CAC104

I really enjoyed reading this latest cruise review, it did not disappoint.  And, thank you for sending me the e mail with the info you had this review out on CC.

Everything is so different than when I started cruising.  All the food was included and drinks were really inexpensive.   Room service was free and chocolates were on your pillow at night.

Hi Ann,  I just browsed through all your cruise pages and am glad you are having a good time.  Your port experiences are so different now after covid, and I think I would have been disappointed.  When I was in Venice, our cruise ship docked overnight and we had 2 full days to just go and explore on our own.  I sailed on HAL many years ago and thought their service and food was so good.  But back then everything on the menu did not have all the additional charges and this was before all the pay specialty restaurants, so I thought the dining room food was perfect.   Do they still have lobster night and shrimp in the buffet for lunch every day?

I love your cruise reviews!

It does make more sense to get certified but honestly, without going into details, I have been given some bad news regarding my health and given "5 years or less". So, I just don't think that it's in the cards for me at this time and I'm happy with what I'm doing as long as I'm living life to the fullest and just happy to be blessed enough to spend this time with my family. We will see what the future holds for me. It's just too up in the air at the moment.

Kim....when I read this I was absolutely shocked and so sad.  I just can't believe that this could be true.  Surely there is something that can be done so you don't have to face this limited time frame.  As you know, so much is discovered with medical treatments, and I sincerely hope something can be done for you.

On 5/4/2019 at 4:05 PM, mitsugirly said:

Time for a new review: Spring Break 2019!!!

 

We cruise the Freedom of the Seas out of Old San Juan this time (I just love cruising from here).

 

 

Our ports would be:

 

Leaving San Juan: April 21  8:30pm

Basseterre, St Kitts: April 22  9-6pm

St Johns, Antigua: April 23   8-5pm

Castries, St Lucia: April 24    9-6pm

Bridgetown, Barbados: April 25   8-7pm

Sea Day: April 26  All fricken day long

Philipsburg, St Maarten: April 27  8-6pm

San Juan Arrival: April 28   6am

 

 

This time around it would be myself, hubby and Sakari the Mermaid and Kendra's family (Billy, Brayden, Kambriah) and Billy's niece Shawna.

 

My last cruise in December is when I decided to "resurface" on the web with a new review of our cruise on Carnival's Horizon. So many things had happened in my family since that summer and things were very hectic in life.

 

Well....I have managed to FINALLY complete my bachelors degree (after dragging it out for years...we all know I plan school and "life" around my cruising lol) and I would consider this my "Graduation cruise". (Hey, any excuse used for a cruise is a good excuse right?). I was going out with a bang!

 

Since all of the "changes in life" before my last cruise (new grandbabies, youngest son buying a new house and moving out, schooling, selling one of our businesses, and some home remodeling) there have been a few more changes thrown our way. Our Christmas cruise...we (meaning my family and Kendra's) were set to cruise and Kendra's fiance got word that they didn't think his dad would make it to Christmas. The day we were to fly out, Billy pulled out of going on the cruise. His father did make it, but unfortunately, he passed away February 15th this year. Billy has not taken it well (his dad raised him and all of his siblings so they were very close). To make matters worse, Billy's best friend (along with another good friend and an acquaintance) were also killed in a vehicle accident the SAME DAY! It was a crazy day and he has been dealing with a lot. With all that behind him, he really needed this cruise. But wait...there's MORE! Like how can there possibly be more that can be put on this mans shoulders? Two weeks before the cruise, his Uncle passed away. Then his baby sister passed away the Friday before the cruise. 😞  Less than 2 months from his fathers and best friends death he was once again burying another family member. He was not only dealing with all the loss in his family, but also trying to arrange a funeral prior to leaving. I just feel so bad for him and we were also VERY close to his dad and best friend. It's been a living nightmare for all of us. We really needed this cruise and a break away from life in general.

 

I decided to pick a cruise that would have at least one new port we had never been to before. We absolutely loved cruising with Royal Caribbean last time and figured it was time to come back again for this cruise. Antigua is one port that I had never been to...so we booked.

 

Now originally we were going to go with an interior, especially since this is another port intensive cruise and we aren't the type to spend much time in our rooms anyhow. But we found the ocean views to be a great deal...then for some reason I took a look at an ULTRA SPACIOUS OCEAN VIEW, which happened to be located at the very front of the ship with 2 windows. Hmmm, it's my graduation celebration cruise right? Heck, why not? I was super excited and knew that any room bigger than any previous interior or balcony had to be awesome right? I booked and was super excited!!!

