, Bottom. We had no idea what it would be, but Clayton ended up being the second contestant and he won! His prizes were a string backpack, a notebook, and a single coaster.

 

 

 

 

 

After the gameshow we went to the Wheelhouse and had a couple more drinks and listened to the string duo again. Then it was up for some late night pizza at Slice. Everyone was pretty tired by that point, so we went our separate ways and I headed to the casino for a bit.

 

Day's Drinks: Mojito x2, Damm Lemon Shandy, Mojito, Gin Daisy, Side Car/Lemon Drop, French 75, Lemon Drop, Gin Daisy

[Robbie555]

I sailed the 12/3 - 12/18 Emerald Princess sailing from Fort Lauderdale to Los Angeles and it looks like there's some similarities such as two women violinists. But there are differences as well as there was no lecture about the Golden State Killer and instead, there were several lectures about outer space in the Princess theatre.

 

Talking to the main cruise director for the 12/3 sailing, JC, he said that he won't be on the 12/18 so you have another cruise director. 

 

These are the names of the assistant cruise directors on my 12/3 sailing:

 

Shell   (who co-hosted the daily wake show with JC)

Manuel  (who hosted the 7-day progressive trivia games)

Georgia

Lucia

Josie

 

Were any of them in your sailing?

[Robbie555]

Looking at your prizes, here's a re-post for the 12/18 Emerald Princess Roll Call thread.

 

Here's a challenge - Try to win at least type of each award presented by the ship:

 

1. Champagne bottle

2. Blue Princess coaster

3. Blue Princess notebook

4. Gray Princess bag

5. Princess medal

 

Looking at your pictures, I see you already won a coaster, notebook, and bag. Now, try to win a champagne bottle and a medal.

 

In my case, I won three champagne bottles - one I sipped throughout the sailing, a second I brought to dinner with my new friends, and a third I took home. For coasters, I won so many while playing the many trivia games that I actually gave them away to other passengers who didn't win. And the Princess medal was the most elusive because they are not presented while playing trivia and instead, are awarded from the sports contests. Attached is a subset of all the awards that I won.

 

Playing the 7-day progressive trivia, the top 5 teams won a bag of souvenirs including a champagne bottle and my team placed on the top 5 out of 20 teams. Are you playing that progressive trivia?

 

 

 

[rideev]

3 hours ago, Robbie555 said:

 

 

 

Shell   (who co-hosted the daily wake show with JC)

Manuel  (who hosted the 7-day progressive trivia games)

Georgia

Lucia

Josie

 

Were any of them in your sailing?

All.  Dave is the CD.  Andrew joined the shop in Huatulco, I believe.

[XBGuy]

15 hours ago, sunviking90 said:

On the Emerald in November a crew member came in the room regularly to empty the lint traps. They were very diligent.

I’m surprised to hear some machines are still out of order as this was the case for us too. There are so few machines too. The laundry rooms on the Royal class are much larger.

 

I'm glad to hear that report.  Either Princess has upgraded their policy, or the Hotel Manager on the Emerald Princess has installed his own policy.

 

6 hours ago, JamieLogical said:

 

I learned LONG ago when I lived in apartments and had shared laundromats, always check the lint filter before starting a load in the dryer. Also living with my husband, he doesn't always remember to clean out the lint trap. I should just be thankful he does his own laundry! 

 

Yup, that would do it.  😉

[Robbie555]

1 hour ago, rideev said:

All.  Dave is the CD.  Andrew joined the shop in Huatulco, I believe.

Okay then. Here's a preview of a show towards the end of the sailing - Read My Lips. You can see if they are still wearing the same costumes.

 

 

[Robbie555]

1 hour ago, rideev said:

Dave is the CD.

So I suppose Dave is hosting the daily morning wake show held on the second floor of the atrium. The taping is actually the morning before and I've watched the taping.

 

Is Dave hosting it by himself or are others co-hosting the show with him?

 

In my sailing, the cruise ship director was named JC and he was assisted by Shell.

 

 

 

[JamieLogical]

Yesterday was a sea day. We were all feeling a little digestive distress in the morning so we took it easy. Clayton and I did eventually make it to the buffet for some light breakfast. I was excited they had beef tapa again, even though it might not have been the wisest choice.

 

Once we were fed and feeling a little better, Clayton and I went down to hang out and play some cards in the Wheelhouse, which has become the unofficial game room on the ship. Nearly every table there had people playing board games or card games yesterday.

 

At one point I got up to get some water or use the restroom and as I came back inside, I saw the sign advertising the Salty Dog Gastropub! It said it would be open. From 5:30 to 9:30! Of course, we had a reservation at Crown Grill last night, but I was hopeful this meant Salty Dog would be open the rest of the cruise.

 

 

As it got to be noon, we checked the menu for the MDR lunch and we're unimpressed. We decided to order food through the Medallion app to be delivered to us at the Wheelhouse. I ordered the kids menu cheese quesadilla and a side of potato chips, thinking I wanted something simple and light for my stomach. Well, the quesadilla arrived and it was made with SWISS cheese! Who even does that?!?! Plus, there didn't bring me my chips. It just so happens that Swiss cheese is the only cheese I dislike on its own. I am okay with it on a Ruben or something, but just by itself melted inside a tortilla. No thanks. I managed two bites of it and gave up and went up to the buffet.

