Live (or Live-ish) from the Crown Princess Holiday Hawaii sailing

[LouChamp]

Aloha. Thank you for your pictures and comments.  Happy New Year!

[abbydancer2003]

HI,

 

I have not abandoned this.  We came back to most of our cable being out and have now spent hours on the phone with Xfinity.  Technician today seemed to break things more, and there's been some other stuff going on.  I'll get back to this soon.

Thanks for your understanding.

[XBGuy]

 A consequence of all the rains, no doubt.

Edited January 17, 2023 by XBGuy

[abbydancer2003]

On 1/17/2023 at 7:18 AM, XBGuy said:

 A consequence of all the rains, no doubt.

I wish.  Still down - in spite of closing my account and restarting it in my husband's name.

 

Anyway, I'll post the next day before I go to bed.

 

[abbydancer2003]

CrownDecember Day 11

 

Happy New year’s day!  We did a traditional New Years thing and slept in.    

 

We did breakfast at the buffet, and then headed to Adagio to read.  We decided to order some drinks.  Glen got a tea, and it arrived, but the lemon and sweetener did not.  I ordered a latte and it was awful.  We think it was made with bad milk.  I then ordered a second one, which was much better.

 

We decided to skip lunch, since neither one of us was particularly hungry.  So, I dropped my stuff in the room and went off to hula class.  I guess now that I have the skirt, I’m committed.

 

We’d ordered tea for the room at 4, but Eric was still under the weather, so it was the three of us.  We had a nice time and Carol brought some food back for Eric.

 

After that, we changed for dinner and ended up at the retreat lounge because we hadn’t had any food in so long (ha ha).  At 7ish, Eric met us at rock and roll trivia, which turned out to be a lot of early rock and roll songs.  We did pretty well and won.  More messenger bags.

 

After that it was dinner, and the plan was to try to be done by 9:30.  Eric went back to the room to rest, as he still was recovering.  We were seated in Liza’s section, which was nice.  I started with Corn Cakes with baked brie and Chutney.  Unfortunately it was a cold dish, so the corn cakes and brie weren’t good (would have been if hot) but the chutney was pretty good.  However, I switched to the potstickers, which were good.  I had roast beef for my main, and drambuie soufflé’s for dessert.

 

The odd corn cake appetizer:

 

And my very tasty roast beef:

 

We finished in time to go to the Beatle tribute show by Jesse Kezemak.  It was quite good, and I’d see him again (turns out I can).  Eric felt well enough to meet us there.

 

After the show, Eric and Glen both went back upstairs, and Carol and I took a walk.  We ended up chatting with a fellow passenger for a while.  She had some extra OBC, so I showed her how to use it in the casino.  After that we said good night.

 

Now Glen and I are figuring if we can finish the first two seasons of The Good Fight before we leave on Friday.

 

I finish with a picture of the night:

 

[abbydancer2003]

The fun here continues.  On the 16th, my mom, who lives near us and my sister, who lives in NY showed up.  (My mom was staying with her while we were on the cruise).  My sister was here to go to the US Figure Skating Championships with me, and then on the X Solstice.  4 days after they arrived, the Saturday before the Championship, my mom fell in her bathroom.  3 hours later, when she couldn't move her right leg without pain, we called 911, and she's been at the hospital ever since.  She broke the top of her femur, so they replaced it, and her being 90, it took over a week for her to recover from surgery.  We are very grateful that Glen took over hospital duty while we went to most of the skating.  Today, she finally went to a nice rehab facility near us, and Glen will take over rehab duty while we're on the cruise.

 

So that's been my last two weeks.  If you watched any of the men's figure skating, Jason Brown was even more incredible in person. 

 

My plan for this is to complete it tonight.  I may be missing a sea day or two, but they all blended together.  I'll post all the days I have through the end of the cruise.

 

Thanks for your patience and understanding.

 

[abbydancer2003]

CrownDecember Day 12 Sea Day 

 

Another sea day and chance to sleep in and have a late breakfast in the buffet.  We headed back to enjoy some relaxing time in our room, and by 1pm, when I should have gone to lunch in time for Hula, we weren’t hungry so once again, skipped it.  Dining room can take too long, and the buffet is getting boring, with pretty much the same stuff every day.  There’s not a lot of choice there.

 

I went to Hula and we’re getting down to the wire there.  Following that, we had pizza.  Their pizza remains very good.

 

Next stop an hour our two later was the Elite Lounge.  

 

We decided to go to the show before dinner.  Eric was back with us for this, and we got decent seats.  The show was Alfred & Seymour, who were billed as “comedians from the village of Beverly Hills”.  We were in the row of the center risers and there were two women in the front row with a very small child, who spent the first half of the show playing on a tablet.  The show was completely inappropriate for a small child, but my guess is he wasn’t listening.  I thought that the child should not have been there, and it’s rude to the people nearby to have the tablet on.  Whatever happened to common courtesy?  Midway through he moved to one of the laps.  The show was Ok, but urban comedy is not really our style. 

