nreeder

This is just to confirm the above. We have a river cruise from Budapest next Friday. When we left Salzburg 5 days ago, it was high 70's F. Today in Vienna, it was 80, and Budapest for the next week is predicted to be 85. While we had a few rain showers in Salzburg, no rain is predicted for the next 10 days anywhere near here.

Tonight we ate in a cafe outdoors with a wonderful sunset and never felt too cold. Welcome to late Spring/early Summer!

Norm

I was reading some of the River Cruise threads and came across this which may indicate where the high water issue is:

"Hello from Passau - we're currently on-board the Avalon Expression on our way from Prague to Budapest on the Legends of the Danube cruise 4/29-5/2. We started in Prague and did a one day pre-cruise extension and had 4 great days in Prague. The water on the Danube is high - so Avalon held the boat in Deggendorf due to a low bridge between Deggendorf and Nuremberg"

So I'm assuming that Viking may be having problems in the same area.

Norm

Forgot to mention that Viking's "Romantic Danube" route is Budapest to Nuremburg or vice versa. So their concern is somewhere along that stretch. They don't mention where the passengers will trade ships.

We will be on Viking Ve from Budapest to Amsterdam, June 2. We leave for Europe, Monday to see Munich, Salzburg and Vienna before getting to Budapest. We've seen the weather reports for the next 10 days which seem to indicate on and off rain and thunderstorms which I believe is normal "Spring" weather.

We're prepared for all of the above. We've read enough reviews to know that ship trades happen whenever the river is either too high, or too low. Can't control Mother Nature!

Norm

The Viking website just listed the following:

DANUBE RIVER

Due to high water levels on the Danube River, the following itineraries will be affected:

• May 14th Romantic Danube aboard Viking Atla – Guests will now embark sister ship Viking Jarl and swap mid-cruise back to Viking Atla
  
• May 14th Romantic Danube aboard Viking Jarl – Guests will now embark sister ship Viking Atla and swap mid-cruise back to Viking Jarl
  

So is this going to effect other ships too?

Norm

So we see now that Vienna, Salzburg, and Munich are due for snow this week. Does that mean that Spring melt and the resulting rise of the river levels is going to be later than usual?

Norm

Sorry for the delayed reply, we knew we used our cruise card for the laundry but we couldn't remember the charge.

For the wineries, we used two different tour companies for Barossa Valley, and McLaren Hills. Most of these were very small and I don't remember their names right now. Wolf-Blass was the last, and we actually liked and bought there even though we had tasted at some other smaller ones that we wanted to like better! I'll have to go check the websit we used. Will get back to you.

Having a ball in Cairns with both snorkeling and wen't to the SkyTrain in the rainforest today and it was a blast! Loved the train ride down.

Norm

Aussies worry not, we are in Adelaide for a few days wine tasting. Today was Barossa Valley, and tomorow is Mc Laren Vale. We then go up to Cairns (I know now that it's pronounced "Cans"!). We will do snorkeling trips on the Great Barrier Reef, and then go to Sydney for 5 days where we have an apartment rented in the Balmain district.

For those of you who will board Golden Princess in the future, the only places to point out that you might not have seen will be Skywalkers Disco up on the back of the ship, suspended 17 floors above the ocean. It's even interesting in the daytime to see out. Finally for those who smoke, theere's a bar kind of underneath the front show lounge (Snookers?) that shows sports TV and you can smoke there in addition to the Casino or designated Promenade deck areas.

We had fun, and I hope all of you in the future do to!

Norm

This will be the last post from the ship as we arrive in Sydney tomorrow.

I left off with our trip in Fiordland where we skipped the second fiord, Doubtful Sound. We then sailed up to Milford Sound, the most northerly fiord. This turned out to be wonderful. As we entered, the high peaks (9,000 ft) seemed to block the clouds and we had sunshine and scattered clouds in the fiord. There were patches of snow on some of the peaks which added to the contrast. The park ranger narrated the sailing as we went in. At the end of the fiord there was a spectacular waterfall from a hanging glacier carved valley above. We then did a little pirouette and sailed out of the fiord. This certainly made up for missing the second one.

