Recife

Well we made it to Recife and it was worth the stop.  We both throughly enjoyed the day, be it hot and sticky.

Our privet tour, was suppose to leave at 8 AM, so we had to meet at 7:30 which called for a 6 AM wake up,,,, ugh,, and then the driver was late!  He didn't get there until 9:30, by that time we were all a wee bit aggravated and just about snagged another driver when he showed up.  He did agree to cut the price of our tour by $15.00 each and still take us where we had scheduled to go, to make up.

So we were off on the city tour and a tour of Olinda, very pretty.

The roads are all cobble stone, and the houses all have to stay the way they are archaically, but the people are allowed to paint them what ever color they choose, so it makes for a very colorful community.

They were getting ready for Carnival (Saturday) and that made the traffic horrendous, and the driver had to back up going down some steep hills to make room for trucks carrying huge paper-mache statues.

We went to Ground 0, where Recife started and then we went to the Old Prison, famous now for having lots of little shops in the old Cells.  We managed to find some goodies in the shops there.  As Ed found a very nice jewelry store,,,, just couldn't say no.  :)  So I am now the proud owner of some beautiful fire opal earrings and a spectacular blue topaz necklace, that reminded him of a stone, he bought 50 years ago.

We got back to the ship about 2:30, hot, sweaty and hungry, as we hadn't eaten anything all day except an apple.  So we showered and ordered some lunch and took a nap.

Sail-away, was late, as some of the tours didn't get back, but when it did happen we got to see the Seaborn Quest leave before us.  It was beautiful.

We have two sea days and then it is Rio right in the hart of Carnival!

3rd Sea Day

Feb 24, 2014

Ok here it is the third sea day, and I know I haven't posted anything since the 20th, so I will try to catch y'all up on all the happenings.  I know there are people that find sea days boring, I am not one of them.  It has been pretty much non stop for the last 2 1/2 days.  So I will start where I left off with Trinidad.

Feb, 21

Trinidad & Tobago;  We never saw Tobago, it is too far away,

but we took a tour in Trinidad, it was nice, we went to Mount St. Benedict's Monastery, our tour began with a drive past the Red House, the seat of Parliament, and the Magnificent Seven, a group of extravagant and eccentrically designed mansions.  Only trouble was they were all being refurbished, so all we really say was scaffolding and fences, oh well so it goes.  After going up a VERY NERROW mountain road we made it to the top of the mountain and arrived at the Monastery, and the Pax Guest house, where they fed us some wonderful cake and juice and tea, THAT was very nice.  Then it was down the mountain, to the Royal Botanic Gardens, where we saw some interesting plants and trees, but really didn't have the opportunity to explore this very much.

The bad news was that they rushed us to the busses, so we didn't get to see the dancers on the pier and when we got back they were gone.  So no pictures of "Carnival" dancers here.

More Barbarous

These photos below are some of the things we saw. The first one is our view on arrival.
Then the next one is of the front of a big plantation.

Then a resident goat, which they have many!

Then the next was a chattel house. They are almost all gone.

Then is the rocks that look like mushrooms. Now if I could just remember how to use the Blogger, we would do this better.

We are off to dinner at the crown grill tonight, to celebrate John and Carol's anniversary.

Later

Barbarous

We have spent a windy beautiful day in Barbarous, this is a beautiful island, and we saw parts of it that we has not seen before.

We took the tour to the other side of the island, called the Scotland District known as the Highlands. With a locally famous photographer Ronnie Carrington. We had a great driver and with the roads we went over I'm glad. We were defiantly off the Beaton path. We visited the the quaint fishing village of Bathsheba, and Bathsheba beach where wind waves and time have managed to sculpt giant mushroom shaped rocks. I think I got some good photos, and I will try to post them in a minute.

I just bought some high speed minutes here at the port and if I had been thinking I would have logged in on the computer, and not the iPad, but I wasn't thinking😜. So I will see if I can use that. Not sure.

Feb 19 2014

Today it was Antiqua, and it was a good day.  We got up early and had breakfast thin it was off to the tour to the Nelson Dock yards.  The Photo above is of the Dock Yards.  Today they have lots of sailboat races there, and there are some HUGE sailboats.  It was an interesting place and a interesting drive in the little bus.  The ride wasn't much to see, lots of very poor areas, but the people on the bus, were almost all from Austral and they were a real kick!