 

Kendra played it cheap and booked an interior for their group. Spring Break cruises are always a lot more expensive than other times and she didn't want the added expense...or at least that's what she thought at the time. lol

 

 

But before the review begins...just a few non-legal formalities heh heh heh.....

 

I am so happy to find this review.  I have been in withdrawal with not reading your posts for a while.  I am so sorry to read about all of the sad news and feel so badly for Billie.  He has gone through so much sadness for such a short period of time.  Congratulations to you on reaching your Graduation! 

 

 

 

 

 

Hi Kim....I have missed your posts on FB and tried to message you to see if all was okay and saw that your account was cancelled. I still would like to keep up with you and if you are on another link can you e me the link? cac104 at aol dot com.

Definitely worth the read! I am really surprised at how different it looked for you compared to when I went the end of July-beginning of August and again another year in September. Where you had white out, we had vibrant colors. In the fall the leaves had their autumn look and in the summer it was very green. Plus, we did not have any rain.

I was on the Emerald Princess years ago for a Caribbean trip and one place I liked was where they made pizza for you. (no extra charge) Do they still have that?

I am looking forward to reading you review!

 

Emerald Princess to Alaska - April 27 - May 9, 2018 - Round trip out of Los Angeles

 

Friday April 27 - Embarkation day

 

So, first a little about me. This is my thirty-third cruise and fifth on Princess. I am platinum on Princess. I am also platinum on Carnival, diamond plus on Royal Caribbean and I am gold on Norwegian Cruise Line, but should be platinum before the end of next year.

 

I found out that people like lots of details, so I write my review will on the ship while events are fresh in my mind. In fact, I am typing this while seated in the terminal waiting to board the ship.

 

Then I found out that people like lots of photographs. I started out with a good quality point and shoot camera. I am currently using a Canon A1300. The people who read my reviews liked my photographs. So eventually I upgraded to a DSLR (and upgraded that a couple of times). Now I have a Nikon D5200. I eventually purchased a very wide angle lens so I could cover the cabins with on photo instead of four photographs “stitched” together to look like one photograph.

 

 

Please note, while we did not have much rain, we did have plenty of cloud cover. Some of the photographs look like they are black and white images. It is the lack of the sun that prevented some of nature’s colors from showing their true colors. On the other hand, when the sun is not acting like a spot light there are less shadows (which is why the professional photographers have one light aimed at the background – to prevent shadows), so it is not all bad when it is overcast. So in some cases I have included photographs that were taken by others prior to our arrival in Alaska. Most notably photographs I obtained from the ship or from the musher camp in Skagway.

 

I started out posting forty or so photographs. Soon I was posting about 200 photographs. Unfortunately posting photographs is time consuming and boring. When Photobucket changed its terms of service, I switched to SmugMug. This gave me the ability to link to photo albums. So with one link I could link fifty or more photographs. If I recall correctly, with my last review I provided links to several albums containing over five hundred photographs. This works out well for both you too. The linked photographs are bigger than the posted photographs (and bigger is better when dealing with photographs). I will post some of the photographs with the review and provide links to over 499 photographs (yes, one less than 500, but that does not count the 34 videos).

 

 

I made arrangement to have a limo pick me up and take me to the port, then pick me up and take me home. It is only costing me an extra thirty dollars over driving my own car and paying for parking. I really didn’t want to leave my car at the port for two weeks.

 

I ended up working late the day before the cruise and did not get home until late. I was tired, so I decided to pack this morning. I normally wake up around 5:30am for work, and today is what would normally be a work day. I packed, showered and dressed before the limo arrived. I have two full suit cases with enough clothing for two weeks and some cold weather gear, but no swimsuit (and no doing laundry on the ship).

 

Apparently there is extra screening taking place onboard the ship, so boarding will be delayed. Nonetheless, I had already made arrangements for a pick up at 9:45am planning to arrive at the pier at 10:45am. The driver was on time and traffic was heavier than I expected at 10am. Nonetheless, the driver took a different route than I usually take and we arrived at 10:45am.

 

I left my checked luggage with the porter and went into the terminal to check in. I was sent to the far end of the terminal and stood next to one of the staff to ask where I should go. An announcement started, so I waited for it to end before asking my questions. Turns out the announcement was that check in would now begin. It also turns out that I was in the right place at the right time. It was a very quick check in for me.

