Coral Princess - April 5-15 - Tips, Tipping, Specialty Dining and More

When we came back from lunch, our key wouldn’t work so we reported this to our cabin attendant who said he would report it to his supervisor.  Then off we went for an afternoon movie (Mocking Jay Part 2) in the Universe Lounge which is a nice venue for movie viewing.  After the movie and a glass of wine, we headed back to our cabin only to find we still couldn’t get into our room…  Grrrr - 4 hours later and nothing had been done.  So down to Passenger Services who created new key cards for us and called the Housekeeping Supervisor for Caribe Deck.  He met me at our door and had the open in one minute flat.  Then he recoded the lock and replaced the battery which was on its last legs.  All done, but ultimately, this problem should have been taken care of by our cabin attendant by following up with his supervisor to make sure it got fixed.  Just reporting things “up the chain” is not the same thing as getting it done.  

When we did manage to get into our room yesterday afternoon, there was a note from Room Service saying they’d been unable to deliver something to our room.  So we called down and 5 minutes later, chocolate covered strawberries arrived for our afternoon snack.   Hmmm, does Valerie have a secret admirer?  Well, maybe he’s still a secret since the goodies came from our Head Chef as his was of saying thanks for the feedback - good and needs improvement - we’d given to two of his assistant chefs at dinner the previous night.  It is pretty clear to us that Princess really and truly cares about the dining experience of their customers since they are taking feedback face to face rather than on comment cards after the fact.

Chocolate Covered Strawberries

Which brings us to the subject of Tips and Tipping…

We are paying $13.95 per day per person for our suggested gratuities which we stick with on all of our cruises.  We know the hours that our wait and cabin staff put in and including gratuities on our room bill is a way of recognizing these hours.  We could choose to authorize less than $13.95 x 2 per day but we have never chosen this path.  Rather, using the suggested gratuity as a baseline, we then reward additionally for services “Above and Beyond”.  

On this cruise, our cabin has been properly cleaned each day - almost always when we are away from our cabin - he only missed one day when I guess he was behind.  Clearly he didn’t get our door dealt with, and on a night to night basis, we kept waiting for something special - towel animals or something - to appear on our bed when we returned from dinner.  So did we feel special, “No” therefore no need to provide an additional tip.

On the other hand, our dining experience each evening in the Main Dining Room has been over the top, from the head waiter to our individual wait staff, we have felt special every time we walked in the door.  Omar has our special balloon wine glasses for the more expensive wine we’ve had with dinner each night - waiting at our places each evening along with our wine request “Simi Landslide Cabernet 2012” waiting for our signature.  Valerie gets her two pats of butter and Veronica brings over a water flask of fizzy water for our table.  In addition to the amazing service Omar and Veronika as our waiter and assistant waiter have provided, we were fortunate to have Vincent for one dinner when it was “Any Time” vice our regular fixed time, and getting to know Vangie (Evangelina) who was the waiter for the large party beside us — this lady has enough energy and personality for 10 people - and made us feel special even though she never actually waited on us.

At dinner tonight, we will give Omar and Veronika an envelope with “Above and Beyond” inside as our way of rewarding them for making our dining experience so wonderful each evening (7 of our 10 nights aboard).  It really was good…

Just before dinner last night, we attended the Captain’s Circle Party in the Universe Lounge.  The line to get in was really long, probably more than 100’ long, but once the doors opened, the line moved very smoothly, and there we plenty of seats when it was our turn.  Waiters circled with trays of complimentary drinks - mostly punch type drinks - but as we quickly found, we could ask for red wine which we did.  There were also trays with small tart/quiche appetizers for our snacking pleasure.  The Captain got up and spoke for several minutes, thanking his loyal quests for the continued growth of Princess and sharing news about upcoming launches of new Princess vessels.  All in all it was a very nice party and the three most traveled couples each received gift bags and a bottle of champagne.  The most traveled couple has more than 400 cruising days on Princess thus far - that’s a bunch…

Captains Circle Party

For our next to last day, we tried the other specialty restaurant onboard Coral Princess, the Bayou Cafe, for dinner.  The ambience was nice - lighting was lower than in Sabatini’s - and there was a piano player playing in the background (he said he plays three nights during the cruise - if you are eating in Bayou, find out about the entertainer’s schedule and schedule your dinner accordingly.

