We are in \Hilo.
We are well
we are having a great time but there is no internet.
They say it will take a couple of days to repair it.
So I will continue to write and |I will post it whenever I can.
Sorry about the lack of pictures.

Poor or non existing internet!!

Connections to the internet have been non existent for the past day and a half so I am behind on the blog.

But we are still having a great time. The night before last while we were at dinner Erik looked at us and said that he still couldn’t believe that he was here. After having followed the blog for years  he said he was having a hard time realizing that he was actually living the blog. It is so much fun to see how much they are enjoying everything.

Yesterday was a whirlwind in a way.

I took in several events. We decided to have breakfast in Horizon court. Quite accidently we ran into Erik and Rosalie and were able to have breakfast with them. After breakfast I check out the Hawaii sale and found there was nothing I wanted to buy.

Ken went to the George McGuire lecture. After the sale I found a seat in the international café and waited for Ken to join me and for the Martini demonstration to begin. It was fun to watch and we had ring side seats so I was able to get good pictures.

After that we went back to our room. Because we had such a good breakfast we decided to only have fruit for lunch.

I went to deck 18 to try my luck at Champagne Hoopla. The object of the game was to toss a small ring and have it encircle the middle peg on a board having 5 pegs. The successful person would get a bottle of champagne. I was not successful. They gave away 3 bottle of champagne but none came in my direction. The ship was moving and the wind was blowing so it was too cool to play outside so it was done inside near the elevators. I had fun.

After that I decided to go to the art lecture. It was not very interesting and I will not go to another one of his presentations.

I decided it was time for a nap since that art director had almost put me to sleep.

I had a wake- up call all set so that we could have lots of time to get ready for dinner.

We dressed and away we went. Since we had not really eaten any lunch we were ready to eat.

Tonight the meal was diver scallops. Ken asked for a few extra and he was given 2 full meals, he was in his glory. There was another Norman Love dessert tonight. The other Ken and Erik ordered 2 desserts. They had the Norman Love and pecan Pie.

When we had finished dinner and left the dining room we stumbled upon the Hawaiian Show with Elua which was happening at Crooners. It was wonderfully entertaining, so we took it all in. There was singing and of course Hula. Erik and Rosalie happened by and we enjoyed the show together.

Then we decided to head to the Vista Lounge. Tonight Al Katz is performing and since this is such a small venue we decided to go early so we would be assured a good seat. Ken ordered his first Mai Tai of the cruise and I had a blue Hawaiian. It was sweeter than I remembered and the coconut taste certainly was stronger than I remembered but  I did enjoy it. One is enough however.

 Ziutka and Ken came to the Vista also. It was funny because when they saw us she crawled over the seats to join us.

Al Katz was hilarious. We all laughed dangerously hard. After the show we spoke with him and I passed along greetings from Vickie and Bernie.

That brought our evening to an end.

 I stumbled across the movie Sabrina, starring Harrison Ford. I watched it till it ended but Ken fell asleep almost right away. Our third full sea day had come to a very pleasant end.

Forth Sea Day has arrived.

Throughout the day the Grand Princess continued to maintain a south-westerly course across the Pacific Ocean. The ship’s map shows the trip as one long straight line from Vancouver to Hawaii. There is absolutely nothing in the way that would cause any deviation in the course.

We had room service and a very small breakfast this morning, then I went to the International Café to work on the blog. We vacated the room so Alvin could come in. Oh By the way Ken left his shoes to be shined and we left his tuxedo shirt to be cleaned.

As pre arranged Ken and I met at the Princess Theatre to hear the presentation about the life forms found in the Hawaiian coral. George McGuire is so entertaining and informative.

After the presentation I returned the computer to our room and we went to British-Style Pub Lunch. This is always a treat and it was the reason for the small breakfast. We shared a booth with a couple from Prince George and it was very pleasant. Lunch was very good and as usual it was crowded.

After lunch Ken changed into his swim suit and went topside. I went to the Vista Lounge because I wanted to hear Roy Prevost talk about the Strange laws that are still on the books in Hawaii. Actually there was very little meat to his talk. But apparently he has a business of arranging speakers  for cruise ships. I took his card because that might be something to look into .