We got back to the town early and found some postcards and got caught in the rain, but had fun then it was sail away before we knew it.  John and Carol joined us on the balcony to say good-by to Antiqua, and Ed and I went up to the Crab Shack for dinner talk about good!  But the internet is giving me fits so that will be another day.

Tomorrow Barbados and a Photo tour,,, himmm

St. Thomas

Feb 18, 2014  St. Thomas 

We arrived St. Thomas, this morning about 7 AM, it was a beautiful sail in, LOTS of sailboats in the harbor.  We docked at Crown Bay, this was a fist for Ed and I.  The Celebrity Reflection, and the Carnival Inspiration were docked at Havens Gate so there was no room for us.  That was ok as we had a nice breakfast and then headed out to do some shopping.  

We took one of the little buses, to town and started walking.  We didn’t shop very long, as having been here so many times in the past, there wasn’t much to buy, if you didn’t want to buy alcohol  or jewelry!  And I was keeping Ed out if Imperial Jewelers!  We will be back next January!  Any way we came back to the ship about one and we have now had room service on our balcony.  Now Ed is playing with his new toy, he bought the Go Pro.  He has been looking at it for some time, and the price was right here, and they through in a nice 36 GB card to go with it.  So now when we get home we can boar everyone with videos.

The last couple of sea days have been very relaxing, except for the part of our personal trainer Monica!  That was NOT relaxing, but good for us, we will be working with her for the rest of the cruise.  We had a grand time at formal night with John and Carol.  Participated in the Champagne waterfall and Lobster dinner.  Then last night Ed wanted to see the new Jack Reacher movie, at MUTS,,, Movies Under The Stars.  I managed to stay through two bags of popcorn, then it got TOOOOOO intense for me and I went back to the room.

So tomorrow we will be in Antiqua and going to the Nelson Stockyards, tour, this was NOT high on my list, but Ed didn’t want to do the Catamaran that we had booked so we will do this and some shopping.  Not sure what shopping there is in Antigua, but we will find something to do I’m sure.

Later

First Day at Sea

Feb 16 2014   Day #2

Today is the first day at sea and it is a beautiful day indeed, 75 degrees and calm seas.  We both awoke about seven and dressed for breakfast up at Sabatini's one of the real treat of having a suite. It was wonderful as usual, starting with Mimosa's, and then Eggs Benedict, yum.  We can't do that for 48 more days or we'll be a big as a house when we get back.  So with that in mind, we went and scheduled our personal trainer, she is a very attractive girl from Slovakia, so you know Ed will go at least this once and probably more. :)

We had a wonderful dinner last night at Sabatini's with John and Carol, they seemed to really enjoy it, and once again great conversation, went with dinner.  After dinner, we were all tired so we said our goodbye's about 10 and retired for the evening.

While reading the Patter at breakfast we realized that it is formal night tonight! Boy they don't give you a couple of days to get used to it all before you have to dress up!  Oh well it will be fun,,,,  Ed made reservations for dinner for the four of us, this is John and Carols first Princess cruise, so we will watch the champagne waterfall, and have a glass of free champagne.

So we will try to let y'all know about the evening later if I can stay awake, if not we will see you tomorrow.

Valentines Day

What a wonderful day we had today.  We finely got out of bed about nine, had some Starbucks coffee provided by the hotel, and some banana bread provided by me!

Watched the news of the Olympics and had showers, dressed and left the hotel to walk down the street to the International Swimming  museum.  But short stopped at Bahia Cabana for lunch, yes it was almost noon.
We had a great lunch, great place to eat and watch all the Yachts going in and out.

Here we are with the Blues Brothers!

Then we started on to the museum, but again got side tracked looking at the Pelicans

Then it was on to the museum, but then decided not to go in for various reasons.   We stopped at a little store and I bought a pair of Birkenstock sandals.  I have been meaning to do that for some time and today was the day.