Valerie started with Escargot which she sucked down with great relish, I had grilled sausage with cheese grits - yummm…  Then we skipped over the soup and got right to the beef - two perfectly cooked Porterhouse steaks accompanied by succotash, dirty rice, and two kinds of potatoes.  The steaks were the best we’ve had on board.  The dessert that followed - another one of the Chocolate Journey creations was wonderful and overall, our evening in Bayou far surpassed our evening in Sabatini’s.

Porterhouse Steak

Chocolate Yummy...

Today - our last sea day we tried Bayou Cafe for their Pub Lunch - Fish and Chips, Chicken Curry and a couple of other selections.  We had high hopes after our wonderful dinner the previous evening in the very same venue - only to have those hopes dashed when the food arrived - so after a few bites we grabbed our beers and headed down to the main dining room for yet another wonderful meal - stuffed calamari ring appetizer, fusilli with bay shrimp and tarragon cream sauce, followed by Paella for two - which was as good as we get at the Mangrove Cafe back in Naples.  I should follow with an additional word about our desserts each day - ice cream, yogurt, and sorbets are all done freshly each day, and you really can tell the difference between “made” and “manufactured” when it comes to these delights…

To close out this note, an update on our earlier rescue…  Turns out there were 7 people aboard the boat - and based on the picture, it had some kind of rudimentary engine which had given up the ghost by the time we showed up on the scene.  Still don’t know where they were from (Cuba or Haiti) but they were clearly in distress sailing with a make shift sail and the coast of Cuba about 10 miles behind them.  They have received food, water, and medical attention and will be handed over to immigration for screening when we arrive in Fort Lauderdale tomorrow.

Coral Princess - 5-15 April 2016 - Rescue at Sea off Northeast shore of Cuba

Wow - you don't see this everyday...  About an hour ago, our Capitan came on the PA and announced we were investigating a small boat.  As we approached we could see it was a very rustic boat, perhaps 15' in length with 5 men aboard, one laying down and apparently sick or injured.  Ultimately, the men are now aboard being evaluated medically and will sail with us to Fort Lauderdale.

Coral Princess - 5-15 April 2016 - Limón Costa Rica, “Italian Night” in the Main Dining Room, and Man, these people work some hours

Our approach to  Limón was a bit rough and noisy - yes, it was lumpy after all the wind blowing the past two days - but we heard a few new sounds we hadn’t heard before.  Its funny that once you settle into a rhythm, anything out of the ordinary seems different and mildly threatening.  Our dock was essentially front and center in downtown Limon - a relatively small city spread equally along the shore and up the hills around us.  Very tropical and green - the air temperature absolutely perfect and without the humidity you normally associate with such tropical greenery.  Limon is 100 miles east of San Jose (the capitol), and 1.5 driving hours north of the border with Panama.  It is also the main port for fruit shipments (Banana, Pineapple, Cantaloupe) to the USA, Germany, Holland, and China. We saw ships from both Dole and Del Monte being loaded in an interesting ballet between ship, crane, container, and truck…

As we typically do — we read through all of the cruise line provided excursions and then proceeded to do our own by walking out of the port, talking with a couple of local tour operators, and deciding whose offer we liked best and looked the most trustworthy.  We went with Mr. Doctor, who introduced us in turn to our taxi driver and tour guide Danilo (Danilo Orlando Hall - 00506 - 85339489) who would drive, narrate, teach, and spot wildlife for us the next 6 hours.  The tour we chose was the “Scenic Drive”, “Banana Plantation”, “Canal Cruise”, and Lunch for $60 for each of us.  We much prefer private as opposed to bus tours - they give us a better chance to learn more about our guide and how people live where we are visiting.  Additionally, we probably saved about 40% and had a lot more flexibility with what we saw and how long we spent seeing it.

So off we went in Danny’s cab to see some of the coast, foliage, flowers, and animals.  Interesting that we felt a different vibe in Limon immediately - kind of a Jamaican - Latin fusion - honestly, we really liked it.  Turns out that a large number of Jamaicans were brought to Limon years ago to work and stayed to make a new life in Central America.  As noted, we liked the result…

To SW Florida residents, we felt right at home with the plants, flowers, and birds we saw along the way - except everything here seems to have grown bigger with stronger sunlight (closer to the equator) and no occasional winter cold snaps.  Then there was the addition of animals we don’t see at home except in a zoo — Howler Monkeys 50-75’ above us in large trees moving slowly from branch to branch as they fed on berries or leaves.  Continuing on the road to the banana plantation, we saw several schools and a lot of neighborhoods with small homes along the way.  None of the homes were grand or grandiose, clearly homes where working people live and raise families, many with small garden or farm plots alongside to supplement table fare and income.  Turns out that 4/11 is a national holiday — commemorating the day that a Costa Rican hero halted the advance of troops from the USA who had already conquered Honduras and Nicaragua to the north.  So traffic was perhaps lighter, the schools empty, and folks were taking some time off visiting neighbors. Oh, and for people who’d paid for a tour of the banana plantation - bummer…