All in all, we've had a wonderful cruise. Since we have been on so long, many of the staff at bars, restaurants, etc know us and know what to serve us without our asking. We only had one minor problem. Princess wanted to exhaust the wine supply with this cruise so they could re-stock with Australian and New Zealand wines for the next six months. For the last couple of nights, we've had to try ordering three different wines before we find one still in stock. That problem will end tomorrow as we turn the ship over to the Aussies.

If anyone has questions I can follow up when we are on land as we will have fast Internet at the Hiltons we stay at here.

OK, you get a "two for one" here as we have two ports in a row.

The first was Wellington, the capital of New Zealand but smaller than Auckland that we already visited. Both of these are on the North Island. Our Princess tour took us first to the cable car which is similar to San Francisco, but doesn't run in the middle of the street. It has it's own right of way to the top of the hill. At the top they have a cable car museum as this has operated here since 1902. Also at the top is the city's botanic garden where we wandered around and looked at some very pretty but strange to us flowers and plants. We know rhodendrum which was in bloom, but a lot of the other plants were nothing we had ever seen.

Next the driver took us around the bay for a scenic drive and a look at the houses on hills (some have their own funicular from the garage on the street up to the house on the hill).

Finally, he took us to the Te Papa Museum which relates the history of the Maori's in New Zealand. We had a guide to take us through and we learned lots of history and saw some of how the early natives lived (they didn't come here until the 1300's so New Zealand had no one here until then).

He offered us an option to drop off downtown rather than back to the ship which we and others took. We had a great lunch at a pub restaurant upstairs and then walked around the main shopping area. Maureen bought a pair of pants to replace the broken zipper ones, and I bought a long sleeve T-shirt. We are going to get colder as we go south now as we are going in the direction of Antartica.

Well, the next part isn't as planned. The second port was to be Akaroa. We got up early a little after 6 am and got cleaned up. Then we bundled up got the camera and went out into the corridor. There we were met by out stateroom steward who told us they had cancelled the port due to bad weather. He asked us if we had heard the announcement, which we hadn't, because it was only 10 minutes later that the Captain came on via the loudspeakers and said the wind and waves were so high, they couldn't use the lifeboats to take us ashore (there's no dock there to pull up to). So we spent another day at sea and saved a whole lot of money as we had booked the most expensive tour of the trip--the Trans-Alpine Railroad which is reputed to be one of the 6 best rail trips in the world).

So the second port I will describe is Dunedin (pronounced dun-AID-en). Here we had a rail trip that worked! Princess had arranged for a special train that pulls right up to the dock and takes us up to the the Taieri Gorge. There is a way to book this on your own, but you can't board at the ship, need to find a way into Dunedin from Port Chalmers where the ship docks, and you don't get the morning snack or lunch we got served on board. Each of our train cars (historic kind), had seats that faced each other with a table in between for snack and lunches.

There were two volunteers who served us and you could have coffee, tea, soda, or local beer for the snack and they poured Riesling or Sauvignon Blanc wine for lunch, all included. They also narrated the trip so you knew what you were seeing. The train runs up a very long canyon with trestle bridges and tunnels as you climb up the gorge. At the top they stop, and unhook the engines and move them to the back end for the journey down the gorge. We were lucky with the weather with clouds at first, but sunshine as the day progressed.

When the train trip was over, we then boarded a bus for the trip to "Larnach Castle". It's a little mis-named as it's a high Victorian mansion way up in the hills of the Otago peninsula. We had a guide who gave us a history of the family and of the house. In the late 1900's they took 12 years to finish the inside of the mansion with 3 dimensional plasterwork or carved wood ceilings, crystal chandeliers and ornate furniture. Finally we took the bus back to the ship and we were the last bus back so the ship left immediately as we all got on board.

