*OFFICIAL* CC Group Cruise 02/15/2014 Cupid's IV Southern Caribbean - Carnival Breeze

[Cruisin Dave]

Heidi, glad to hear your dad is okay. We had a brief cold spell yesterday but will warm again tomorrow.

 

Welcome to all the newpids. Welcome aboard.

[Flick]

Ummmm we didn't get any snow. In fact, after I walk the dog we are going to have wine and cheeze out in the Florida room before I grill two steaks outside for dinner tonight. Today was my Mother's 97th. birthday and the call was a shock. She has always sounded very alert but on this call was confused. We did learn that the doctor thinks she is not getting enough blood to her brain. She has had congestive heart failure for 5-6 years so I guess it is catching up with her. We have tickets to fly up in June and hope we don't have to change them before then.

[momofzeke]

Heidi, glad to hear your Dad is ok.

 

Rick, hope your Mom is ok.

 

It's a sloppy mess here. I've been driving the feed truck for Dave & finding a dry spot is tough. Can't use the same place twice because after we feed in one spot, it gets real muddy from the cows walking around there. We almost got stuck just trying to get to the field the bulls are in.

 

I'm not nearly as much a basketball fan as I am football, but our Ducks are doing great in b-ball! They haven't lost a league game, have only lost 2 games total all year.

 

Do our cruisers get home today? Hope Mimi & Donna had fun, & how could they not????

[Dunner]

I emailed Carnival to express my disappointment that they do not have an aadult pool! I fiquire that they will never change this rule on the Breeze unless they know that people are not happy. Chances are it won't be changed, but it definately won't be changed unless I try. Also I am worried that if they don't get enough negative feed back they will eliminate the other adult pools-- fleet wide.The If any of you fellow cruises would like to email Carnival with your thoughts it would be greatly appreciated. That is of course if you agree with me-ha! If you do email them I would love to know. I will keep checking this site. www.carnival.com You have to scroll down to the bottom.

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[HeidiHo]

Good Morning!

 

We are supposed to have an ice storm here today. I guess it could get pretty bad. I have to work at 5:?00 so if it's bad I think I'll have Dave drive me and pick me up. If it's that bad we will be really slow and some employee's will be told not to come or sent home early but probably not me because I'm a closer. Closers don't usually get sent home early unless someone else is willing to stay and close for them.

 

Mimi and Andy should have gotten home yesterday. I think Donna's cruise was ending today.

 

Have a good day.

Edited January 27, 2013 by HeidiHo

[Cruisin Dave]

Good morning Cupids,

 

Heidi, you be careful with this ice storm. That is what we usually receive around here. I don't care how good a driver you are, you are at the mercy of the fates when you drive on ice.

 

Sue, saw your post on FB. When it rains it gets muddy.:D Hope you find a way around delivering the hay.

 

Dave

[momofzeke]

Heidi, hope you made it through the ice storm ok.

 

Mimi & Donna both made it home, I saw their posts on Facebook.

 

It froze yesterday, which was good because it made the ground hard so we could get to the feed ground to feed the cows. Got a little dusting of snow last night. Winter is not over yet!

 

Dave is going wild in the basement! It hadn't been painted in probably 30 years or more until I painted it a few years ago. I used a dark brown color to cover the neon green & 30- plus years of grime. Now Dave wants to repaint to match the tan he used on the new sheetrock, it was leftover from our remodel last year. He also covered a wall that had black sealer painted on, where the water pipes come in & the concrete had chunks missing. He covered it with particle board & painted it. He has one end of the basement painted & today will paint the concrete floor. It already looks a million times better!

[HeidiHo]

Good Morning!

 

Our ice storm is over and everything has melted already. It did get nasty yesterday because the temps hovered around 32 degrees most of the day but the roads were so heavily salted that they weren't too bad. Ice was clinging to everything else though. Dave drove me to and from work. By last night a warm front started coming through and temps started going up. It's now about 46 degrees so all the ice is gone. It's supposed to be almost 60 tomorrow :D but then it goes right back into winter. :(

 

Eric is supposed to be here sometime today but I have no idea when. I don't know if he's getting a ride out here (he's in the the city) or taking the Metra train out so I might have to pick him up at the Metra station. I'm just kind of sitting around in case he calls. I don't have anything to do today until I work at 5:00 anyway.