Along the way to the banana plantation, we could clearly see that road conditions leave a bit to be desired — the huge amount of truck traffic loading and distributing fruit to the shipping port exceeds the government’s ability or perhaps desire to repair and upgrade the roadways to meet current demand.  Not the worst roads we’ve seen - Cambodia has that honor - but clearly in need of improvement.

We spent about ten minutes with Danny as he explained how bananas grow, the fruit is tended, and ultimately harvested.  The workers who care for and harvest the fruit have a pretty tough job and based on what Danny said, are not well paid for their labor.

Danny explaining how things work on the plantation

River of "No Return"

From the plantation, we headed to the Tortuguero canal cruise - a one hour small boat ride to see wildlife (Monkeys, Iguanas, Eagles, Caiman, Herons, and Egrets) in the waters or in trees along the canal.  If anything, it reminded me of childhood memories of the Jungle Boat ride at Disneyland - you leave civilization and head into the jungle in a small boat on a brown waterway no more than 75 yards wide as your guide points out animals along the way.  The canal trip was included in our $60 fee and was well worth the time invested.

Next, we spent about 15 minutes on a hilltop watching trucks and ships load and unload fruit containers - empty and full.  A truck pulls up with a full container - this is picked up and loaded onto the ship; the ship’s crane then brings out an empty container which is then put on the truck that takes it back to the container yard for reloading.  Apparently it takes about 36 port hours to unload the empties and reload the ships - Dole has two ships arrive and depart each week like clockwork - Del Monte was docked just forward of Dole.  Interestingly enough, we have seen the other end of the Dole pipeline in San Diego - having watched the full container ships arrive in San Diego and be off-loaded within that same 36 hour window.  Since Costa Rica’s growing season is year round, the pipeline is always moving product from plantation to market.

San Diego end of Dole fruit pipeline - this fruit comes from Pacific coast sources

Little did we know in June 2010 we'd be seeing the other end of this pipeline 6 years later...

San Diego Dole Terminal

Loading and Unloading operations in Limon - heading to Florida or Europe

Now for lunch - on a hilltop above town from which we could see our ship with NCL Pearl alongside.  We ordered a mushroom risotto, a half chicken cooked local style (grilled and then braised in a yummy coconut based sauce) with rice, beans, and a salad - accompanied by local beer and a pretty decent glass of red wine.  The restaurant - Red Snapper - was really good - honestly this is a “Must Visit” recommendation - not dirt cheap but very reasonable.  Three people (we treated Danny to lunch), four beers, one glass of wine and three entrees for $67 US (they take credit cards).  The food quality was excellent - risotto was the best we’ve had outside of Italy and we’ve never had chicken prepared like this anywhere else in the Caribbean.  Trip Advisor will be getting a review real soon….

After lunch we asked Danny to drop us off at a supermarket so we could shop for our traditional hot sauce purchase (every port in the Caribbean - we are addicted to the taste and variety offered in each country - guess this would be “Feeling the (real) Burn” LOL.  We were really happy we bought our hot sauce in the supermarket - it was slightly less than $1 US per bottle — at the port tourist shopping facility, it was $3-4 US per bottle for the exact same bottle - score!!!

Saying our goodbyes to Danny we promised sending our friends and clients his way when they visit Limon - he is a great ambassador for his city and country, educated and educating…  The 6 or so hours we spent with him taught us a lot and left us wanting to come back with more time to see and experience more of Costa Rica.

Panoramic view of Limon from Red Snapper Restaurant

Eating lunch at Red Snapper

This was truly good!!

Restaurant Red Snapper - great view, great food

Pulling away from the dock to the soft colors of sunset, we waved goodbye to Costa Rica and headed back into the Caribbean while getting ready for “Italian Night” in the Main Dining Room - what a treat we were in store for…

There are theme cuisine nights in the dining room every night - but why is it the food always tastes better on Italian night?  As these pictures show, the food looks great and tasted equally good.  A highlight was Penne Arabiata personally prepared by our head waiter, Eugenio.