Last night was very rough and rolly polly as we rounded the southern coast of the South Island. At that point we are as close to Anartica as we will get. This morning we are in Fiordland National Park along the southwest coast of the South Island. Here there are fiords just like Scandinavia, Alaska, and Chile. We went into the southernmost fiord (Dusky Sound & Breaksea Sound) around 8 am. Thee are two great glacier carved valleys that when the glaciers receded, the ocean filled the bottom and you can sail into these as they connect at the back end of the channel. So you go in one and come out the other. There were waterfalls along the cliffs and a few birds. Didn't really see any other wildlife.

They just announced that due to weather and seas, we are skipping Doubtful Sound & Thompson Sound and heading up to Milford Sound. A park ranger narrates the time inside the fiords over the TV system so you have a guide along as you go. After the first fiords we then went out for our morning walk before the second (now missed) one. They think of everything here, so there's one of the bar servers with a cart outside with coffee and liqueurs for your Irish or other kind of coffee! All for a cost of course.

After today, we have two days at sea and then arrive in Sydney, Australia where we will get off. Will keep in touch with some final thoughts a little later.

Norm

Land--what a concept!

Yesterday (Saturday as we are now ahead of you by one day) we visited Auckland, New Zealand which is the largest city in the country. The ship docks at the foot of Queen Street which is the main shopping street so it's very convenient.

We booked a tour of two wineries through Princess. They took us out about 45 minutes from the downtown to the wine country. We liked the first winery, Mantua better than the second. The first had six different cheeses to pair with the 6 wines. We liked their Pinot Gris and the Sauvignon Blanc was good. So was the Pinot Noir. We didn't like the Merlot which he highly touted as it had a real strange nose to it.

There were lovely gardens around the winery and it's Spring here so Wisteria, daffodils, and rhododendron were all in bloom. Part of the road was lined with flowering cherry trees which brightened a relatively cloudy day.

The second winery, Soljans, also had a pretty setting with gardens surrounding the winery. This winery was founded by Serbians three generations ago. Like the other, it's only the white grapes that are grown in the immediate area. Pinot is grown on the South Island (there are two major islands in New Zealand, North and South). They also had Pinot Gris, Chardonnay, Sparkling Muscat, Pinot, a Cabernet blend, and finally a port. We found many of their wines were too sweet for our tastes but others did buy some of the wine so they obviously liked it

They drove us back to the ship and we went shopping in the downtown. Maureen was looking for a pair of pants but found everything too expensive. We tried to get to use the Internet at Starbuck's but it wouldn't connect so we hooked up to another free network but it was very slow. We got mail to come down, but nothing else worked. When we talked to our table mates at dinner they had the same issue at anywhere they tried to get Internet.

Sailing out of the harbor was pretty and there are a number of islands spread around as you leave. This morning we are going down the North Island's coast which we can see from our balcony. We are at sea today. Wellington, tomorrow. Will keep in touch.

Norm

So I left off the last post with "rolly polly" seas and we are certainly back to that. The South Pacific isn't very "pacific" right now. Yesterday we were in Pago Pago, American Samoa. It was grey and cloudy with off and on rain showers. We walked around in the morning before our afternoon tour and found an Internet hotspot so we played with that for a while.

The afternoon tour was supposed to be a beach break and Samoan dancing exhibition. We got half of that. The beach was beautiful, but the water was whipped up by the winds and we had light showers. So it was off to "Two Dollar Beach" (which actually costs $5 which was covered by our tour cost). They had a little pavilion with beer and wine and snacks, restrooms and picnic tables and chairs and you could go out onto the beach. Just off shore was a large rock formation (kind of like "haystack rock formations on the California and Oregon coasts). We each had a Samoan beer and some chips.

They then did a couple of Samoan dances with four women. I thought it actually was kind of charming as these women are just "folks". It wasn't the kind of glitz and over perfection that you sometimes see in Hawaii where some of this is almost like Las Vegas.