 

After that, we went to dinner, and were seated in the section we liked. It was Italian night, so  I started with Peach Bellini  soup which was good. For entree, I had the  breaded chicken (yummy with extra gravy).  I finished with the always available pineapple brûlée.  It was basically a creme brûlée with the addition of pineapple chunks on the bottom.  

 

 

 

 

 

Our plan was to go to the, probably final, We Play You Say game, but we had some time, so we walked around the promenade deck.  Glen decided, after the walk to go back to the room, but the other three of us headed to Explorers for the game.

 

It was hosted by two of the cruise staff.  We got our cards.  They started by a minute of asking which category the crowd wanted, and then they’d play the song once, do some joking around, and play it a second time.  Then, finally they’d reveal the answer.  The game was moving so slowly that in spite of having a perfect score so far we left, giving our card to some people nearby who came in late.  This is, I think, the first time any of us have walked out on a game, but it was so slow moving we had to.

 

I was on this ship in September and it was a different, and much better cruise staff.  This staff seems to think that their job is have fun together and hope the guests like what they do.  We didn’t.    

 

So after the game, it was goodnight and back to the room to work on finishing The Good Fight.

 

 

 

[abbydancer2003]

CrownDecember Day 14

 

Our last (or so we thought) sea day.  Note that I have nothing for day 13, other than the last rehearsal for the hula/ukulele show.

 

We started at the IC for coffee and pastry, and today they had almond croissants, my favorite croissant!  Yay!

 

First thing up for me was the rehearsal for the Aloha ‘Oe show - the hula and ukulele classes recital.  I was told to be there at 10:50 or so, and sit in the front rows.  I arrived on time, and joined a lot of people sitting there.  At about 11:20, the curtain opened and Tiki Dave and Leialoni (ukulele and hula teachers) started giving instructions.  First Dave placed the ukulele players, and then Leialoni placed us.  Basically she let us place ourselves based on how comfortable we were with the routines.  I put myself in the second row.  We then ran the show.  Rehearsal was supposed to end at noon, but the noon announcement came at about 11:58, so we had to pause, and finished around 12:10.

 

After that we went to the dining room for lunch.  There was a short line, and the asked about sharing.  I was a bit reluctant, because the show was at 2, but they told me there would be 5 of us at the table and no more.  It was nice and one of the other 5 was also in the show.  We both left at about 1:40.

 

I went up to the room and put on my brand new tropical skirt, and headed to the theater.  We went on stage at about 2:07.  Over all the show went well, and no major collisions, etc.

 

After the show I met Glen, Carol and Eric and we went to the IC for coffees.  There was no room to sit, so we decided to hang out in the Horizon Court.  Eric thought about going to the last rehearsal of the Pop Choir, but he’d missed so much that he thought it wouldn’t be fair.  We stayed until around 4, and then went back to the room.  We watched MSNBC for a while and then went to the lounge.

 

Following that we went to the second show of the Beatles guy with his wife colleen.  It was a fun show as he did stuff from the groups that influenced the Beatles.  

 

After that it was time for dinner, and we were once again seated in our favorite section of the dining room.  It was a Chef’s dinner and I had mushroom soup, beef with romesco sauce and finished with a salted caramel Pot d’Creme.

 

 

 

 

I did a bit more casino, and then back to the room where we finished watching the second season of The Good Fight.

 

Sadly, packing starts tomorrow.

 

 

[abbydancer2003]

CrownDecember Day 15  - Ensenada not

 

Awakened at 7:1t by an in cabin announcement from the Captain - as always, not good news.  Due to expected weather in the next 24 hours, we are leaving Ensenada after paperwork is completed - no passengers off the ship.  We were planning to have a late lunch with friends, but they’d sent a email saying they were getting over colds a couple of days earlier.  I guess it was for the best, since we weren’t staying.

 

We watched the Carnival Radiance leave, and we followed her out.

 

We didn’t do much in the morning, except read the new Patter that came out for the unexpected sea day.

 

 

We decided to try for lunch, since for the first time, no hula.  We went and the line wasn’t bad.  We were seated at a round table with two other couples.  It was a very pleasant way to finish out our last lunch of the cruise.  Glen ordered a BLT and this is what he got:

 

Smallest one I’ve ever seen.

 

We finished right around 2pm, so I headed back to my usual haunt for 2pm, Club Fusion to meet Carol for line dance.  

 

It was being run by the cruise staff guy who makes it up as he goes along, so not very fun.  So instead we went to the casino, and played for a little while.  Following that it was back upstairs where Carol gave me a bunch of princess messages bags we’d won and the second water bottle we’d won.  Whoopie.  

 

After that we went back to the room and packed.  I also called about a leftover laundry issue.  One of the days the count on tee shirts came back with the number crossed out, and one less written in.  After we got our last back last night, I realized I was missing a tee shirt.  

 

I talked to a supervisor, he said he’d look for it, but did ask me to go to guest services if it didn’t show up.

 

We met Carol in the lounge, as Eric wasn’t feeling well.  After having our drinks, we headed to the good bye trivia.  It was about the the cruise, and the Princess ships.  One of the questions was what ships does Princess have.  Turns out his list was about 5 years old.  We did come in second.