As we spend time with our waiter Omar and his lovely assistant waiter Veronika, we are learning more of their life and work aboard the ship.  It has always been apparent that our waiters and cabin attendants work very hard on our cruises - honestly, we had no idea.  By comparison, when I used to do labor estimates for proposals on our software or lab work, we used 1960 labor hours to represent one labor year (52 weeks, two weeks of vacation, one week of sick leave, working 40 hours/day).  Waiter contracts are typically for 9.5 months of work -- no scheduled days off and up to 13 hours per day - 91 hours per week for 38 weeks - 3458 labor hours.  There is a little bit of time shifting and perhaps some swap arounds but I doubt they work less than 80 hours per week during their contract.  At the end of each contract, they get 2.5 months off - this is a nice chunk of time - but they've already worked almost two years worth of hours to get it.  I remember working like this when I was young and wearing a uniform - ambition, mission focus, and desire to get ahead give us an energy we'd be hard pressed to find in our later years.  My hats off to our staff, they're bright, attentive, and cheery each night; making our cruise so very special.

Veal - Val loved it...

Shrimp and Scallops Gratinata

And a little Tiramisu

Vangie, Omar, and Veronika in Gondolier garb

Coral Princess - 5-15 April 2016 - Impressions of a Canal

At 0550 we are dead slow ahead, the running and anchor lights of 20 or more ships surround us within a mile - tight spaces for a 1000' long ship.

Circling and waiting to get into line

Ahead are blinking red and green lights, along a breakwater as the light of false dawn reveals.  Other ships circle slowly clockwise behind us lining up for their turn like aircraft circling at an airport except in slow, slow motion. Standing on the starboard side, I can see the red channel markers lining up ahead (red right return) and three boats have already pulled alongside us to drop or pick up people.

We've entered the breakwater

Two with pilots (perhaps one for the approach and another for our Gatun Lake spin?) while the third took on the Princess video crew who are filming our approach. 

Between Red Buoy 6 and 8 are the contrast between "We can" and "We gave up" - to the left an active port is unloading and loading containers; to the right are three ships in various stages of sunk. One can only be seen by the tips of its superstructure about three feet above the water, another is sunk to deck level, a third is run hard aground. 

As we come alongside Buoy 10, tugs like busy bees can be seen buzzing around the two ships in front of us getting them ready for their first lock entry.

Our aft "Sheep Dog"

As our bow reaches buoy 9, our stern is still at buoy 10, and two tugs bound forward like sheep dogs to shepard our passage.  With one on our port bow and the other on our stern, we begin to creep forward to join the three ships ahead of us, including the Norwegian Pearl who left Cartagena about an hour before we did yesterday.

NCL Pearl, "Going Up"

0755 and our bow is almost at the dock which marks the beginning of the port lock that we will be using this morning.  Meanwhile, Norwegian Pearl is getting mighty tall as the water level in her lock takes her on a slow elevator ride up. 

Interestingly enough, two guys in a little row boat literally row out to our bow and grab a line to pull back to the mule team ashore. The mules will be our motive power along the lock. The incongruity of seeing two guys in a ten foot rowboat grabbing a line from a 1000' ship...

Alright Big Guy - We're the boss here...

Once our lines are pulled ashore, they are connected to the mules, everything happens with deliberate slowness as we are pulled and guided through the three Gatun Locks, each raising us a bit higher.  Two and a half hours later, we enter and anchor in Gatun Lake.  From here our lifeboats flit back and forth carrying passengers ashore to various shore excursions.  While they are seeing local flora and fauna, we float gently in the sun for an hour or so before beginning the entire process in reverse, re-entering the Lock line up around 1pm.

20 Mule Team Canal...

Entering the first lock...

Transiting the Panama Canal is a long, complex, and very expensive process...  We heard two passengers saying it cost us $512,000.00 to make our lock transit - naw...  Google...  Truth!  Panama Canal costs have recently risen - a lot - so much so that many large shippers are creating alternative logistic routes for their products, cutting the Canal out of the equation.  Proving that even when you are a monopoly, if you raise prices too much, other business men will come up with ways around your pricy road block - or Canal in this case.

East bound panorama

Coral Princess - 05-15 April 2016 - Alternative Dining, Wine Tasting, and Wine Packages aboard Coral Princess

Thus far we’ve been quite happy with our main dining room experience aboard Coral Princess - good variety, presentation, and taste - in both lunch and dinner seatings.  But there are other places aboard to eat so we’ve been exploring over the past several days.

