Cruise (Part 1)

Embarkment Day

Anticipating a lot of traffic on the day before a major American holiday, we left Palmdale much earlier than we needed to in order to drive down to Long Beach to catch our cruise.  We left our car at Tom's cousin house (Thank you times a million!!) and they dropped us off at the port.  I was completely blown away by the size of the boat.  I'm not sure what I was expecting, but not something that big!  We got our bags checked in and got through secuirty and jumped right on the ship.  We wondered around for a while before we got to our room.  Then we hung out on the deck ready to leave the port.  It was weird watching the rest of the world turn and then slowly disappear behind me.  But it was fun.  This was my first time on a cruise, so I was ready to explore everything.  We signed up for traditional dining where we eat at the same time, with the same group of people each night.  We quickly made friends with those at our table and had a great time!  I was unsure how I would cope with the constant sea movement, so we were more than prepared for sea sickness.  The worst part, of that day was getting used to the sway.

We also had to go to our Muster Stations and have life jacket training.  I was surprised how quick it was.  Tom and I had a good time though!

Day 1

In the morning, the Captain of the Golden Princess got on the P.A. system and annouced we were experiencing rementents from a strom in the Gulf of Alsaka and feeling the waves from it.  From what I heard, lots of people were sick, including me.  I hung out in our room for the bulk of the day.  The constant, jumpy movement was too much for my stomach to handle.  My stomach wasn't the only thing sloshing in the sway though, as you can see in these pics of the pool.

But we did wander around in the morning and saw all the fun little Thanksgiving decorations they put up. Just outside of our room was the "Piaza" which is like the promamade of the boat with little shops and a couple of bars and a bakery.  There was almost always some musicians out there playing.  Its a fun place to hang out.  Anyway, they had a big Thanksgiving table set up with lots of pretty decorated cakes and fruit carvings some of the crew had done.  Dinner was great.  The two popular things to choose from were Turkey and all the fixings or lobster.  Tom went for the lobster, but I definitely went for the turkey.  We had a good time hanging out and eating.  Eating seems to be the big thing to do on cruise.

Tom really looks forward to getting the "Princess Patter" every night, which is a lay out of what activities are going on the next day.  He'll go through an circle what he's interested in doing, and we plan our day out as we go.  So he really enjoys going to morning trivia, Ukelele classes, Karaoke, and the various classes they have (Photography, boat building, etc).  I generally pull out a book, but we have made quite a few friends just going to the activities.  Tom has quite the fan club from his awesome karaoke performance of "La Bamba".
We also discovered that we had planned the wrong days for when we thought we'd be in Hawaii.  Turned out we weren't going to port in Hilo until Monday, instead of Sunday like we thought.  So we spent some time (and money) jumping on the ships internet service to switch around our car rental reservations.  But its now all squared away and ready for when we will actually be in Hawaii :)

Day 2

Thankfully, the seas were MUCH smoother on the second day.  I was definitely greatful for that.  Tom tried out for Princess Popstar, which is a karakote competition they have on going through out the cruise.  This was just the first heat, but he sang "Bad, Bad, Leroy Brown" and in my opinion was the best, but I'm not biased or anything.  He had quite the fan club there too.  Our whole dinner crew came to support and other people we've met in the last few days.  

 

This was also our formal night, so we got all dressed up and went to dinner.  I made us late, so we didn't get our pictures taken but the stair case, but we have two more opportunities for that.  And again, we had a great time hanging out with our dinner crew and have a good time.  We spent a lot of time reading (Tom's really enjoying that early Christmas present) and we got a nap in too (I sure wish I got this much sleep on a normal day)... 

 

Day 3

I love vacation!  No schedules, no where you have to be!  Its fantastic!  On day three, Tom woke up a little early and walked the deck before I had even crawled out of bed.  We grabbed some breakfast at the bakery near our room and went off to morning trivia. We ended up teaming up with some folks we had met in trivia the day previous.  We won too!  We had an awesome and very knowledgable team.  Then we grabbed some breakfast at the buffet and enjoyed it on the back deck of the ship.  Best place to hang out! We discovered that on day two.  Not many people there, and you can enjoy the sun and the ocean.  Its amazing.  Tom went off to his Uke class, we got some lunch and went to the main deck.  The weather was nice and mostly warm and windy (we are in the middle of the ocean), but we hung out there and watched some guys carve ice sculptures. Then we hung out in the promanade and enjoyed some jazz music.  I think my favorite part of cruising is that there are so many places you can go and hang out.  It so nice!  

Day 4

At dinner the previous night, the captain got on the P.A. and annouced that we would be having some larger swells throughout the night.  Tom ran back to our room in the middle of dinner to pre-game on motion sickness pills.  We went straight to bed, neither of us feeling well.  But we went about our usual cruise day.  Trivia, uke-ing, karokote-ing, and lots of hanging out and reading.  The swells calmed down as the day went on, but the temperatures went up.  The reality of how close we are to Hawaii is hitting!  Its pretty exciting.  We are hoping to get up early and catch the sunrise just before getting to the island of Hilo.  Tom got some good pictures too (as always).