 

Unfortunately there was nothing great looking on the buffet either. I opted to go to Slice yet again for a piece of plain cheese pizza. While the food on this ship had been incredibly inconsistent, you can always rely on the pizza. While I was getting my pizza, Clayton texted me that they had finally brought my chips. So I took my pizza back down to the Wheelhouse when Clayton had happily consumed his club sandwich, which he said was good, as well as half my chips.

 

After lunch, I decided to try to take a nap and I found a cruise duck on my way back to the room! Matt was also napping, so Meghann and Clayton met up for some games. I eventually woke up and joined them and then Matt joined us a bit later. We played games and drank some drinks and had a nice time until dinner.

 

 

While we were hanging out in the Wheelhouse, we found out that the Salty Dog Gastropub wasn't actually going to open until the 29th, but they were taking reservations at the bar. So we made reservations for both the 29th and the 1st.

 

We were all excited about our Crown Grill reservations and headed over there a bit early. We found the photos of the four of us from the Christmas Eve formal night and inquired about buying copies. I have never bought photos on a cruise ship before, so this will be a first. We are going to hold off until the New Years' eve though to see if those come out any better.

 

We didn't get seated with the same server as last time at Crown Grill, which was initially a little disappointing, but our new server was great! I got the tiger prawn appetizer, which was quite yummy. Turns out I like papaya. I also got the onion soup again, because it was so delicious the first time. It did not disappoint. For my entree, I had the filet. This is where things went off the rails a bit. I ordered medium well and, to me it seemed medium rare at best? At least the jux and the fries were delicious and I made myself a bit of a steak frites situation.

 

 

 

 

Before dessert, out server offered us a drink called Amarula, which was delicious. It was like Bailey's, but about 12 times better? Going to have to see if I can find it when I get home.

 

 

For dessert, Clayton and I shared the Triple Chocolate Treasure, which ended up being a bit too nutty for me. But no complaints, as I was already full.

 

 

After dinner we headed to Club Fusion, because there was going to be Karaoke again finally. Though, it was only scheduled for 45 minutes. There was some steel drum player on there before the Karaoke for an hour plus and all of 4 couples dancing. I cannot, for the life of me, understand why they pay performers to do live music for hours that draws a grand total of 8 people in the audience and then they offer so little karaoke and for such limited amounts of time, when it draws huge crowds and theoretically costs then almost nothing, because it's just passengers entertaining themselves. There were literally over 100 people there and a huge line to sign up, though the sign-ups filled up before the event even officially started.

 

Someone we asked said it's because the cruise director staff has so many places to be. But I don't understand why any of the cruise director staff need to "host" karaoke. On NCL, the DJ just says the name of the next person performing and pushes the buttons to start the songs. No hosting necessary.

 

Anyway, Clayton, Meghann, and I performed the first song of the evening, Don't Stop Believin'. Then Matt performed Yoda, by Weird Al, which was amazing. We had a fun time and there was a good mix of performances.

 

 

After Karaoke, we went to Explorer's Lounge for a night cap and Matt and Clayton when off to bed while Meghann and I stayed up a little later, eventually getting late-night pizza just before Slice closed at 11:00. Then I headed to the casino for a bit and then bed.

 

Night's Drinks: Mimosa, Mojito, Vodka Sour, Gin Daisy x2, Lemon Drop x2, Amarula, Vodka Sour, Sicilian Kiss

 

 

[sonomaphil]

1 hour ago, JamieLogical said:

 For my entree, I had the filet. This is where things went off the rails a bit. I ordered medium well and, to me it seemed medium rare at best?

All your credibility has been lost with you ordering a filet medium well.  😆😁

[JamieLogical]

1 minute ago, sonomaphil said:

All your credibility has been lost with you ordering a filet medium well.  😆😁

 

Yeah... I knew that was coming.

[Robbie555]

3 hours ago, JamieLogical said:

Clayton and I went down to hang out and play some cards in the Wheelhouse, which has become the unofficial game room on the ship. Nearly every table there had people playing board games or card games yesterday.

Speaking of board games and card games, I'm sure you know that the board games are kept in a cabinet in the Library. Did you check out the Library and take out the various board games available (chess, checkers, backgammon, pictionary, etc.)

 

And in my sailing, on two occasions the cabinet which contained the board games also contained a new stack (~20) of playing cards. Within one day, they were all snatched. So if you need playing cards of your own, then be sure to check out that cabinet daily. 

[JamieLogical]

4 minutes ago, Robbie555 said:

Speaking of board games and card games, I'm sure you know that the board games are kept in a cabinet in the Library. Did you check out the Library and take out the various board games available (chess, checkers, backgammon, pictionary, etc.)

 

And in my sailing, on two occasions the cabinet which contained the board games also contained a new stack (~20) of playing cards. Within one day, they were all snatched. So if you need playing cards of your own, then be sure to check out that cabinet daily. 

 

Literally one half of our checked bagged was just board games and card games. Matt & Meghann also brought a bunch, so I think we will be okay!

 

 

[rideev]

On 12/27/2022 at 4:16 PM, Robbie555 said:

So I suppose Dave is hosting the daily morning wake show held on the second floor of the atrium. The taping is actually the morning before and I've watched the taping.

 

Is Dave hosting it by himself or are others co-hosting the show with him?

 

In my sailing, the cruise ship director was named JC and he was assisted by Shell.

 

 

 

Shell is leaving at the end of this contract.  That's why they brought in Andrew.  This is his first contract.  He does a great job already.