We had a wonderful local woman as guide in our little bus with wooden seats. The ship had suggested you bring a beach towel to provide "padding" for the seats which we did.

Coming back we got the real storm with drenching rain. They took us back to the ship and even the brief walk to the ship and wait to get on made us drenched. We both had light waterproof shell jackets with hoods and we were both in board-shorts and Teva's so we didn't really care. It was in the 80s so it wasn't cold.

As we sailed out of the harbor the rocking and rolling began and continues today. Last night as we left we had sheets of rain, wind and high waves. The Gale force wind and waves have continued all of today and we don't know how long this will last. Today is sunny however. We have started to cool down and it will be 10 to 20 degrees cooler as we reach New Zealand.

Today and tonight we are celebrating "Octoberfest". There are colorful banners in the atrium, a choice of three "wursts" at the buffet at lunch and there's supposed to be a celebration in the atrium tonight. (The outside deck would be impossible for that--all of the pools have been drained and the promenade deck is closed off due to wind and slippery conditions. They brought German beer aboard too.

We are certainly not suffering. We usually go to the geology guy lecture early in the afternoon and follow up with gym time. I've been getting us chips and salsa for happy hour in the room, but have to doctor the salsa as it's got no fire. I just ask for some tabasco and spice it up a bit. Cleaning out your sinuses is good!

Today is Tuesday and this week we will not have Thursday! We will cross the International Date Line and go from Wednesday to Friday just like that. We will gain it back when we fly home.

More later!

Norm

So much to tell!

Two nights ago, we did the Chef's Table Dinner. This is an extra cost ($95 pp) dinner served for only 10 people at a time on this ship. The Maitre'D (Carlo from Portugal who has worked for Princess for 23 years and we've seen him on many previous Princess cruises so we've kind of grown up with him), gave us white over-jackets and then escorted to the galley at 7 pm. This is of course in the middle of actual dinner service so it's more busy than the usual public ship's galley tours at 10 am.

They then gave us three special appetizers: a small piece of potato with sour cream and caviar on top, a ceramic spoon of tuna tartare (raw) with lots of spices, and a lobster and blue crab Margarita in a martini glass with avocado, cilantro, and mango slices. This was accompanied by the Princess 50th anniversary Prosecco which was quite nice.

The head chef then introduced all of the Jr. chef's for meat, soup, appetizers, dessert etc. (all of which on this ship are Italian as is the chef). Then off we go into one of the "anytime" dining rooms and head for the special table set for 10 with flowers and fine crystal glasses and they even lit candles which almost never happens on a ship.

The head chef then introduced each successive course. We first had a mushroom risotto which was very rich and creamy. Then came a sorbet---but this was served in a martini glass which had a little red jello in the bottom topped with half of an orange. The orange was filled with orange sorbet and they poured Grey Goose vodka on top. This course was accompanied by an Italian white Gavi wine.

Then comes the main course: they wheel in an iron rack that is square with about 15 inch legs. There are hooks hanging from the rack and on them are petit filet mignon. The chef then flambe's this with spectacular results. When it was served, it was topped with a lobster tail and three scollops, accompanied by double lamb chops! Then they had perfectly seasoned vegetables to accompany which you could choose what you wanted. The wine was Seghesio Zinfandel which we know well as we are wine club members of theirs and receive 4 shipments a year of their wines.

Dessert was in two pieces but the main one was a kind of tower that was chocolate flan. Finally petit fours were brought to the table for anyone that could actually stuff any more down! We had a great time with the other passengers some of whom came from Australia.

Yesterday we were in Papeete, the capital of French Polynesia. We went to the "grand central market" a couple of blocks from the dock which we had visited on our earlier trips. We brought a tropical flower bouquet which had ginger, proteas and other brightly colored flowers for $15! It would have been at least $60 on the ship. No problem bringing it aboard. We then had lunch at a restaurant that we ate at last time and had wonderful French salads. Maureen's "salad nicoise" had big pieces of ahi tuna instead of the usual tuna salad so that was special.