We got back and took a wee nap, and dressed for dinner.  We were meeting John and Carol Anderson at the Pier 66 Grill, and we had a marvelous time, food was wonderful, but the company was even better.

Feb 15, 2014

Good morning, well it is beautiful here, we are watching the young, playing beach volleyball out our window, oh to be that young and fit.  We have our bags packed and we are waiting for the attendant to come for our bags, and then it will be on to the ship.

It's all about all to begin!

  

Catching up

Feb 11, 2014

OK so this is a catching a up post, it has been an eventful 3 day since we left on Tuesday.
We had planed to leave Wednesday, but when we saw the snow being predicted for Wednesday and Thursday we decided to leave a day early.  Ed started making calls to the hotels in Savannah and Ft Lauderdale, and we were soooooo lucky that we could get the reservations moved around and extended.

We left the house at 6:45 and we were on the ferry at 7, started our trip about 7:30.  It was a good thing we did as this is what we ran into on our way.

Ed did a great job driving thru really difficult conditions, but we all know it got worse, and we made it thru by the skin of our teeth.  But again we were lucky as Hertz, gave us a big Ford Explore, when Ed changed our car reservations, and it performed very well in these conditions.   After we drove about 40 miles south of  Florence SC it started to rain and sleet, but that was better then what we drove thru.

We arrived Savannah, about four, with a big sigh of relief.  They had our room ready, and we went up, only to discover that a cat had been there as I started having a bad reaction, so they moved us right away and all was well.

We were given a recomandation to go to Belford's for dinner right across Franklin Square, it was WONDERFUL, I highly recomend it.

Feb 12, 2014

We awoke, to rainy black skis and the news is saying it is going to get icie before long so we knew we best get out of Dodge ASAP!  We were on the road by 7:30 as we skipped breakfast once again, but we still had the banana bread that I made before leaving home, and the coffee in the room was good, so we put the coffee in our cups and off we went.  It rained all the way to the Florida border, where we finely stopped to get a map (for a future trip planning) and some go OJ, and use facilities for our trip south, we even had to break out the sunglasses, yah Florida you are the sunshine state.


We had a fast and uneventful trip to FLL we did stop for a big late breakfast (country fried stake and eggs )around Palm Coast at the Cracker Barrel, got gas and headed south.  We arrived to the Sheraton Beach Hotel about 3:45, checked in and Ed went and turned in the car, so we didn't have to pay the hefty price we had for the trip.  They gave us back the car for one day and a greatly reduced rate, and we will turn it in today before four, but we have a quick run to the drugstore to make first.

So now we are meeting Ed's nephew Kieran, and family for dinner tonight so I think you are all caught up.

SOUTH AMERICA - CAPE HORN AND BACK

Today is the last day of 2013,,, Christmas is past, the Party is past, and now we are getting ready once again to start a new adventure. 

We will be taking a 49 dat trip/Cruise around Cape Horn, and a tour to Antarctica and many other exciting places along the way.  And then we will take Amtrak back to the east coast from LA

LINDA AND AL'S WEDDING DAY

Good afternoon all,

It is about 14:30, our iPad says 11:30, but we are guessing, that it is keying into the satellite for Hawaii so ignore the time that may come through.
Well here we are in the last two days, it has been a fun cruise, and I am sorry it is almost over, but I will be ready to get home and hug my kids, and Grandkids, at least the ones we will see.
The weather today is pretty, but now it is cool, and a wee bit cloudy, and the swells are making the ship bounce around a bit. But not too bad.
The last couple of days have been busy, we haven't won at trivia again, but yesterdays Trivia was a really hard one. So, that is ok as it is still fun to play as long as no one takes it too serious.
The three guys went to the movie last night, to see Total Recall, the new one and none of them liked it. That was Al's bachelor party LOL
The girls went to see the singer Donnie Ray Evins. He was very good, not great, but very good.


Today is the last formal night and the second to last day on the ship. Linda and Al will be Renewing there vows, today is there 50th Wedding Anniversary, that will happen at 17:00 then we will have some treats, and go to the Captains Farewell Cocktail Party and Balloon Drop, at 19:00 then dinner, at 19:45 and then we have the last Production Show, British Invasion, in the theater at 22:00, and then tomorrow we will pack, and see if we can fit it all in again. I didn't buy much on this cruise so I hope so.
I am not looking forward to the day we disembark as we will be at the airport a long time, we had hopped to get a tour, but no luck, as princess isn't even running any, oh well.

