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Surprising my wife with the cruise of her dreams


terrific_surprise
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For those who are wondering when this thread will end, the answer is...

not quite yet!

 

In any case, as I have mentioned previously, not all of the clues I gave DW before the cruise were fulfilled. In particular, some of the clues relating to the San Pedro area remained unfulfilled after the cruise. I wasn't worried about that, but actually looked forward to having a future opportunity to momentarily relive the experience of the "golden envelopes" by enjoying the look on my wife's face when she recognized an old clue in person for the first time.

 

As I have previously explained, we visited the San Pedro area several times in the months after the cruise. But we didn't set foot on another ship until November 20, when we booked a Bon Voyage Experience, visiting the Star Princess for a few hours as we met our friend Renee for the first time (CC's cr8tiv1, whose information was so helpful in planning some of the most special parts of the cruise).

 

We had some time to kill while we waited for Renee to arrive that morning, so I decided to finally bring Terri to the location of another clue: the Pt. Fermin Lighthouse. Post #212 (December 1, 2012) reported on that clue:

 

...Here is the photo I used for the clue...

attachment.php?attachmentid=253573&stc=1&d=1354385584

 

On the front of the golden envelope I wrote "Worth the wait!" ...

 

Obviously deep in thought as she silently read the message on the back several times, she kept her thoughts to herself, commenting only on the message on the front of the envelope. ;)

 

When I gave Terri this clue, I didn't realize quite how appropriate the message "worth the wait" would be!

 

Terri had recognized the lighthouse from afar during our visit to San Pedro's Korean Friendship Bell on February 15, 2013 (as I think I explained somewhere on CC) but I didn't have an opportunity to take a picture of her at this lighthouse until November 20, 2013:

 

13691015423_0efcce288f.jpg

 

I had read that this lighthouse was featured in the movie Pearl Harbor, but even though we watched this movie before (and during) the cruise, I never actually noticed this lighthouse in the movie.

 

Due to my review thread being closed down by CC (contrary to my wishes), I wasn't sure if I would ever explain some of the remaining clues here. I'm still not sure if the full story will ever be told here.

 

More photos from November 20 (including many photos and videos of the Star Princess) can be seen at:

https://flic.kr/s/aHsjWsGBXe

(Many additional details of what happened that day are included in the photo captions.)

 

Now I need to prepare another golden envelope (it has been a while since I gave her one, but today is a special day for us, as perhaps someone here might recall). The clue I will give her today will reveal another BVE I have booked, this coming Saturday May 3 on the Crown Princess!

Edited by terrific_surprise
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So nice to hear from you again. We are going on something similar in San Francisco on May 9. Our travel agent invited us to lunch on a Regent ship and a tour of the ship. We got invited to Norwegian Cruise lines for lunch and a tour last December but it was cancelled due to weather issues. Our next cruise is in June and again we cruise the mediterranean with port stops in Italy, Spain and France.

 

Virginia

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  • 6 months later...

In just a few hours ("Lord willing and the creek don't rise," as they say), we should be watching the Grand Princess sail into Los Angeles harbor, and preparing to board her around noon on our way to the Sea of Cortez.

 

We booked this cruise back in August because we had credit we needed to use up before the end of the year and this seemed like the best deal. Although we haven't been looking at this as a "dream cruise," we will look forward to visiting Cabo San Lucas and Puerto Vallarta again (two ports we visited on our first Princess cruise in 2010).

 

This pre-cruise experience has been quite different: instead of months of anticipation, we have been dealing with months of uncertainty. We have had so many other things going on, and so many stresses in our life, that most of the time it seemed like the cruise was far from our minds. In the last few weeks when we discussed the cruise, I was usually explaining all of the reasons that it didn't look like it was going to happen. Even though it was paid for, I really thought that circumstances were going to prevent us from cruising.

 

But somehow this week (especially Friday) the pieces began to fall into place!

 

We hope to have our two youngest daughters (11 and 9) join us to watch the ship sail in early this morning, so it should be fun to see their reactions.

 

A couple of weeks ago I learned that Renee (CC's cr8tiv1) will also be on this cruise, so we should enjoy some time catching up with her (you may recall that she was a big help in planning some very memorable parts of our Hawaii cruise).

 

For our Hawaii cruise I planned our list of things to bring for months. This time I know that by the time we get to our stateroom I will undoubtedly realize that I forgot some things. But our first port is San Diego, so it should be easy to deal with any forgotten items by going shopping.