First off, there is the Horizon Court buffet - I have eaten there for two breakfasts and one lunch so far.  From my perspective, I haven’t had a meal I cared for - food was pedestrian, rarely warm enough, and almost completely lacking in visual and taste appeal.  Just so you don’t think I’m a food snob, this is the first buffet in the last two years aboard five ships on three cruise lines (including another Princess ship 3 months ago) I haven’t been able to find something I liked thus far.  I ate Army, Air Force, and Navy chow in various places for a number of years and the buffet experience on Coral Princess has reminded me of those days once more.  Hopefully, I’ll find a redeeming meal in the Horizon over the next 5 days of our cruise.

Next up, Sabatini’s Italian Restaurant, an upscale restaurant serving individual pizzas at lunch time (free of charge) and offering a full Italian menu for dinner ($25 charge per person).  We were really looking forward to eating in Sabatini’s after our Jan 2016 cruise aboard Emerald Princess and finding Sabatini’s replaced by “Share by Curtis Stone”.  You can read about that culinary disaster in an earlier post.  Unfortunately, our experience in Sabatini’s while not disastrous, was not what we expected.  Why?  The food was visually wonderful as these pictures will attest.  But the taste, particularly the pasta we selected, was not close to what we’ve experienced in the Main Dining Room thus far - bland and lacking in character.  The burrata appetizer sounded great but was unlike any burrata we’ve ever eaten and we know what burrata is supposed to look and taste like having lived in Italy for 2.5 years.  

Grilled Vegetables in Sabatini's

It looks awesome but bland

Burrata(?) in Sabatini's

Great Looking Food

The highlight of our dinner in Sabatini’s was the 2012 Barolo  accompanying our dinner - price point of $45 was reasonable - and right on the number of our Gold Wine package (10 bottles for $330 - price range of $30-45 per bottle).  If you don’t get a free beverage package with your cruise and you are a wino, the Princess wine packages are a good value especially since they offer good wines at reasonable prices within the package price ranges.  

Bottom line, would we go back to Sabatini’s again and pay $25 each for dinner? No - the main dining room hasn’t let us down yet.

Conversely, Sabatini’s for pizza lunch is a pleasant surprise and a very nice, quiet place to spend a lunch eating pretty decent pizza with a craft beer (love that about Princess) or glass of wine.  There is no charge for the pizza and they are cooked to order in individual sizes.  We’d definitely recommend this as a change of pace for lunch.

The Grill on Deck 15 provides hot dogs, hamburgers and the like for a quick bite around the pool.  We have eaten there once for lunch and ordered two cheese burgers with fries.  They are assembled to order not cooked to order and there is a big difference between the two.  The cheese is barely melted having been placed on a pre-cooked patty and the buns have not been grilled — if you can follow the theme our recommendation would be try it if you are sitting at the pool and want a quick bite — if you have got a few more minutes, you might get something better in Horizon Cafe which is about 50’ farther forward.

We haven’t tried Bayou Cafe for lunch (Pub Food on sea days) or dinner yet but we can’t wait to try it and report back.

One of the things we did on our second sea day was the Maitre’D wine tasting.  The Maitre’D tasting is a higher end tasting than the Grapevine tasting later in our cruise - and includes several bottles between $60 and $100 retail price.  We tasted 6 wines - three white and three red - with a nice selection of canapés to help cleanse and sharpen our palate.  Geographically speaking, California, South Africa, France, and Italy were represented.  At the end of the tasting, we were offered the opportunity to buy three of the reds in a package for ~$140 - considering that the retail price of the three totaled $200, this would have been a nice discount if we had really liked the wines themselves.  But that is the beauty of wine, wine tasting, and evidence that if you drink enough wine, you will really know what you like (or don’t) when you try them.  The wines we have chosen ourselves each night - Estancia Meritage, a Barolo, and a Simi Landslide Cabernet - are all tastier to us than what we had during the tasting and priced between $36 and $46 on the Princess wine menu.

Coral Princess - 5-15 April - Cartagena First Impressions...

First impressions are important. After reading Mitchner's book, "Caribbean", and how Nelson, the scourge of the Spanish Main, had been unable to successfully attack Cartagena, I had been anxious to see this port with an eye towards 18th Century warfare. 

With a slowing of our engines about 7am, it sounded like we might have been letting on a pilot. But this was two hours before our scheduled  docking time?  When I got dressed and went out about 7:15, sure enough trailing about a half mile behind was the pilot boat. And coming up on our port bow was a fort at the narrowest entrance to a long channel ahead.  Farther to the port bow, I could see skyscrapers lighted brightly by the rising sun.  Wow, this is one heck of a natural harbor!  

