NutellaBear

I assume all hot tubs are filthy. Advantage of owning your own is it is mostly your own filth! I always shower after using one. It is where having a pool at a decent temperature helps. I tried really hard to do a pool plunge after using one of the deck hot tubs. I got up to my middle but just couldn't do it.

Towards the end of the cruise all thermal spa pools get pretty bad. But what are you going to do? Dirt is filthy too yet I still walk around in it barefoot. And I take solace in the studies that show people that live on farms are healthier because exposure to environmental pathogens strengthens the immune system. At least that is what I tell myself ....

Hot tubs! That reminds me. Major issue for me was that all the pools were ALL freezing! Hot tubs were OK — more social temperature though than therapeutic. About where one would draw their bath at, temperature wise.

Hot tub hankie-panky, if you saw it there were obviously not enough bubbles!

Seriously though, sensibilities do vary quite a bit. What flies in San Francisco falls flat in Omaha.

Also of note, was the amount of overt public displays of…well… sex, that were seen not only on the main dance floor, but late at night at the after hours club (club 6). That was a little off putting.

Sex! Where? I wanna see!

Maybe they stopped when they saw me approach. <g>

I didn't see anything tawdry. But I realize sensibilities vary. Without going into excessive details, there are milder forms of fooling around that most gay guys equate with a friendly handshake.

I always enjoy the RSVP February Caribbean cruise. The nice thing about the all gay cruises is that we do a pretty good job of entertaining ourselves! So for us, the Cruise Line activities tend not to be as important as they are for other cruisers.

I had some nit picky issues with the ship that were not very important overall to my enjoyment of the cruise. I think the public area deck arrangements have issues. The center top side deck especially was not well suited for our dances and ship wide gatherings. The raised area of what is basically a water fountain was the main "dance" area but it segregated the participants and certainly wasn't big enough to accommodate everyone that wanted to participate. I wish they would have incorporated the fountain into a flat deck so that the area could better serve both functions.

About the only consistent thing I will ding Princess on is the protean selections in their food offerings. They were consistently over cooked and literally difficult to swallow. I don't think I had one beef selection that couldn't pass for jerky. The safest bet was typically the fish if you can get it shortly after put on the line on the buffet or any time in the restaurant. It really made me wonder if they even used Rational Ovens or some other programmable brand which make meats and stuff almost impossible to mess up. Thought just about everybody used the programmable stuff these days. The Rotisserie Chicken was consistently good which are made in another type of programmable oven.

Chilled pre-made meat dishes were also a good bet. The rotisserie chicken when offered in the buffet was also consistently tasty and moist. Morning eggs were quite simply abused — really, a pile of fried eggs under a heat lamp on the buffet serving line? Whatever was over easy to start with ended up being over rock hard after 5 minutes.

Side dishes were edible but usually pretty pedestrian offerings. Nothing really stood out to where I wanted to go back for more. The chilled seasoned shrimp were tasty in the buffet. The breads were good. Pizza was passable. Hamburgers were about the best one can expect from frozen pre-made patties. Desserts were disappointing — edible and looked pretty but nothing that made me want to go back for more.

The specialty restaurants were good. Not stand out good but satisfying. Enjoyed going to the Fondue Restaurant with a group of friends.

Probably the stand out meal for me was the Surf and Turf in the main restaurant. The prawns were more like mini lobster tails and the petite fillet was done perfectly.

Coffee sucked everywhere. They just are not using very good beans. In the buffet it was teasingly weak — a stronger brew would have been a passable cup of diner coffee. The baristas in the up-charge coffee bars simply did not have good beans to work with so the taste was never pleasing for an up charge cup of a speciality coffee.

Duty free shopping was mediocre. Most luxury goods were at list price. "But it's Duty and Tax free!" was their standard response. Amazon would be a better buy across the board. Watches were 15% off list. Some jewelry items had a higher discount off of inflated list prices. The only good deal were cigarettes which were about $25 a carton but they only carried three or four brands.

Overall, I can't wait to get back on HAL next year.....

Pulling out of Miami at 6:40 pm. They are saying we will make all our ports but a day late. Guess the engines are going to be full ahead!

They finally got cleared from Miami Port and we are pulling out now around 6:40 pm. Oh well, things happen!

Sorry to say but I don't think you will get too many takers for something like this on an RSVP cruise. There is already so much offered and this is a very specialized subject of interest.

I understand what you are saying. This big ship, all these men!

Watch collectors can be a pretty dedicated bunch though. On watch forums, scheduling up GTGs is a fairly common occurrence. As I mentioned in the last message, there have been events onboard during past cruises and 50 people would show up.

<snort> Sell something more aggressively than the Port Agents that are on board encouraging you to visit certain stores at Port and to mention their names for a "special" discount? I think they might work with RSVP, and get kick backs from any purchases cruisers make. The cruise line will also have people on board hawking warez from the ship's shopping area. Though I do understand the suspicion....

No I don't have anything to sell other than getting together with some people that enjoy watches. I attended some of the meetings on past cruises given by the "Port Agent" and they had 30 or 40 people show up to talk about watches and the nitwit conducting the meeting didn't have much to share other than you can find xyz brand at these locations. I'd go to some of the suggested locations out of curiosity and the prices were horrible by the way.

I thought it would be fun just to do a tear down and show people the parts inside and how they work together. I could easily do a projection type demonstration for nothing but mutual enjoyment, but if there was interest I get people a cheap movement (at cost — like $15 or $20) and we can do tear downs together.

Like I said, I'm only offering to do this because I enjoy getting together with watch collectors and there aren't many watchmakers left where you'd have a similar opportunity. I'd work for a Rum Runner or two and some new friends.

I wanted to find out if there were any Watch Collectors going on the RSVP Cruise? Was thinking about trying to organize a Get Together onboard the ship. I am a Watchmaker and would be willing to do some demonstrations, a question and answer, and if there was interest could even put together a hands-on course on movement disassembly that could be a lot of fun.

PM me if you were personally interested but would also like to see any thread replies about the idea. I've tried to contact RSVP a couple of times about getting it listed so people can sign up for it but they apparently did not deem my e-mails worthy of some sort of reply....