 

There was one strange thing about check-in. I have both a passport card and a passport book. I used the passport card because it is credit card sized and fits in my wallet. After the lady checking me in scanned my passport card she asked for my passport. I pointed to my passport card. She understood that it was good enough, but said she needed to scan my passport even though she really didn’t need to. What??? This was one of those times it was easier to comply than to argue, so I let her scan my passport. She said it was in case I need to fly home. I told her my arms would get too tired if I did that.

Room key in hand, I headed to the waiting area (first row, second seat). While seated I thought I recognized someone from the roll call that I had never met. I realize that sounds strange, but I was right. This was the first time we met face to face. I told her husband that I hoped it was okay that on the health form where it said “date” I put his wife’s name. I am wearing my beads (she was not), and while we were talking, someone else from the roll call noticed my beads and came by to say hello. We all talked for a while, and then I sat down to work on this some more.

 

Well, with nothing else to write, I’ll shut down for now and get back to you once I am on the ship.

 

Well, I am on the ship. Boarding began around 12:30pm with in-transit (for those who felt the prior twenty-eight day cruise was not long enough), any wedding parties, those that needed extra help, and relatives of the Captain and CEO. Then came elite group A, B, C, and D. Finally around 1:15pm platinum group E was called. My embarkation photo was taken with a green screen background, so I have no idea where it will appear that I am.

 

Once on the ship I went straight to my cabin, where my luggage was already waiting for me. Normally I then head out to take photographs. However, it is now two hours later then when I normally board, so I decided to get lunch. I have two days at sea to take photographs of the ship.

 

After lunch I went to guest services to change credit cards. The one I signed up with was hacked and now locked, so it cannot be used. Well, they cannot do that until we sail. Okay, I’ve got a $400 on board credit, so I can wait.

 

Next I took photographs of the area of the ship I would have to pay for if I wanted to see it again – the Sanctuary. Then it was back to the cabin to do some unpacking and rest up a bit. I’ll do most of my unpacking tomorrow.

 

Muster was at 3:15pm. My muster station was E, which is Club Fusion. It was short and soon I was headed back to the cabin to relax until we set sail at 4pm. This ship has an interior that is very much like the Royal Princess I was on last cruise. However, unlike the Royal Princess, this ships has some forward observation areas. I took a few photographs, then returned to the cabin to rest until dinner at 7:45pm.

 

There are five of us at a six top, and we are all linked together (in other words, it is no accident that we are all at the same table). We have been assigned to the Botticelli dining room, deck six aft. There is only two ways to get to this restaurant, via the stairs or elevator. You cannot walk along deck six from mid ship to this dining room. Now if you are arriving via the stairs and the door have not opened yet (they were late opening the door for us this evening), no big deal, you stop and wait on the stairs. But if you arrive by elevator, you only have two choices, find some room on the floor so that you can join the crowd that is waiting for the doors to open or don’t get off. I’ve seen this set up on several ships and I don’t like it.

At any rate I had the pasta appetizer and the prime rib for the main course. Dinner was good and so was the conversation. After dinner I said good night and headed for my cabin. I worked late the prior night, got up early and more or less had a long, enjoyable day. I wanted to rest. So until tomorrow - good night.

 

Link to the folder with additional photographs of the outside of the ship ...

https://www.smugmug.com/2018-Emerald-Princess/Ship-outside

 

Link to the folder with San Pedro photographs ...

https://www.smugmug.com/gallery/n-2SgZmH

 

If you want to see the larger photographs in SmugMug, just click on the photograph to the right of the thumbnails. Click on the left and right arrows to move through the album. Click on the white "X" in the upper right corner to return to the smaller photographs. The two arrows to the left of the white "X" will take you to full screen. The Esc key will bring you back. You can add comments to the photographs if you want (the comment section is just below the photographs).

 

 

Leaving San Pedro in our wake.

 

 

 

I did start a website with all of my reviews and ports, ships and so on. I just haven't finished it or published and hosted it yet. I keep taking all these darn vacations and can't never seem to get caught up. I gave a preview of it on one of my other reviews.

 

 

If you are interested in checking out what I'm working on...here's a 3 minute video showing what I have been working on.