Today was Bora Bora and it was "now for something completely different" here! We have been here twice before and taken a similar trip to what we did today and loved it (as we did again today). However, today's weather was very different than in the past. We had 28 knot winds, clouds and light rain showers throughout the day, and even the lagoon inside the reef was choppy. We went to two outstanding snorkel sites, one with stingrays and sharks, and the other with hundreds of colorful fish and coral formations. Then it was off to lunch on a moto (island) in the lagoon. They barbecued fish and chicken, and had suckling pig and other things buried in the sand and cooked there like they do in Hawaii for luau. This was accompanied by breadfruit, plantains and other tropical fruit and their version of poi for dessert (except theirs isn't made just from taro root and doesn't taste like wallpaper paste like it does in Hawaii). It was sweet.

Finally, we continued our circle around the island on our large outrigger covered boat, but we probably got as wet on the boat as we were in the water! The hot shower back on board really felt good! Captain says tonight and tomorrow will have 40 knot winds and 10 foot seas so we could get rolly poly real soon!

We are now leaving Tahiti and will take 4 days to get to Pago Pago. Will keep in touch.

Norm

Today we had our second CruiseCritic meeting up in Skywalker's. At this one everyone got a chance to introduce themselves and we had lots of Australians, a few from Canada and of course most from the States. After that, we went on the "cabin crawl" which lets us see all of the different types of cabins in the ship. We had volunteers arranged ahead of time that would allow us to see their cabins. We started with a standard inside, went to an obstructed view (window looks out over the lifeboats), an obstructed view handicapped cabin which was about 1 and 1/2 cabins wide with a very large bathroom, a standard balcony cabin, two mini-suites, and a full suite on the Caribe Deck with it's very large balcony.

This ship and it's sisters (Grand and Golden) pretty much introduced the standard Princess cabin arrangements that remained until Royal and Regal were built. Those two have all of these and two more--a sideways inside cabin, and a deluxe balcony with a small love-seat.

Since Maureen and I were very lucky on the last cruise on the Regal to be offered an "upsell" to a suite, it was interesting to me to see the suite on this ship. People had complained that on the Regal/Royal the suites seemed small. However, I didn't think the inside of the full suite was much larger than the one we had on the Regal. That being said, the balcony was very much larger than any of the ones on the Regal including the back ones.

Maureen and I are very happy with the mini-suite we chose in the back on the Emerald Deck. We do hear a little of the loudspeaker noise from the Vista Lounge in the daytime when they are doing bingo etc, but it's muted. Since we have late seating dinner and usually go to the Promenade Bar for the piano singer afterward, we are back to the room late and it's quiet. We have the large overhang above our balcony that fully protects us from rain and some sun. Last night it was grey and cloudy with rain showers when we were to have "happy hour", but it was still 80 degrees outside. We sat outside with our wine and slice of pizza of the day and while the balcony railing got wet, we didn't.

For those of you who will sail on her later in Australia and China, I think the ship is in very good shape. Nothing looks worn like it needs replacing. There is constant cleaning and painting going on outside and inside. The public rooms all look as they were built yesterday. So you all have something to look forward to.

I don't know whether this is one of the reasons Princess chose Golden to go to Australia and China, but there are probably more full suites on this ship than most of this size. It didn't start out that way, but when they built Crown Grill on the floor below the Promenade Deck where the casino used to be, they added a short row of "window" suites which have no balconies but are a full size suite layout. In addition, they created another set of suites above the Horizon Court up by the smokestack. So she has suites on Caribe with large balconies, a number facing the back end of the ship, and these other two sets too. Just FYI, Princess never puts the suites on sale and they are expensive. On most cruises they are double what a mini-suite costs. So for instance on this 28 day cruise a mini-suite was roughly $5,000 per person. A full suite was almost $11,000 per person for the basic ones and there's one really big one on the back and I don't remember what that one costs.