More tomorrow.

3rd and 4th Sea Day

Well yesterday was an amazing day, it started out with John winning a drink of the day on the morning show and in the afternoon we Won Trivia!!! That sure tickled all of us, and we were in a tie too at the end. But our tie breaking question, was how many women out of 10 buy shoes that are too small? We put down 7, I told them it was 9, and when the other team said 4, I knew we won,,, and the answer was 9!! So we all walked away with passport holders,,,,, yaaa,,, Bragging rights that was the prize!
Last night we went to the early Production Show, Motor City. It was very good, and I loved the music, I'm sure it was because it was from when we were young, and in Hawaii. We then went to dinner and once again had a good dinner and then went on to a very good comedian magician, Jean Boucher, he did some amazing things, and he was funny too.

So this morning we slept in tell about seven, and watched the morning show and Linda won the drink of the day!!! Wow since seeing the rainbow it has been very lucky for us.
Ed is at the lecture "Who is my Mother" with Michael Bishay, I will be interested to hear what that was about.
Ed is then going on to Dr Glick on "Why the Russians need a Czar" So I am catching up here and then maybe read, it will have to be inside, as it is raining. I am not interested in doing Hula Dance so I will meet Ed for lunch,,,, eat and eat some more, but it seems we may have a bit of Noro on the ship as they have started serving us in Horizon Court. Lots of very old and people who don't seem to be all that well on the ship too. God bless them.

More later.

Second Sea Day

Today we awoke at 06:30, and what did we see right outside our balcony,,, a rainbow,,, so close we could almost touch it. So then we got ready to do The Ultimate Ships Tour, at 08:30 We went down to the International cafe, to have a cappuccino and a coffee and egg muffin. While we were eating we met a couple that had just been on the cruise before this one and they gave us a lot of info for our South American cruise next year. We will try to meet them again, later.
So at 08:30 we met our guide and proceeded on to the tour. We started in the theater, up on the stage, I saw this part before, but it was still very interesting.
Then we went to the bow of the ship, to see the anchors and all the paraphernalia that it takes to put out the anchor, and the ropes that hold the ship at the dock. I knew they were big, but seeing them up close and personal, was really something.
Then it was on to the kitchen. Now when we did the Chefs table, we got to go in the kitchen, but this time it was much deeper, all the way down to deck 2, it is just amazing how large an area it is that holds all the stores for the ship. And all the food is from the States! It is shipped in, by container, to meet the ship. We were not allowed to take pictures, or even bring our cameras, so I have nothing to show you.
We then moved on to the meat prep area, and the Chef told us about how many people work there and how they keep it all clean and, separate. One of the guys cutting up chickens, can cut up a whole chicken in less then two minutes!

I will let Ed take over here on some of the other things, as the next stop was the engine control room. Two of the engineers briefed us on operation of the fresh water generation from sea water system, the integrated electrical generation and distribution, and the ship propulsion system. The ship has six large Diesel Engines which generate over 60,000KW of electrical power. The ship normally operates on 5 engines during daily operations. The ship also has 6 thrusters, 3 forward and 3 aft. The ship has a fresh water capacity of 750,000 US gals and can produce 500,000 gals per day. Clearly a the capability to support a small community. It was noteworthy to us to understand that the design architecture of the Star Princess or any other Princess ship's electrical distribution was not similar to the Carnival ship design. The engineers also highlighted Princess's redundancy requirements. It was very impressive.

We went to the Photo-lab next to be briefed on their transition to digital operations and implementation of photo recognition technology. We noted that the photo operation was a Princess operation, not a concession. They indicated their goal was to sell at least 50% of the photos. And Cindy told them that maybe if they lowered the price to say $15 more photos would be sold, she said write it up, so we will. We then proceeded to the printing operation to observe the publication of the daily Princess Patter and learned that they have not transition to digital technology due to their concern of the brittle nature of the technology.