 

 

nrpOPUGnyBY

When you get this up and running it is going to be a fantastic place to go to. You might be able to sell advertising links to it to make some money.

 

I have never been to St John yet. I hear people talk about the wonderful snorkeling there. Some day I'll make it there.

My worst snorkeling experience was in St. Johns when there were a lot of cruise ships in port and the excursions filled the beach with the "snorkel trail." It was mayhem in the water with people flailing away, and every fish went miles the other way.

 

Thanks for the good luck from this nurse to you as a nurse.

I think if you posted in advance when you booked a cruise, you could probably sell out loads of cabins with people who want to travel with you. Of course, you then would have dozens of people trailing you around....:')

 

 

Yea, I agree about any of the cruise lines hiring me. People tell me that all the time but I'm sure they have the position filled already and I'm not even sure if that's an actual job.

 

 

Sakari is one very lucky girl. We all are very blessed to be able to have our travels and great family together on most of them.

I loved the way Sakari posed with all the statues in PR.

On another link I was told this was a great read, so I am going to start in now.

Sakari is truly becoming more and more like a Mermaid every trip. Those fish must take a look at her and see her beautiful tail and feel like she is one of them. I am so impressed by how deeply she can free dive and stay underwater for so long. She really had great pictures as well. I just love all of your reviews and underwater photography. I have always been and avid cruiser and snorkeler, but now that my husband is sick I cannot get away anymore and your posts really fill the void.

Kim...it was so very heart breaking to see your photos of the Island destruction. I am surprised that more hasn't been done to renew it back to the way it was. I have been there so many times and enjoyed how lovely the Island had been.

Ok, that concludes my ship tour...WHEW! Sorry if I missed any areas. By the last day of the cruise, I was still finding areas that I hadn't seen the entire cruise. I know there's other places (like the work out place, which always had tons of people in it so I didn't want to go around and snap pictures of them, and places like the spa) but hopefully this will give you an idea of most of what's located on the ship.

 

She's a beautiful ship and we really liked the layout of it! Super easy to navigate.

 

 

 

Thanks for reading. :)

The Country Club is where you go to pick up sports equipment and sign up for different sports events. I love the Jewel. I did a 14 day transAtlantic on her and hated to get off. I liked that line of ships so much we did a 15 day Circle Hawaii cruise on her sister ship. To me, it is the perfect sized ship, but we aren't into all the water slides, rope climbing, etc. and really enjoy being able to see the ocean and feel the ship move through the water.

We landed and was in the cab by 6:20pm. They would hand us a ticket with the price to get from the airport to our hotel in OSJ. $25

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sounds like a great plan! I’m thinking I may splurge on those full-face snorkels for our twins and start practicing on our March trip in preparation for September. Hopefully I can turn one of them into a snorkel-lover! They don’t swim as well as Sakari at 5, but we are working on it! Maybe I can talk my zip-lining enthusiast husband into snorkeling there the next time we go...since he’s zip-lined twice there now.

 

 

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I have a Down Syndrome son who loves to swim and uses goggles. He has a problem with using snorkels because it causes him to gag. When I saw a commercial for the full face masks I ordered one for him, and he loves it. He can breathe so easy in it and can just keep on swimming. He especially likes that he can talk while swimming! I tried it out, and it does work well, but I am so used to the snorkel and mask combo that I will stick to that. I think your kids will like them if they fit well.

The Jewel of the Seas is my favorite cruise ship!

Before I start writing about our time in French Polynesia, I wanted to give a little background information. Back in September of 2015, DH proposed to me on a romantic sunrise hot air balloon ride. We immediately began planning our wedding for September of 2016, and talking about where we wanted to take our honeymoon. We already had our Celebrity Equinox cruise booked for 2 weeks in March 2016, so that used up most of our 2016 vacation days (Many people suggested we just call that cruise our honeymoon, but we definitely did not want to take our honeymoon 6 months before we were married!). We knew we wanted to take a fairly substantial vacation for our honeymoon, so we decided to delay it until 2017 when we would have more vacation days available. We both love cruising, so I looked into some itineraries in Europe, Asia, and Australia,but DH said he wanted a more romantic, low key, beachy honeymoon as opposed to the city-based touring that those cruises offered. My next thought was to go to Hawaii as many of my friends from the East Coast have done for their honeymoons. While I have never been there and definitelywant to go sometime soon, it is a very easy flight from where we live in California, so it just didn't seem honeymoon-worthy (unlike my friends on the East Coast who can get to Europe faster than Hawaii! haha)