I came back to the room and changed into my swim suit, with plans to join Ken. I roamed around and finally found him outside of the Sanctuary. He had found a place out of the wind and he was working on his tan. I checked it out and decided that it was still too cool. I continued on and in the Lotus Pool area I stopped and enjoyed a soak in the hot tub. There were two other retired teachers in the tub. We chatted and discussed the horrors of being a sub.  Soon it was almost three o’clock so I excused myself and headed back to our room. I got out of my swimsuit and put it on the balcony to dry.  Soon Ken returned sporting quite a sun burn. He sat on the balcony and I crawled under the covers and had a great nap.

Then we dressed for dinner. We decided to go Hawaiian . I wore my dress with the red hibiscus and Ken wore his lighter blue shirt. Dinner was very good as usual. I had the shrimp for the appetizer and the Mahi Mahi and I had the sugar free dessert which was not very good at all.

We choose to go to see Craig Richard perform. He is an amazing young man who plays saxophones. He was accompanied by the Grand Princess Orchestra and they never fail to impress. We were seated next to a very nice lady from Halifax. She is a widow and is travelling alone. She was telling us about the terrible winter they have had. She said she doesn’t mind travelling alone. She enjoys being able to come and go without worrying if it fits someone else’s schedule. She said the cost is the only drawback. I have to admit that I admire her courage.

After what was a very good show we returned to our room long enough for me to change into something warm. The ship has been cool this evening and I forgot to bring a pashima with me. We then down to the International Café. The Rhapsody Strings were performing and they had the crowd in the palm of their hands. They were even asked for an encore, and of course they obliged.

When they concluded their performance the place almost emptied out and the café was quiet and peaceful. We enjoyed a special coffee with brandy and they returned to our room to call it a night and a

wonderful day.

Tuesday's report!

Tuesday, I Think,

It is amazing how days seem to not matter when you are on board a cruise ship.

I think I am about to report on what we did yesterday which was Tuesday March 24.

Throughout the day the Grand Princess maintained a south-westerly course with an average speed of 19 knots. A knot is a nautical measure of speed, one knot being on nautical mile an hour.

We ordered room service and had our breakfast in our room. We had the usual of coffee and cereal and a  Danish. I requested berries but I was informed that they were not available. So we had sliced banana instead.

There were so many things to do that it was hard to decide.  At ten o’clock I went to the Holiday Store at Sea. I did a quick walk around and saw nothing that I couldn’t live without. We gave Alvin time to do the room and as we left we saw him and Ken asked for slippers. I could not believe that he returned delivering slippers a short while later. These slippers are of a waffle weave fabric  with very nice royal blue bias tape trim around the sole,so they are much nicer than the ones we had before.

We met and decided to go to the lecture on the navigational skills of the early Polynesian peoples. The lecture was given by George McGuire and as usual he was very good.

After lunch we decided to have a quiche for lunch. We got it from the Internet café and it was delicious and freshly made.

Then it was time to go to the orchid lei making. It was to take place at Sabatinis. When I got there it was announced that it would be a ribbon Lei and not an orchid lei so I decided to pass. I have made that lei before and I still have it and I didn’t particularly like it then.

We went to the shop and I found the Grand magnet that I was hoping to find. My original is of the one with Skywalkers so I wanted to one with the One5 configuration instead. We also bought a lighted magnifying glass and a chocolate bar.

Tonight is the Captain’s Welcome Aboard Party and Champagne Waterfall. That means formal dress. Rosalie and Eric invited us to come to their room for a glass of wine before dinner. That meant getting dressed very early. We had our hor d’ouvers delivered at four and luckily they arrived at 3:45. I went down and pressed Ken’s pants and we got dressed in our finery and took the goodies and headed to the EEG’s around 4:00.

For some unknown reason I developed a headache around three so I was taking aspirin and just taking it easy for the hour before time to leave. It eased up a little before dinner and was completely gone by the time dinner was over.

Since this was the first formal night there was a very special dinner menu. At the end of it we were even given a copy of the menu to keep as a souvenir.