Norm

Mystery Solved!

This morning we met with the Maitre'D in preparation for the Chef's Table dinner two nights from now. He told us what is happening back on the Horizon Terrace. These new tables will be Korean BBQ tables, but will not be fully implemented for a while.

Golden Princess will be in the Australian market for most of 2016 he indicated and in 2017 it will go into dry dock in Singapore and be prepared for the Chinese market. The BBQ stations will be made operational then.

So it looks like it's a feature for China, maybe not the rest of the fleet.

Just FYI to the comment above. The third ship in the Royal, Regal series to come out in 2016 will go straight to China as a Chinese ship, so Princess obviously believe the market is growing there.

Norm

Mystery Solved!

This morning we met with the Maitre'D in preparation for the Chef's Table dinner two nights from now. He told us what is happening back on the Horizon Terrace. These new tables will be Korean BBQ tables, but will not be fully implemented for a while.

Golden Princess will be in the Australian market for most of 2016 he indicated and in 2017 it will go into dry dock in Singapore and be prepared for the Chinese market. The BBQ stations will be made operational then.

So it looks like it's a feature for China, maybe not the rest of the fleet.

Norm

Days at Sea (again!)

Ok in reviewing my last post, I forgot to mention that after we had lunch in Lahaina, we did a catamaran sail on the Trilogy. This was a Princess Ship Tour. It was a lot of fun and very relaxing. They sailed south from Lahaina, and we could see the mountains of Maui as well as Molokai across the water. They had free beer and mixed drinks and very nice appetizers which we mostly didn't eat because we had just had lunch.

Yesterday was the first of 5 sea days. At the CruiseCritic party the first sea day after leaving San Francisco, the organizer asked the Captain if they could arrange tours of the ship's bridge for us. He agreed and indicated that it would have to be in groups of less than 20. So we got an invitation for 9 am yesterday and we got to see all of the computerized navigation equipment and learn how they steer and maneuver the ship. The wings of the bridge extend out probably 20 feet from the superstructure and you can see all of the way back as you are standing above open water there.

Last night was the "Ultimate Deck Party" which we went to for a little while. It's very comfortable outdoors at night now as we are in the tropics. They dance band was up there and a large crowd attended.

Today, our second sea day, was the Crossing the Equator Ceremony. This is always a comical farce where selected passengers (4) and probably 20 crew are made fun of by "King Neptune", and covered with whipped egg whites and gelatin over their hair and faces. They have a rhyming script which they follow with all kinds of silly jokes. This is very much a tradition of the sea.

For Princess cruise fans, I have a bit of news that I don't recall having seen any announcement about. We usually take our lunch out from the Lido buffet and eat it on the outdoor terrace in the back. This has a large covered area with tables and chairs as well as a bar. During the last few days a crew has been installing 16 square granite topped tables with cut outs in the center that look something like a possible "teppan" grill. Most of the wait staff seem not to know much about them. Currently they are just mounting them into the deck. I overheard one of the workers say that they will need to have electricity brought to them to make them work and it wasn't clear whether this will be completed by the end of this cruise.

We do know from earlier Princess announcements that the Australian Chef Curtis Stone is now consulting for Princess and will have menu items on board (probably after we arrive in Sydney as we haven't seen anything on the menus so far.) Golden Princess will be in Australia until after next April and will operate as an Australian ship with an Australian wine list and the ships charges will be in Australian dollars. After Australia, the ship is re-positioning to China and will serve the Chinese market. So I don't know whether the cooking tables are for either or both markets!

Will keep in touch

Norm

Ok, Princess fans. I have something new to describe, but don't have all of the details and I haven't seen any Princess announcement about this feature yet.

We are currently on Golden Princess traveling from San Francisco across the Pacific to Sydney, Australia. Golden will stay in Australia until sometime in the Spring of next year and operate like an Australian ship with Australian wine list and ships charges in Australian dollars (Sun, Sea, and Dawn Princess are already down there doing this). After Australia, the ship will re-position to China and operate as a Chinese ship serving the Chinese market.