We then proceeded to the ship's bridge! Wow what a treat! Our new Captain Lubrano was quite charming and gave us a good tour of the Bridge and gave lots of technical stuff that Ed could tell you, but he is at a lecture, so I will proceed. While on the Bridge we had a magnificent view, of the ocean and the women lay totally necked on dolphin deck!!! That was the end of our tour. Later they brought us robes, aprons, and photos of our day, nice.

First day at sea on the way to LA

Today we awoke about 0800 it was sunny, and warm. Went down to the international cafe, to get breakfast and wait for the time to get a ticket to learn ribbon lei making. There was a long line but I was at the front so I could chose which class time I wanted, we all took the 11:15 today. That was good for me as tomorrow, we are finely on the Ultimate Ships tour,,, we have wanted to do that for some time. We will do that in the morning at 08:30. We are excited about it.
Tonight we are going to see the comedian, Darrell Joyce, at 19:00 and Ed might go to the Movie under the stars and see Mission impossible, Ghost Protocol.
We shall see, LATER

Ribbon Lie making was very good, I can't wait to teach the girls. And the comedian was pretty funny. And dinner was very good again. Everyone was very happy with dinner. The guys are off watching the movie, and the woman are in bed reading or writing in there blog LOL

Bora Bora and Moorea

OK, I am back again, as I said we arrived in Bora Bora, and it was raining hard,,, but by the time we arrived the island on the tenders, it had stopped, Of coarse there were puddles everywhere and it was HOT. It reminded me of Southeast Asia. The local area reminded me of that anyway, lots of french influence, so a lot like Vientiane.
Our tour wasn't until 2:45 so we had lots of time to look around at the pearl stores. Have I mentioned the pearl stores? They have been everywhere, black pearls gold pearls, and pistachio colored pearls. Those last being the most expensive, but none of them are cheap. I found a strand of black pearls that looked modest, and they were $8,000. not modest at all. Not sure I like black pearls.....
Any way when our turn for our tour came it was late,,,, oh well, but we did get a nice island tour around the Island. Because of the weather we did not see the water at it's best for the jewel-like colors it is noted for.
Life here centers around three main villages, Vaitape, Anau and Faanul. Music and dnce are an integral part of the life here. We didn't really see any dance, but we heard music being played as we were brought in.

A French possession since 1888, Bora Bora became an American naval base between 1942 and 1946. You can still view the WWII huts, piers and bunkers, we only saw a bunker from the road and our guide said that when they have a bad storm or cyclone, the people use them as they have extended tunnels.
Along the way Cindy bought a pareo at Mama Ruta's

She didn't buy the guy,,,,, It was fun, and we had a good demonstration, on how to tie Pareo's then we went to a famous beach, Matira Beach, the water was nice, but the beach in my opinion leaves a lot to be desired, for those of us with Hawaii and the outer banks, and Florida, in our history, you would not be that impressed.

Then it was back to the "Le Truck Station" for the end of our tour. We asked the guide how to get back to Bloody Mary's and as luck would have it the shuttle to there was waiting for us, so it was on to the famous watering hole. It was lots of fun, wish we would have had time for dinner, but hay you can't have it all.

Did I mention that the floor is all sand, they ask you to remove your shoes, it was fun, we got a shuttle back to the dock, and boarded the ship about seven. The ship left at 9. And we were on our way to Moorea.

Moorea/Pepeete

Moorea is formed li an isosceles triangle, with two mountains sides joining at Mt. Tohivea.

There are two bays, we anchored in Cooks Bay. They say from the air it appears as a beautiful green butterfly floating over a tranquil blue sea. It had once again been raining, so it was still cloudy when we disembarked, so we didn't see those pretty water colors.
The rest of our group went on a shark and sting-ray swim, and they said they had a wonderful time. We all make poor choices sometimes, this was ours. Ed and I walked around a bit and watched the dancers, and then went back to the ship and spent the rest of the day at the pool.