The first Norman Love dessert was the highlight of the meal. Everyone was dressed up and so we took lots of pictures. I took a couple of our waiter and he gave me his E-mail because he would like to send a picture of him in his formal uniform to his wife. I promised to take care of that for him.

At the end of dinner we roamed out to the Atrium and right away we were given a glass of champagne. Otto( someone we met earlier) and his wife had a spot at the railing. They kindly let me push in and get a picture of the waterfall and Rui and the travelers pouring the champagne. The one tonight had rose petals and orchid petals in the glasses. That made it so colorful and beautiful.

After a refill of my glass we made our way to our room  just long enough for me to change my shoes. Then we headed to the Princess Theatre. Tonight’s entertainment is the production show “Do You Wanna Dance?”. As usual it was very high energy and even though we had seen it several times we enjoyed it tremendously. There was standing room only and it was very well received by the audience.

Day One

Day One

Through the night the ship did some gentle rocking. I made it feel like we were at sea again. Normally it is so smooth that you don’t even realize you are at sea. The mattress is a bit tires so it is not the best we have ever had but it will do.

We woke at what we thought was 7:30 at first then we realized the clocks had gone back and it was only 6:30 ships time.

We finally got up and dressed and left for breakfast at 7:30 ships time. We were directed to a table for 4 and the other couple was very nice. They were about our age but they had been married only one year. They have been doing a lot of travelling so they were very interesting to visit with. I  had a breakfast of blueberry pancakes and bacon with lots of coffee.

After breakfast we went to the library to get tickets for making a fresh orchid Lei. Ken and I both got tickets and we will be at session number 2. Number one was to be today and we want to go to the Meet and Greet for Cruise Critic which was scheduled for the same time.

After we got the tickets Ken went one way and I decided to walk the stairs up to our room. I was on my way down the hall when I spied a wonderful tropical bouquet sitting on the floor outside of a room just down the hall from our stateroom. Then I saw Alvin and I asked him why the flowers were in the hall on the floor. He said he did not know but he would find out. I told him that if he had to throw them away would he please throw them into our room. Well I was in the room fewer than 5 minutes when Ken arrived and right behind him was Alvin. Alvin had the bouquet of flowers. Apparently the people in that room have an allergy and then Alvin asked his supervisor if he could bring them to me. The answer was yes and so I now have a wonderful tropical bouquet just like the one that Rosalie has.. Yeah for Alvin!!!

We decided to go to the enrichment lecture by George McGuire. He is a retired Physics professor from the Fraser Valley area. The lecture was in the Princess theatre and he will be lecturing each sea day. He is very good. Perhaps not as much fun as Gary Schaan but definitely worth listening to.

After his talk we decided to check out possible shore excursions. We choose two, a beach break in Maui and a submarine trip in Kauai. We went downstairs and happily learned that there was room on both.

Our fruit bowl arrived and we decided to share an orange and a banana and have that for lunch. We had such a good breakfast that we were not hungry

I worked on the blog and Ken rested until it was time for the Meet and Greet. There were only seven at the Meet and ||Greet but we had a great visit and we exchanged room numbers in case we wanted to get in touch again. The ship is really cool and we are wearing jackets. As we sit in the ONE5 I looked out the front windows and there were teenagers in swim suits heading for the hot tubs.  Old folks in coats and some in swim suits was the scene as we walked past the Neptune Pool.

We returned to the cabin and decided it was time for an afternoon nap.  When I woke I had a shower and got ready for dinner. I decided to wear my white and gold jacket and to add the wonder gift I got from Janet. There were two reasons, one was the fact that it matched and the other was because a scarf was warm and the ship was still feeling cool. I don’t know who is leaving the doors open but I wish they would cut it out.

When we arrived at the dining room the others were already there reading their menus. As usual we had a grand time. I had a scallop and shrimp appetizer, a mango and peach cold soup , red snapper main course and a warm chocolate cooking for dessert.

Our choice of entertainment was the impressionist Mike Wilson. Some of his impressions were good but others did not impress me.  He was in the Vista Lounge and it was also cool.