 

It will be interesting to compare this cruise experience with our Hawaii cruise. Will it be less exciting because of our lack of anticipation?

 

All I know is that (assuming we make it on board) I will definitely appreciate the opportunity to relax (and of course to be alone with my precious DW).

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  • 1 month later...

Tim & Terrie,

I'm sorry I didn't check back on your thread prior to Nov 9th. I was waving the big yellow hand at some friends from Arizona (they had the Arizona flag banner) on your Nov 9th cruise.

Our company sold it's boat so I had to find a new spot at the "Harbor Cut" to wave the hand...which actually turns out to be a better spot to watch the ships sail away.

Happy Holidays and Merry New Year to you both.....

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  • 1 year later...

I really thought that our big surprise cruise to Hawaii would be a once-in-a-lifetime experience -- but somehow on Saturday we took the plunge and decided to book the December 5 Star Princess Hawaii cruise!

 

I plan to enjoy re-reading each day the CC story of our previous Hawaii cruise (but this time there is an extra day)! Terri (DW) says that her memory of that cruise is already getting fuzzy, so I plan to help reinforce her memories (because for me, the original surprise cruise was always about making memories).

 

I hope we can survive the next 30 hours or so (last-minute packing) and make it to the ship on time!

 

Tim

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It was nice to see some old CC friends chime in here (I really wondered if anybody would remember our story after all these years).

 

At this moment, the Star is sailing in, just about to dock at the World Cruise Center in San Pedro (LA). Since the first big surprise in 2013, one of our big "cruise rituals" (since that is the name of this forum) has been coming to the port early in the morning to watch our ship sail in. But for the first time since that big surprise, we are missing out on that ritual. With all of the last-minute details, we just couldn't swing it this time (but I couldn't help but catch a few glimpses on the bridge cam).

 

Last night, I read to my wife and kids what I posted on CC about the day before the big 2013 Hawaii cruise, including these excerpts:

 

"As we exited the freeway at the World Cruise Center, a beautiful (and unexpected) sight greeted our eyes: the Star Princess was in port!"

 

"As I snapped some photos of my wife at the fountains, we suddenly noticed that the Star Princess was leaving port. So we hurried over to catch some photos of the beautiful ship before it sailed away into the darkness. It was a spectacular sight, with the bright lights of the ship virtually dancing on the shimmering waters."

 

Yes, the Star Princess itself surprised us on that night in 2013 before the big surprise cruise! We knew that the Golden Princess wouldn't sail in until the following morning, so we assumed that there would be no ship at the pier when we arrived.

 

Watching the Star Princess that night was truly a magical experience. Maybe it's just because this was the only time we have watched a nighttime sailaway, but it truly appeared more beautiful than any other ship we have watched sailing in or out.

 

It seems quite appropriate to now be taking the same cruise on the Star Princess (if we make it to the port on time)!

 

Yes, I still need to finish many last-minute details (make deposits, pay bills, etc.). My own advice here on CC (after some of the disasterous results of the big surprise cruise) has been not to do exactly what I am doing today -- not to let last-minute details create stress which could result in serious problems.

 

Over the years of raising our children, we have watched many children's movies with them. One of my favorite moments from Alice in Wonderland (the old one) is when Alice cries and sings "I give myself very good advice, but I very seldom follow it. That explains the trouble I am always in."

 

Yes, I do need to take my own advice (hopefully next time I will). I don't want to have to re-learn those painful lessons!

 

And obviously I need to get off CC and get to work so that we can get to the port!

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  • 1 month later...
  • 9 months later...
For some reason this Awesome story/thread popped into my mind and I had to go find it to reread. Thanks again for giving us all something great to read! Have y'all been on any more cruises or surprise trips?

 

Thanks for thinking of us, CruiseMomTX. I thought I had recalled that the CruiseCritic police had shut this thread down, so it's nice to see that I can still post here. As I take a break to enjoy a Princess chocolate our steward left on our bed, it seems like a good time for a little update.

 

Almost exactly one year ago, we did indeed experience another big surprise (one that was very similar, but very different).

 

After receiving a message from Princess about an unbelievably low price on a cruise to Hawaii, we decided to take the leap! Just one slight problem: the cruise began in just TWO days!

 

:o

 

Well, in spite of all of our best intentions and attempts to plan well, if you have read our story you know that we can also be very impulsive (and even, I confess, foolish). I try to take seriously my "lessons learned," I really do. But the timing seemed right, and it seemed at the time that the finances were right too.