We left for Papeete, about 16:30 and arrived here at about 20:00 and coming into the port was really beautiful, and it was dry,,,,,, for a little while. We went out on the dock, and there was a big party going on in the park by the ship. It seems this happens on Saturday night, just about the time we found the chocolate crepe place, it started raining buckets!!! Ed still got us a couple crepe's to share, but we were all drowned rats when we got back on the ship to go and see the Tahitian dancers in the Princess theater, they were wonderful, and I am sure glad we didn't miss them.

Won't mind having the money to own this little babe, parked beside us as we docked in Papeete, the Golden Odyssey

These photos were taken just this morning. We didn't go any except by the ship, as it has been raining cats and dogs all morning.

We were treated to a Pareo demonstration, guy wasn't bad either. LOL

Ed and I walked around a bit, looked at black pearls, but still nothing we could afford. So we looked at the ship, and it started to rain again. Oh well.

We will be leaving in about an hour, with a new Captain, as Captain Todd McBain, left the ship today for a six week vacation. And Captain Vincenzo Lubrano took his place. So today at 16:30we start our 8 sea days back to LA.

Western Samoa, Apia

I am not sure that Apia even deserves a sentence, but we did stop there and the fish market was interesting, other then that, it was pretty from the sea, but when you got up close not so much.

The Samoans on this island need to take care of there land, there was trash everywhere. Awful!

Bora Bora

Well after two more sea days, and one formal night we are arriving in the French Polynesian, island of beautiful Bora Bora. Not so beautiful this morning.

We were suppose to start tender rides at 0900, but I am not sure it will commence that fast in this weather, it is raining hard, so we are not seeing the beauty of the island. Sad for sure. If it had to rain I wish it had rained in Apia, oh well.

Ed is out looking for the others, to see what they want to do, so I am playing catch up on this blog, once again.

We had formal night last night and had a great time. We started with chocolate strawberries, and champaign, Janet provided the strawberries, and we provided the champaign.
After another excellent dinner, once again, that we all enjoyed, we went to see the illusionist, Wayne Hoffman, he was outstanding. I have no idea how he did what he did. Amazing that is for sure.
The night before last we saw another good show Randy Cabral the comedian and Juggler, he was so funny, we laughed and laughed. He was also a VERY good juggler.

Well Ed is back, and I guess we will try to get off in a little while, so I will get back to you later.

Pago Pago

8 April - American Samoa - We arrived in Pago Pago on a cloudless morning at 0930 after nearly circling the island arriving from the northeast and going around the southwest tip and back up the south coast to Pago Pago.

When we got off the ship we noted the National Park table on the dock and proceeded to book the National Park tour. It was fabulous!!!! Cindy took lots of pictures of spectacular vistas.

Upon returning to the dock we entered the temporary shop area to look for treasures. Clearly we found many and they were simply beautiful. Ed got a Samoan style shirt and Cindy found a couple of beautiful hand made and styled cover ups! Wow and double wow.

We went to Sky Walkers, and had a drink, waiting for the others to get back from there tour, but it ran late so we met at dinner a seared stories, It was a good day.

Crossing the Equator

We are sitting at the HC waiting for the initiation to start for the equator crossing. We have already crossed according to the captain. Not sure I saw the line,,, LOL
The seas are calm, the weather warm, but not hot. We still have two days to go before we get to Pago Pago,,(pronounced pangno, pangno), this is one long way.
The internet connection goes off and on,,, well write more later.

OK, so we are now all Shellbacks, we were pollywogs, but when we crossed we will never be that again. It was fun to watch the ones who actually went through, the initiation and we are buying the DVD of the cruise as I don't think we will ever be able to do this cruise again, and I know we will want to relive it all.

Today is our 4th sea day and we are readying for our stop tomorrow, at Pago Pago. We went to the lecture with Dr. Faff, and she gave us lots of info on what to do in Pago Pago and Apia. We will try to go to the only National Park in the southern hemisphere, on Pago Pago. We canceled our tour there as we wanted to be able to go there and there were no tours gong there. So we will get our park passport stamped, as we forgot it in Hilo,,, dumb.

So today Sunday at 3PM our time 10 PM your time we just finished a Sunday Buffett and are now chilling, I should go to line dance, but I think I won't, not much going on tonight either, except for the movie the Bourne Legacy, which I think I will pass, but Ed is planing on going to.

So until tomorrow, see ya