The man who dresses differently was there and Mike even had him stand. He was wearing a white suit with black poke dots. The shirt was black with white dots. He was wearing a fedora that matched the suit. We would see him up close later and the shoes were also unbelievable. The end of the shoe had to extend at least 3 inches beyond the end of his foot. Unfortunately I didn’t get pictures. Tomorrow is formal night and I hope I see him.

We strolled around for awhile and then we went to the International café for our special coffee. It was very quiet and peaceful. We enjoyed our coffee and brandy and then came back to our room to call it a night.

The sea is definitely not smooth and so we are bounced around a bit and we are lulled to sleep.

On Our Way

On Our Way,

We got up a little early and got ready to head to Vancouver. The trip in was uneventful and the traffic flowed well.

We stopped and had a little visit with Emmie and Leo. I had gifts in the bags for them and then we headed to the dock. Again the line flowed easily and we were ushered on right away. As we were in line to get registered and get our key cards we spied this older man. He was wearing the strangest outfit we had ever seen. It was bright and colorful and covered with native designs such as you would find in Alaska and in British Columbia. It consisted of a jacket  and pants and a hat and strange shoes.

We found our room and it is very nice. The balcony is not as wide and the table will not be as good for a champagne breakfast but it is a balcony and I know we will enjoy it.

Ken and I decided to have lunch at the International Café since it was almost time to see the Maitre d’ . While there Ken’s cell phone rang. It was Erik, he and Rosalie were on board.

Ken told them how to meet us and before we knew it there were hugs all round. I hurriedly finished my sandwich and headed up to Sabatini’s. That is where I could see about getting us a table together. Ken stayed with Erik and Rosalie .

I was given ticket number 7 and so I had to sit for awhile but the process went very quickly and I was successful. The four of us now have early dining and we are at table 134 in the  Da Vinci dining room.

When I met everyone outside of the dining room, who did we run into but the man in the strange clothes. We chatted and he posed for pictures. Apparently he bought the outfit on line and he has several more interesting modes of dress. It should be interesting to see what they are. He seems to be enjoying life. Oh he is from Maple Ridge by the way.

Erik and Rosalie already had their luggage in their room so they went to9 unpack and we invited them to come to our room for a glass of wine at five o’clock.

Ken and I returned to our room, we met our room steward. His name is Alvin Cervantes and my, oh my he is efficient. We asked for 4 wine glasses and within 5 minutes he was back with them. I also asked him for a vase for my flowers and  quick as a wink he was back with a vase complete with water in it.

We sat and enjoyed our room while we waited for time for Muster Drill and for our luggage. It had not arrived yet and I was beginning to become concerned. Then it was time to head for the Wheelhouse bar which was our muster station. On our way down the hall Ken spied our luggage. It was ready to be delivered so I headed out with an easy mind

The drill went well. We were next to a nice couple and we visited while we waited for the drill to begin.

When it was over we came back to our room right away because we needed to unpack and it was already after four and we had company coming at five and we had to get ready for dinner.

We succeeded and were putting the last items away when there was a knock on our door.

 Erik and Rosalie arrived. They told us that they had received a gift of a wonderful tropical flower arrangement and a photo package from their children. They had also received a gift of chocolate covered strawberries from Kim. They had pictures of the flowers, I am so jealous. But my small bouquet from Save On is nice too. Since our luggage had arrived I was able to use Ken’s scissors  to trim the stems and they look much better.

We enjoyed our wine and took lots of pictures as the ship sailed away. The skies were gray and the air was cool but it didn’t matter at all. We were going on a cruise!! Yeah. Our chocolate covered strawberries arrived. They are in milk chocolate instead of dark chocolate but they are very good and we enjoyed them. We toasted the journey and Erik took loads of pictures of the sail away.

About 5:20 we headed for the dining room. We were seated at a table for 6 and we met our staff right away. Our waiter is from India and I can’t spell his name but it stars with the letter S and it sounds like the dance Chautice. He is young and really handsome. He has a wonderful smile and he is really very friendly. His assistance is a young lady from Peru and her name is Ingrid.  After several minutes the last 2 people arrived at the table. They are from the Duncan area of Vancouver Island , his name is Ken and her name is Zulda I think. She is from Poland and with the accent it is hard to tell. But I will get her to write it down before the 2 weeks is over.