We usually take our lunch from the Lido buffet and eat it on the terrace at the back of the ship overlooking the Terrace Pool. There is a large covered area back there with a bar. This week workmen have been installing new square granite topped tables with a cut out rectangle in the center that looks somewhat like a "teppan" grill. The waiters don't seem to now much about them, but I did hear the installation guys say they are currently just bolting them into place (there are 16 of them), and electricity will need to be run to them.

Two possible background things here. Princess has announced that Curtis Stone the Australian chef will be consulting for Princess and will have items on the menu (we haven't seen any yet), and it could be related to this. The other thing is that this could be related to the ship going to China, but we will have to wait and see what Princess says. I haven't noticed these on any other Princess ship.

Norm

Aloha Part 2

Yesterday in Honolulu, we docked at Pier 2 which is more in an industrial area than the other Aloha Tower Pier which has a shopping mall in it. We took a bus down Ala Moana Blvd to the Ala Moana Shopping Center, a huge shopping mall with every kind of chain store, low end and high end known to man. Walked around a lot and then went to Islands, a hamburger chain (yes not very creative, we have one of those at home), but it sure tasted good. Maureen had fish tacos and I had a hamburger.

Came home and then took off for our Sunset Catamaran Sail that leaves from the Sheraton Waikiki beach. Was a lot of fun with free drinks and a wonderful sunset. As we came back all of the lights came on on the hotels and towers so it was very pretty.

This morning we arrived in Lahaina (or off Lahaina), Maui as there is no dock here so we used the ships tenders to get ashore. Again we wandered around the shops and galleries and then had lunch at Kimo's which has good food and a great view. We toyed with "Cheeseburgers in Paradise", but both the TripAdvisor and Yelp reviews say the view is everything and the food and service leave a lot to be desired.

We are now back on the ship and we leave in an hour. It will be another 5 days to Tahiti so it's time to hit the gym and walk the deck again. Maureen was very happy when she weighed herself in Honolulu and found that she hadn't gained anything. So we are going to have to work on that.

I got our shrimps from the International Cafe and went up and got chips and guacamole and salsa for our happy hour tonight.

Talk to you later if we can get the Internet on board to work.

Norm

Aloha from Honolulu!

Due to the extremely slow Internet on board, I haven't written anything as a followup. We've spent the 5 days walking the promenade deck, going to the gym, and exploring the ship. There's a Hawaiian couple who sing as entertainment, but also they've been doing lei classes, hula lessons, and Hawaiian lessons too in preparation for our two days in Hawaii.

There's also a geologist on board who is retired from the National Earthquake Center in Colorado. He's been doing lectures each afternoon on Volcano's, the "Ring of Fire" in the Pacific, and is going to be following up with Tsunami's and other topics like that. He's been very interesting.

We didn't plan any tour for daytime in Honolulu as we have been here a number of times before and taken many previous tours. Tonight though, we do have a sunset catamaran sail that takes off from in front of the Sheraton. It will get us back a little late to clean up for dinner, so we booked the Crown Grill Steakhouse for 8:30 so we can relax before dinner. The ship doesn't leave until 11 pm tonight.

We have a table set for 6 in the late seating dining room, but there's only one other couple from Texas with us each evening. Late seating isn't totally full, although there's lots of people eating there. Waiters are good and our cabin steward is excellent. I've never seen such crystal clear glass balcony railings and sliding glass doors.

After the first night at sea from San Francisco which was a little rocky, the ocean has been calm and though we've had cloudy weather with brief showers, it's always been in the 70's each day. As we've gone south, it's warmed up two degrees each day and Honolulu is supposed to be 83 today. As we approached Hawaii, we had more blue skies so it looks good.

The ship's officers attended the CruiseCritic group reunion the first sea day and that was nice. They've got lots of deck parties planned as we go farther south as the weather will be warmer even in the evening. Usually after dinner each evening we go to the Crooner's piano bar lounge and listen to the young man who plays and sings. He's very entertaining.