Fixed vs. Anytime / Early vs. Late dining - and who you're spending time with?  When you cruise as a two-some or perhaps a four-some, and sit at a two or four person table, you are going to get to know your waiter and assistant waiter better than anyone else on the ship.  The staff you interact with are probably 1/3 of your cruise experience with another 1/3 being your cabin, and the rest divided equally between food aboard and port calls. These proportions may vary based on length or rhythm (# of sea days vs port calls) of the itinerary or specific personal preferences, but suffice to say if you eat 2 meals a day in the main dining room and spend 90 minutes for each meal, and are aboard for 7 days, that's about 21 hours with your waiter and assistant waiter.  So if you are traveling as a couple or quartet,  it makes a lot of sense to choose fixed dining so you can build a relationship with your wait staff. Conversely, if you are in a large group or sitting at a large table, you will get less attention and chat time with your staff and the relationship will perhaps be less important than efficiency at getting your orders to the table and dishes cleared. Besides, when you are sitting in a large group, you are usually involved in two or more conversations with people sitting at your table.

The other important thing to consider is when to dine. Early dining is always the busier seating so more tables are full and the waiters are really busy. Late Dining is almost always less full and your staff has more time and opportunity to customize your order - "Oh, you'd like some caramel sauce on your mashed potatoes? No problem." - because kitchen staff is also less stressed.

On to Cartagena and honestly, the first time I've set foot on the continent of South America - and as it turns out, it was a very nice foot indeed.  Our focus was getting to see and know the old walled city - a UNESCO World Heritage site.

We waited about an hour after docking to make our way down the gangway to catch the bus for the port facilities.  The cruise ship docking is in the middle of a busy port -- no walking from dock to exit here.

After getting off the bus, we were in for a surprise...  Birds and wildlife everywhere -- like getting off in a zoo except most of the animals aren't in enclosures and the animals are walking around next to you.  Flamingos, peacocks, all kinds of macaws, parrots, and monkeys in the trees.

Next - the port taxi stand - according to the placard, $20 to the old city - we didn't like the thought of a $40 round trip so set off on foot to see if we could do better.  We exited the port and were assailed by more off-site taxi hawkers - the price was still $20 so we kept walking - for about another 50 yards or so until someone agreed to take us into town for $10 - bingo...  The ride into the old city was about 15 minutes - fair amount of traffic on Saturday mid-day.  Weather was low 90's and fairly humid although there was a nice breeze blowing.

The plaza where we exited the taxi was non-descript with a few hawkers looking to provide tours.  But once we entered though the arch way, we entered a truly lovely town - beautifully restored, scrupulously clean for the most part, with greenery and flowers blooming from second story verandas.  We walked from one side of the walled city to the other and then chose several different cross streets to get a feel for things - we like what we felt and saw - churches, schools, shops, restaurants, art filled plazas - bright splashes of color and handsome people walking here and there.

Clean and pedestrian friendly

Beautiful Plaza del Santo Domingo

Local Color...

With a very pleasant spring in our step, we concentrated on finding a souvenir to commemorate out visit.  After deciding on the general idea, we found a beautiful hors devours tray - signed by the artist - that matches our living rooms colors.  The price was reasonable and the proprietor wrapped it securely in bubble wrap for the journey home.  Retracing our steps, we found a taxi back to the ship for $10 immediately -- I think we were smart to hold out for the $10 price tag on the way into town...  Our driver recreated some good Italian driving to get us back to the port - everything but driving on the curb but we felt safe the whole time, interesting how you get used to driving you never see at home except in the movies...

Safely back to port with plenty of time before departure, we enjoyed watching the animals and the birds cavort while Valerie wrote and posted three postcards at the Port store (nice selection, decent prices but better down town) - postcards stamped to get back to the USA were $2 each.

Would you like some?

I am a Chameleon, watch me blend into the furniture

Macaw Extasy

We are the real thing...

Our port call to Cartagena left us wanting more; wishing our port call was long enough to find and eat a good meal -- we'll come back and get that knocked out -- there aren't many cities we've seen that blend 16th century walled cities with a skyline of sky scrapers (on Boca Grande) that look like downtown Miami - the contrast is so interesting and unique. Tomorrow - the Panama Canal - between now and then, we're sailing through 10-14ft seas on our starboard beam -- the stabilizers are doing a great job -- and the third day of the Masters is on ESPN in our stateroom.  Life is sweet...