 

After trivia, we went to our last dinner.  I had asparagus, turkey and one of my favorite desserts, floating islands.

 

 

 

Fish someone else had:

 

I said goodbye to Carol and Glen went off to get some cash to pay her back for the Ialoni Palace tour.  After that, I noticed my missing shirt hadn’t shown up, so I went to guest services to fill out the form about it.  I did the form, and the rep said she’d give me OBC for the amount I was claiming.  It was after 10 pm, so the only thing still open was the casino.  So back I went.

 

After that, I went back to the room.  We put the bags out, and went to bed.  Another fun cruise in the books.

 

 

 

[abbydancer2003]

Crown December Day 16 bye-bye

 

We woke around 7:30 and leisurely got ready.  We left around 8:20 and said goodbye to our steward on the way out to Club Fusion.

 

We found a table and waited.  At some point Carol and Eric said they were heading off the ship (they do self disembarkation) and were going to the shuttle back to their hotel to get their car and drive home.  We said our fond farewell.

 

We chatted with a guy next to us for a bit.  Finally at about 9:40, our tag was called, so we left, saying goodbye to Vanessa on our way out.

 

As we were walking off the ship, our driver from Opoli called.  I said we’d be about 10 minutes, since there wasn’t much of a line.

 

We walked through the customs area thinking maybe no customs because we didn’t get off the ship in Ensenada?  We took the stairs down to the luggage area and found it was complete chaos.  We saw that our color was in a secondary room, and as we walked to the room, we were stopped and held outside for about 10-15 minutes.  They said there was no room.  A ton of people kept coming out, so I guess I could understand why they made us wait.  

 

Finally we got in, and there were still a lot of bags there.  I started to get worried because I sure didn’t see them.  Fortunately, Glen used the air tag in his and found both of them. 

 

We then headed towards the exit, and there was a short line where customs sometimes is.  But it was the facial recognition system so went very quickly.  During this process we heard from our driver, and he was over at the “white tent” which is at 92, and we were at 93.  I called him back once we were outside and told him where we were.  We eventually, at about 20 minutes past when we were supposed to meet him.  

 

Our flight was at 1:30, so 10:20 was fine.  There was a bit of traffic but we had a nice conversation with him on the way to the airport.  (We did give him a nice tip because he waited, and we appreciated it).

 

I think one of the reasons, probably the main one, disembarkation was such a mess was because the ship was about 95% of capacity, probably because it was a holiday sailing.  

 

And so a wrap.  Thanks for reading and for waiting.

 

 

[cruisequeen4ever]

It was fun to read about your cruise experience because we were on the parallel Royal Princess sailing. I don’t know if your captain said anything, but ours announced one time going to HI and one time coming back that we were parallel to you guys but too far to see you. We had to veer south due to the storms. It was cool to know you all were out there with us in the wild blue yonder. 
 

I’ve never heard of Opoli. Would you recommend it? I’m doing a cruise out of LA soon and am trying to decide on which transport service to use. 
 

I hope your mom heals well, and I hope you blog the Solstice cruise as that’s the one I’m soon doing. 

 

Thank you for sharing your experience!

[abbydancer2003]

3 hours ago, cruisequeen4ever said:

It was fun to read about your cruise experience because we were on the parallel Royal Princess sailing. I don’t know if your captain said anything, but ours announced one time going to HI and one time coming back that we were parallel to you guys but too far to see you. We had to veer south due to the storms. It was cool to know you all were out there with us in the wild blue yonder. 
 

I’ve never heard of Opoli. Would you recommend it? I’m doing a cruise out of LA soon and am trying to decide on which transport service to use. 
 

I hope your mom heals well, and I hope you blog the Solstice cruise as that’s the one I’m soon doing. 

 

Thank you for sharing your experience!

We had to go south on the outbound, and it did delay us a couple hours into Kauai.  Ours didn't mention the Crown.  At one point I had friends who were going to be on your cruise (they did something else instead), and I said we'd literally be ships passing in the night.

 

I use Opoli every time.  I first started using tm when they were part of Prime Time Shuttle, and were presented as a smaller car, with price savings, although now they also have bigger cars.  I've been very happy with them.

 

And I started the blog on the Solstice yesterday.

[Bettyboop66]

Thanks so much for taking us along on your cruise!! I’ve enjoyed reading all of your posts. My DH and I will be on the Crown starting in March for 28 days, so it’s been nice hearing about her. Best wishes for a speedy recovery for your mom!!

[cruisequeen4ever]

18 hours ago, abbydancer said:

We had to go south on the outbound, and it did delay us a couple hours into Kauai.  Ours didn't mention the Crown.  At one point I had friends who were going to be on your cruise (they did something else instead), and I said we'd literally be ships passing in the night.

 

I use Opoli every time.  I first started using tm when they were part of Prime Time Shuttle, and were presented as a smaller car, with price savings, although now they also have bigger cars.  I've been very happy with them.

 

And I started the blog on the Solstice yesterday.

Funny!

 

Ok, cool; thank you! I really liked that you can pre-book and know what you’re gonna get. I have used PrimeTime before so good to know the connection.

 

Yay; I’ll start following! Happy sailing! 😀