Tomorrow we will be in Maui so I can use cellular service again to post. Will keep in touch.

Norm

Join us as we embark on our 28 day adventure from San Francisco to Sydney, Australia. We are a couple who are retired for 6 years and this is our 3rd 28 day cruise in a row (Buenos Aires to Los Angeles, and Ft. Lauderdale trans Atlantic to the Baltic previous to this). While most all of the ports we will visit are done separately by Princes (Hawaii, Tahiti, New Zealand, and Australia), it's only on a re-positioning cruise that all of them come together.

There will be lots of sea days on this cruise, so I won't be posting every day as our routine is pretty much the same on those days (walk the promenade deck, go to the gym, go to enrichment lectures etc).

We live in Torrance, a suburb of LA, and flew up to San Francisco the day before. We stayed at the Hyatt Regency Embarcadero a few blocks from the new San Francisco cruise pier. Used up expiring Hyatt points to stay and even had enough points to get us the executive lounge at the top which has a 360 degree of the city and the bay bridge. They had a wide selection of appetizers and inexpensive wine during happy hour that night. Walked across the street to One Market Restaurant which has good reviews and had a wonderful dinner.

We left for the cruise terminal around 11 am and breezed through security and cabin checkin. We had to wait an hour to board though. They had seating for Elite check-in passengers (this is our 21st Princess cruise), as well as others and they called the Elites first to board.

We chose a mini-suite in the back above the Vista lounge and below the Dolphin deck which has the entire deck devoted to mini-suites. The advantage we have is that our balcony is completely covered by the mini-suites above us so we are shaded from the sun and rain. Disadvantage is that we are in the back, but we don't mind that.

We left late because they were still bringing on supplies but off we went, right under the Golden Gate bridge. When we got to the open ocean, we could see a number of whales spouting nearby so that was fun. Overnight and today the seas are choppy and the ship is shimmying a little. It's enough that there are "barf bags" attached to all of the trash cans on the public decks!

Tonight we will go to Crown Grill which we like better than Sabatini's as we can control our food intake a little better there. We have four days now to Hawaii.

Will keep you posted I'm not going to post entertainers or movies as by the time you go on this ship, they will all be different.

By the way, Internet speed is terrible. I've had to post this during 5:30 pm dinner hour in order to get it to work. At 2 pm, nothing would work

Talk to you later.

Norm

I've tried to delete this mis post, but it won't take it!

Norm

There were two threads. But the "Live from Regal Priness/Baltic" goes through the entire Baltic portion too. I looked at it now, but with the iPad can't copy and paste the address. We are now in Ireland on the last week of our three month trip and am dependent on the iPad for now.

We were on the trans-Atlantic/Baltic and the crab shack was offered multiple times. Cruise Messanger app on that cruise was non-functional. Wine packages were offered and we did two of them for the 28 day cruise.

Currency--depends on the port. Lots of ports didn't do Euros. Denmark (Copenhagen) uses their own Krone as doe Sweden. I think I only rembmber Estonia doing Euros. Dollars can or can not be accepted. Taxis available at Copenhagen--but expensive.

We used Alla Tours for mot of the Baltic ports, but SPB was also there. Can't go wrong with either. I did an "live from the Regal Trans/Atlantic Baltic Thread earlier so you can look that up for details.

Norm

I'd have to wonder at the value of the bar package since there are only two days at sea and you are probably going to be off the ship on all of the others from morning to late afternoon. You'd have to do a lot of drinking in a short amount of time to make it worth it!

Movies under the stars was available, but it was mostly too cold to use it. May warm up some as you get into later Summer but even St. Petersburg tour guide said August was their rainy month. The one thing that will be strange is that as you get into midsummer, you will have daylight until very late in the evening.

Norm

The soot issue is only on cabins that face rearward, i.e. looking at the ships wake.

Norm