Coral Princess - 5-15 April - Heading South to Aruba - Day 2

My view of cruising has certainly evolved from my first formal cruise in 2002.  While not my first ocean going experience, I’d crossed the Pacific on a passenger liner (SS President Wilson) in 1966, my first cruise out of Civitavecchia was less than stunning.  I remember the herd experience getting on or off the ship, the mass of people ashore in our first port call of Taormina, Sicily, and the sound of anchor chains going up and down in our forward cabin.  Other than proposing to my honey on that trip — ashore in the town of Gaeta, Italy — there weren’t a lot of highlights.  Fast forward 14 years and I continue to re-enforce why I love cruising so much — on a day that we didn’t do anything “special”.

Sea Days - you either love them or you don’t…  Valerie and I love them, especially when you have a couple the first few days out of port.  Why?  Because sea days give you the chance to shut down your normal schedule driven routines and eliminate most of your electronic disruptions in favor of setting your own schedule and objectives.  Feel like sleeping in — just do it — sit down for a formal three course lunch — ditto — work out or nap in the afternoon — check…  

Love the variety of food on Princess...

Dinner was wonderful once again — with the highlight being Valerie’s pork tenderloin — perfectly prepared and presented.  And as we always do on cruise — and hardly ever at home — had dessert for the second night in a row — after all, we are doing about 50 flights of stairs a day…  Pecan ice cream with freshly made Creme Brûlée’ - really???

Oh, and catch up with that activity most often relegated to bed time — reading a good book or two — during the middle of the day; in short, you feel relaxed in a way that is pretty hard to do when you are home, taking a road trip, or touring the 7 Wonders of the World.  Cruising eliminates the “overhead” of daily life — making the bed, cleaning the bathroom, shopping for and preparing food, and leaves it for you to decide how much or how little you’d like to do each day.

So, if you’re catching a theme, we basically relaxed yesterday — Val giving her back a chance to relax and loving her book; I read, blogged, got in a work out, and did a bit of putting practice on the Princess Links green on deck 15.  The golf obsession follows me to sea…

Weather-wise, yesterday was pretty but bouncy as we passed the coast of Cuba all day and snuck through the Windward Passage between Cuba and Haiti last night.  Today is much smoother and the wind calmer.

Later today - after lunch, we are doing a wine tasting — should be a hoot especially since we were accorded a VIP table (thanks to the Maitre D’) and are now being truly spoiled.  Better get all my blogging done before 3 pm or I may be a little (more) ditzy when I next put pen to paper.

Tomorrow morning we pull into our first port, Aruba — 1008 sea miles from Ft Lauderdale.  This will be our third visit to Aruba and first since we became Cruise Planners.  With that in mind, we are heading to Oriental Grand Aruba Resort to learn about the resort and its offerings for our future Aruba visitors.

Coral Princess - April 5-15 - Heading South to Aruba

After pulling away from the dock in Fort Lauderdale, we sat our on our balcony to watch the world pass by.  That’s when we noticed two things — first, since we are at the end of the ship, we can see what the folks on the opposite side of the ship can see as it passes astern - so we can see the view from both sides of the ship from one cabin.  The flip side of this is that Coral Princess, unlike some of the other ships we have been on, has stern observation platforms (vice Suite Balconies) on Deck 10 and Deck 11 - and these stern observation platforms are right beside or above our balcony.  So not a lot of privacy if you want to be sunbathing on your balcony.  But it was nice to toast each other on the balcony with our complimentary sparkling wine as we departed.  

Deck 10 Aft Observation Deck - Hello Neighbor

Deck 11 Observation Deck - Hello Up there..

A couple of other notes about our cabin location…  Since we are in the last cabin on the starboard side, no one is tramping past our room - so people noise is negligible - we are getting a constant white noise kind of low rumble from our propellers about 100+ feet below us.  For us sleeping-wise, this low rumble rocks us to sleep - if you are really sensitive to any kind of noise, you may want to be closer to amidships (middle of the ship).  Amidships will be quieter from a ship noise perspective but you will have more people walking past your room — bottom line — you need to know what’s important so you can select your own perfect cabin.  When you are heading south - like we are, sun down will be on our side (starboard or right) of the ship.  Then when we are heading east from Costa Rica to Jamaica, we will have sundown behind us - so for folks who like to toast the Sun’s passing each evening - in the constant search for the perfect Green Flash - our starboard aft cabin balcony is pretty much perfection…