Dinner was great but because it was the first night confusion reigned and service was slow. But we used the time well visiting and getting to know our table mates. She said there was no way that I could be seventy, that I looked fifty so you know I really like her. I had the spring rolls, the Pina Colada soup, the bass and sugar free mango cheese cake for dessert. Ken had shrimp cocktail, Caesar salar, prime rib and sorbet for dessert.

It was seven thirty when we finished dinner but since we had forgotten out pills Ken and I came back to our room to get them. At around eight ten we headed for the Princess theatre so we could take in the welcome shoe. We were early enough that we got seats in the Royal Box which was fun. Where we sat we could see Erik and Rosalie and Ken and Zulda.  The dancers were very good as usual. They performed the number “One Night Only”

Then the cruise director  came out and introduced his staff and explained about the Patter etc.

 Then we were introduced to Al Katz who is a comedian and he will be doing a couple of shows. He is apparently the winner of Entertainer of the year for Princess.  He was good but we like Carlos Oscar better. Katz used the opportunity to make fun at the expense of the Asian people on board and we felt he took it a bit too far.

After the show we went to the International café and had a coffee and a snack. We did not have our brandy with us so we drank it without. By now it was after ten so we called it a night. The clocks go back an hour tonight.

We ordered our fruit but decided to have breakfast in the dining room. The sea is moving and we can see the lights of Vancouver Island from our balcony. It is cool and there are a few clouds. We did not see any northern lights.

Almost ready to leave.

Well today I am off to the salon for a manicure and a pedicure. Then I have to decide on what my friend calls lotions and potions to pack and then I am all ready to go. Ken is all packed and we will spend the rest of the day getting our hockey fix. Hopefully it will last for the next 15 days. Seldom if ever do we get to find out any news of the hockey situation. Hopefully when we return we will find out that the Canucks had made the play-offs.

We plan to leave here around 9:30 in the morning. We will go to Kerri's and have a little visit with Leo and Emmie before heading off the Canada Place. Kerri will come with us and take the Jeep back to her place.

This cruise is different from others in that it is mainly sea days. This is our forth visit to these Hawaiian islands so we have no shore excursions pre-booked. We will attend the port lectures and see what appeals to us. We plan to do a lot of the ship activities including taking in a couple of movies, hopefully the weather will co-operate and we can view them on the big screen.

I thought you might be interested in seeing the itinerary:





Sunday March 22, Vancouver, Canada Place
Monday March 23.............At Sea
Tuesday March 24,........... At Sea
Wednesday March 25,....... At Sea
Thursday March 26..........., At Sea
Friday March 27, ...............At Sea
Saturday March 28th..... Hilo,   9:am - 6:pm
Sunday March 29,Honolulu......7: am -11:pm
Monday March 30....,Kauai,  8: am -5: pm                                          Tuesday March 31....Maui,7:am-6:pm
Wednesday April 1, ...............At Sea
Thursday April 2,.................. At Sea
Friday April 3 , .....................At Sea
Saturday April 4,.................. At Sea
Sunday April 5, ...................At Sea
Monday April 6, Vancouver, Canada Place 7:30 am


I know that there will be days when we will be out of range for internet but when ever I can I will post.
TTFN

Dropping and Going.

I am sure that most of you know how I love to shop and how I love finding a bargain.

I am happy to report that I have been getting better about some things.

Just last week I was in Sears and they had lovely tees marked down from 22.97 to 7.49

and I did not buy one even though they had my size and a color I loved.

But sadly that resistance doesn’t apply to everything..

Princess Cruises is having what they call a Drop and Go sale on a cruise to Hawaii.

It is a 15 day Vancouver to Vancouver on the Grand Princess .

It leaves next Sunday (March 22)

I could not resist, the price was just too GRAND .

We are dropping and going.

I will be blogging so you can follow us if you like