 

As you know, I planned our first Hawaii cruise for over a year, and began giving my wife Terri clues about it over a year before we set sail. That anticipation is a big part of the story. At some point as we hurried to pack I asked myself "are we actually cheating ourselves out of a better experience by planning this so quickly?"

 

This was not our first impulsive cruise. I think once before we had booked a cruise the day before it sailed. It was a Sunday morning when Terri showed me the deal, and I told her that we could book it IF it was still available, and IF I could get ahold of the travel agent. (I really thought that those "ifs" would be my escape clause, but I was wrong!) But that was only a three day cruise, where we were never too far away and we were never out of touch for too long. That's not the same as booking a two week cruise going thousands of miles across the ocean.

 

But this was not just any two week cruise. This was an Elua cruise (like our first Hawaii cruise)! That was too much for us to pass up!

 

I had truly believed that our first cruise to Hawaii was a once-in-a-lifetime vacation for us. I never dreamed that we would do it again. Throughout our marriage I have tried to me very intentional about "making memories," and it was my honest intention for the Hawaii cruise to remain a memory (though a very cherished one).

 

But from time to time in recent years, Terri would wistfully say "I really don't remember anything about our Hawaii cruise." I would typically respond to her by asking if she recalled specific things that happened on the cruise, and I think she always recalled them. (I would also sometimes tell her to just read about it on CC ;p but I don't think she ever took my advice.) Maybe her complaints about not recalling the cruise were sending another message, and maybe I was missing her point? That would be pretty typical for me (perhaps some wives here may wish to enlighten me on what a woman really wants when she says something like that). But could there be a better way to rekindle those memories than to take another cruise?

 

If you read our "lessons learned, love shared" cruise story, you may recall that in every Hawaiian port, my list of things I wanted to do was much too long, and at the end of our very enjoyable days there were always things we felt we had missed. So even though we embarked on the cruise having made no plans for our port days, it was actually quite easy to decide what to do in each port, because this cruise had the exact same itinerary, except that it added one sea day. (In Honolulu, we had the extra blessing of learning that our CC friend Renee was in town, so she helped make those plans even easier.) Even though part of me wanted to rekindle those first memories (and maybe undo a few mistakes), on our port days we always decided to do something completely different from what we had done on our first Hawaii cruise.

 

On our first Hawaiian cruise we had joined the Princess Pop Choir, along with the ukulele and hula groups. As much as we enjoyed every one of those activities, I had decided back then that on future cruises we shouldn't commit ourselves to so many activities. But this time I think we went to the opposite extreme.

 

When we first encountered Elua's Tilki Dave on this cruise, I was pleasantly surprised that he actually remembered us! But even though Elua was such a major factor in our decision to cruise, it seemed that our schedule didn't allow us to enjoy their music as much as we had originally hoped. You would think 15 days would give us more than enough opportunities, but for us that wasn't true.

 

In spite of our past "lessons learned," I did make some big mistakes again -- right from the very start. One mistake in particular will be haunting me for the next few days.

 

But there was no major drama this time, no cliffhangers where we wondered whether we would make it back to the ship. Thankfully there was not any drama at home either, as one of our older sons had quickly agreed before the cruise to take care of his younger siblings while we were gone. We really were able to focus on relaxing, and that is certainly something I don't regret.

 

A few times during the cruise we encountered people who recognized us from Cruise Critic (which really surprised me, with how old our story is getting and how little time I spend on CC lately).

 

But CC was never too far from our minds. In fact, one of our favorite activities on this cruise was Cruise Critic.

 

Seriously.

 

Every day we would take some time to rekindle the memories of our first Hawaii cruise, reading each day's story as recorded here on CC. I had thought that I would also take some time after the cruise to write about it here (as I always seemed to keep my habit of making notes of what happened each day) but I never found the time to do so.

 

Anyway, thanks for giving me the chance to rekindle a few very precious memories!

 

Tim

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  • 2 weeks later...
Thanks for thinking of us, CruiseMomTX. I thought I had recalled that the CruiseCritic police had shut this thread down, so it's nice to see that I can still post here. As I take a break to enjoy a Princess chocolate our steward left on our bed, it seems like a good time for a little update.

 

Almost exactly one year ago, we did indeed experience another big surprise (one that was very similar, but very different).