Once we were properly at sea, we started our exploration of Coral Princess with layout of our last ship — Emerald Princess — firmly in mind.  Whoops, we got turned around in a hurry since several major things are reversed between these ships - Horizon Cafe (buffet) and the Gym.  On Coral, Horizon Cafe is forward on the bow on deck 14 (Lido) in a really pretty kind of “sun room” glass ceiling while the gym is aft on the same deck.  On the Sun Deck amidships is the Princess Links aboard Coral — an astro turf putting green — that was all the way aft on the Emerald.  Finally we made our way down to the Provence (Main) Dining room on deck 6 forward to see where our assigned table was.  The staff was busy making ready for the early seating but made time to walk us back to our table — which was “ok” but not ideal.  Presto Chango - certainly Sir and Madam - we’ll gladly change your table to one more suitable - that easily and quickly.  Just like our cruise on Emerald where we ended up having to change our table twice - our dining room staff were willing and able to help us find our perfect table - hats off to Princess for their willingness to accommodate their guests.

So how was our meal?  Five courses and two hours later, we walked out happy as two people could be.  Great food - the butterflied shrimp in garlic butter sauce appetizer was a highlight - and the garlic butter sauce worked beautifully as a condiment for the baked potato accompanying our prime rib.  Our waiter - Omar from Mexico - and assistant waiter Veronika from Ukraine - were wonderful.  Co-incidentally enough, on Emerald Princess, our waiter and assistant waiter (Jorge and Katarina) were also a Mexico-Ukraine tandem who were married to each other.  When we mentioned this to Veronika, she said that she and Omar were married too and live in Cancun when they aren’t aboard and working.  I guess the legacy of Princess as the “Love Boat” extends to this very day…  

The service and sequencing of our courses was perfect - we were just a bit worried about late fixed dining because of an experience 18 months ago on Norwegian Pearl where it seemed that staff and food each night were more concerned about clearing, cleaning, and setting up for tomorrow than taking care of their late diners.  In sharp contrast, late dining on Coral was less crowded giving us more personal attention from our wait staff and perfectly sequenced/timed courses from the kitchen.  Having sailed Princess twice on two different ships in the last 3.5 months, we can definitely say that the food and service in the main dining room is really good.

With the low rumble of the engines and propellers far below — and no devices or restless fur babies to disturb our sleep, we slept in until 8:30 this morning and are feeling like we are on our kind of vacation.  The east coast of Cuba is to our right as we steam south, weather is partly cloudy, warm with winds in the 15-20 knot range — perfect…

Coral Princess - 05 April - 15 April - Panama Canal - Day One - Embarkation

For the first time we chose to drive our own car to Port parking - choosing Park and Fly - which turned out really well.  As soon as we pulled into our space, a shuttle driver pulled up to help us get loaded aboard - less than three minutes after pulling in, we were heading to the Cruise Terminal arriving about 5 minutes later.

We dropped our bags off with the baggage handlers and headed to check in.  Princess Preferred boarding is so slick - short lines and less than 5 minutes after we walked into the terminal we were heading up stairs for boarding.  Turns out, Elite passengers get to take a short cut, so in the interest of science, we took the short cut which essentially put us at the head of the line at the gangway.  From our terminal arrival until stepping aboard the ship, I doubt it took more than 15 minutes - that’s really nice.

Our room - Carib 727 - was ready on our arrival - another trend I’m starting to enjoy - rather than getting shunted up to the buffet or a theater and waiting for an hour or so, we could go right to our room, get our carry-ons emptied and organized, poured a glass of wine in the glasses we’d brought with us.  Princess allows two bottles per cabin free of charge so we carried them in our carry-on with our Embarkation toast in mind.  Very civilized…  If you’ll note the silk screen on my wine glass you’ll note it says - “I prefer an interesting vice to an annoying virtue” (Moliere) which says it all.

Our initial impression of our cabin - which I’d chosen with malice aforethought - is fabulous.  It is a mini-suite - so plenty of room, with a nice balcony — and the location…  Last cabin aft on the starboard (right) side of the ship - we can see 270+ degrees because our balcony wraps around to the stern (back) of the ship.

Balcony view from Carib 727…

Besides our cabin - we really love our upcoming itinerary…  At sea for three nights, then Aruba, Cartagena, the Panama Canal, and Limon on succeeding days.  Then another sea day before arriving in Jamaica - one more sea day and back to Fort Lauderdale.  So we are seeing three ports we’ve never visited before (Cartagena, Limon, and Jamaica) with lots of sea days to truly chill and get to know the ship.

More later when we leave FLL and head south…