 

That's when I started to investigate French Polynesia. My friends on the East Coast would never even consider this, being that the flight would take up half of their vacation time lol Living in the Bay Area meant DH and I could get to LAX in a quick one-hour flight to connect to our flight to Tahiti. This seemed doable so I started to look into our options. At first, I assumed we would fly out there for about 2 weeks for a land-trip and spend a few days on the 3 main islands: Tahiti, Bora Bora,and Moorea. I started to look into hotel options and some logistics when I stumbled upon something I never knew existed... a cruise line that sails year-round around French Polynesia! This was so perfect for us as it combined our love for cruising with our desire to visit some of the most unique tropical islands in the world! It didn't take much convincing before DH agreed that we should book this as our honeymoon!! By now, it was December of 2015 and PG had not yet released their itineraries for 2017. My research told me that September was a great month to visit French Polynesia as it tends to be less rainy and humid, and there would be fewer children on board as they had just started their school year, so when PG finally released their 2017 dates in January 2016, we booked this 10-night cruise for early September. An added bonus was that we would be away over Labor Day weekend and could use one less vacation day.

 

With our honeymoon cruise booked a year and 9 months in advance, we had plenty of time to iron out the rest of the details. Luckily, it was too far in advance to do too much planning for the honeymoon, so that gave us plenty of time to focus on the details of planning our wedding. Our year-long engagement flew by, and before we knew it, it was September of 2016 and time for our wedding! I know this is a cruising forum so I won't talk too much about our wedding, but I just wanted to post a few of my favorite photos (if for no other reason than to break up all this text! haha)

 

 

 

 

 

 

With our wedding being nearly a year before our realhoneymoon, and since our wedding was on Long Island (where I grew up), we spenta few days out east in the Hamptons as a minimoon to hold us over. It was a great way to relax after the bigwedding, and it was exciting to spend our first few days together as husbandand wife!

 

 

 

 

I found this link on another cruise reviewer's site so wanted to see photos of FP. Just wanted to mention that back in 1966 we got married and my husband had to leave for the service so we went out to the Hamptons for a mini honeymoon as well. Funny think about the Hamptons, it still looks pretty much the same as it did 51 years ago.

I'm sorry, but they are gone. I ran out of space on Photobucket and had to delete the photos so I could post photos on a more recent review. I can't recreate them as they were stored on a hard drive that crashed.:(

Oh....That's too bad....I will have to look up some of your more recent reviews to read, and I am sure they will be very entertaining.

I just checked my cruise record, and the Mexican Riviera cruise I was on was in Sept. 2008.....How the time flies by. That might have been the reason we had a lot of rain and the water wasn't clear. I am sure in April you will have better conditions, and the ports are probably vastly different now.

Was the big fish that ate the little fish a grouper?

I tried to reread this review and none of the pictures can be opened now. Do you have them anywhere else?

You have to know that I think any cruise is a good cruise and I wanted to experience the Mexican Riviera cruise ports. I found the water rather cold and murky. We didn't have good beach weather and I only found one good snorkel trip, which I will have to go back to my actual photo books to try and find my pictures. I did enjoy finally getting to see those cliff divers in Acupulco, but most of the ports are very poor. We took private tours and it was like going to see a third world country, except for the resort areas. We enjoyed Cabo and took a boat tour out to see that Arch and the coast line....best thing there was my friends knew of a little dive sea food shop and they served the most humungous delicious shrimp I have ever eaten. I was glad I got to experience that cruise, but would not book it again. I flew SW with points so my airfare was free and stayed for a few nights with my California friends who also went on the cruise, which had a good discount, so I am not sorry I went. Go and enjoy. You can decide after if you would want to go back.

As always this was another great review. I love all of the underwater pictures and seeing all the scenic shots of where you go....Plus, the cute photos of the family.

I was on a Mexican Riviera Cruise a number of years ago, and I hate to tell you that I was disappointed in the Pacific Ocean. I hope you have better spots to try out planned. After that cruise I just knew I liked the east coast of Mexico far better than the west coast.

From your photos at Blue Kay it appeared that you weren't very far from the port. Has anyone ever commented on how the snorkel beach is right at the port? I saw the info sign with the arrow indicating "snorkel" and just wondered if it was similar to what you found down the beach aways.