 

After receiving a message from Princess about an unbelievably low price on a cruise to Hawaii, we decided to take the leap! Just one slight problem: the cruise began in just TWO days!

 

:o

 

Well, in spite of all of our best intentions and attempts to plan well, if you have read our story you know that we can also be very impulsive (and even, I confess, foolish). I try to take seriously my "lessons learned," I really do. But the timing seemed right, and it seemed at the time that the finances were right too.

 

As you know, I planned our first Hawaii cruise for over a year, and began giving my wife Terri clues about it over a year before we set sail. That anticipation is a big part of the story. At some point as we hurried to pack I asked myself "are we actually cheating ourselves out of a better experience by planning this so quickly?"

 

This was not our first impulsive cruise. I think once before we had booked a cruise the day before it sailed. It was a Sunday morning when Terri showed me the deal, and I told her that we could book it IF it was still available, and IF I could get ahold of the travel agent. (I really thought that those "ifs" would be my escape clause, but I was wrong!) But that was only a three day cruise, where we were never too far away and we were never out of touch for too long. That's not the same as booking a two week cruise going thousands of miles across the ocean.

 

But this was not just any two week cruise. This was an Elua cruise (like our first Hawaii cruise)! That was too much for us to pass up!

 

I had truly believed that our first cruise to Hawaii was a once-in-a-lifetime vacation for us. I never dreamed that we would do it again. Throughout our marriage I have tried to me very intentional about "making memories," and it was my honest intention for the Hawaii cruise to remain a memory (though a very cherished one).

 

But from time to time in recent years, Terri would wistfully say "I really don't remember anything about our Hawaii cruise." I would typically respond to her by asking if she recalled specific things that happened on the cruise, and I think she always recalled them. (I would also sometimes tell her to just read about it on CC ;p but I don't think she ever took my advice.) Maybe her complaints about not recalling the cruise were sending another message, and maybe I was missing her point? That would be pretty typical for me (perhaps some wives here may wish to enlighten me on what a woman really wants when she says something like that). But could there be a better way to rekindle those memories than to take another cruise?

 

If you read our "lessons learned, love shared" cruise story, you may recall that in every Hawaiian port, my list of things I wanted to do was much too long, and at the end of our very enjoyable days there were always things we felt we had missed. So even though we embarked on the cruise having made no plans for our port days, it was actually quite easy to decide what to do in each port, because this cruise had the exact same itinerary, except that it added one sea day. (In Honolulu, we had the extra blessing of learning that our CC friend Renee was in town, so she helped make those plans even easier.) Even though part of me wanted to rekindle those first memories (and maybe undo a few mistakes), on our port days we always decided to do something completely different from what we had done on our first Hawaii cruise.

 

On our first Hawaiian cruise we had joined the Princess Pop Choir, along with the ukulele and hula groups. As much as we enjoyed every one of those activities, I had decided back then that on future cruises we shouldn't commit ourselves to so many activities. But this time I think we went to the opposite extreme.

 

When we first encountered Elua's Tilki Dave on this cruise, I was pleasantly surprised that he actually remembered us! But even though Elua was such a major factor in our decision to cruise, it seemed that our schedule didn't allow us to enjoy their music as much as we had originally hoped. You would think 15 days would give us more than enough opportunities, but for us that wasn't true.

 

In spite of our past "lessons learned," I did make some big mistakes again -- right from the very start. One mistake in particular will be haunting me for the next few days.

 

But there was no major drama this time, no cliffhangers where we wondered whether we would make it back to the ship. Thankfully there was not any drama at home either, as one of our older sons had quickly agreed before the cruise to take care of his younger siblings while we were gone. We really were able to focus on relaxing, and that is certainly something I don't regret.

 

A few times during the cruise we encountered people who recognized us from Cruise Critic (which really surprised me, with how old our story is getting and how little time I spend on CC lately).

 

But CC was never too far from our minds. In fact, one of our favorite activities on this cruise was Cruise Critic.

 

Seriously.

 

Every day we would take some time to rekindle the memories of our first Hawaii cruise, reading each day's story as recorded here on CC. I had thought that I would also take some time after the cruise to write about it here (as I always seemed to keep my habit of making notes of what happened each day) but I never found the time to do so.

 

Anyway, thanks for giving me the chance to rekindle a few very precious memories!

 

Tim

 

 

Thanks for the update and its always nice to rekindle the memories and make new ones!

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