 

Have a great day. :)

[Flick]

Trying something...hope it works! http://beyondships.com/CarnivalBreeze-Tour-1.html

 

It did! This is a great photo tour of the Breeze.

[De-Luxe08]

Hey everyone -- I'm back from our cruise. I caught a nasty cold toward the end of the cruise but it didn't affect anythings we did. Kinda feeling better today. I haven't read the posts that I missed while I was gone, but do plan on going back and catching up on what has been happening with everyone. Hope today finds everyone doing well.

 

We picked a good week to be gone since our temps were in single digits and today it is almost 60 here. This weather is very unpredictable with the drastic change in temps.

 

We stayed at the Holiday Inn POM and loved it. Bayside is right across the street, CVS down 1 block and a 5-10 minute cab ride to the port. This is where we will be staying next yr. -- didn't make the reservation yet, they don't open next yrs. books until March.

 

The worst mistake the the trip was where we had lunch at Bayside. I was determined I was eating at Bubba Gump. Hubby didn't want to, but he gave in. Lunch bill -- $71 -- don't mind paying for good food, but I didn't think the food was all that great.

 

We left the hotel around 9:30 for the port and were able to walk right in the terminal. We had priority check-in but didn't want to wait in the small room downstairs once we checked in, so we went upstairs and was given Zone 3. We did board priority once they brought that group upstairs and was on the ship by 11:00 a.m. They do board from both sides of the huge room you are waiting in, so things seem to move at a better pace. One of the stewards on our deck was really nice, they let us put our carry-ons in the cabin, but we did have our luggage by 12:30.

 

My honest opinion of the Breeze is that I love the ship. The colors are very toned down with the use of aguas, tans, oranges, yellows, most everything is done is soft colors. They did accomplish the feel of bringing the outdoors in -- especially in the Lido Marketplace, with it having umbrella tables and trees on the inside.

 

This ship is a little different in layout and being able to navigate where you want to go. I got lost three times the first day, but after that it came quite easy to move around. Deck 5 is the lanai. Smoking is on port side; Jimmy C's bbq is starboard; with hottubs on both side. This deck is unusual because it juts out from the ship. I mention this because we were on Deck 7, so when on my balcony and I looked down, I saw this whole deck and anyone sitting on this deck. So if your side of the ship is at the dock when docked, you will not be able to see the dock and watch the people coming on and off the ship. Hope that makes sense. Also, we were in 7364 (port) right above where they have tables and chairs. The smoke didn't bother us, but one night a man was smoking a cigar and you were able to smell it on our balcony. It was only one night but I want to mention that in case anyone has a cabin on Deck 6 or 7 in that are so they area aware of this possibility. Also I heard from some people that the Starboard side where Jimmy C's is, the smoke does tend to drift up. Jimmy c's is open only limited hours, only on sea days and if the weather is bad, they do close. Just thought I'd mention this.

 

The staff no matter what department they were in were amazing. Extremely friendly. Carnival made a mistake and marked us as Anytime Dining. We decided to keep it and give it a try and we liked it. There was no wait but on 1 day (formal night) and that was less than 10 mins. Even though service was a little slow, the food was always hot. We missed the dining room one day and ate on the Lido deck. That was a mistake. The food on the dinner buffet was cold and the variety of food was somewhat small. The lunch buffet on the other hand was great on the Lido deck. Guy's burgers usually had a line but moved quickly; Mongolan Wok always had a line and the wait was at least 30 mins. and aftering waiting, there are only 3 choices of sauce. Everything you have read about the pizza is correct. It is awful. I tried it and it was like eating paper.

 

The Las Vegas type shows are now gone. No longer the 2 featured singers and a bunch of dancers. The shows now consist of 8 people who can all sing and dance and are only one half hour long. Gone are the elaborate costumes and backdrops. They have been replaced with contemporary dances, costumes and led flashing lights. My husband didn't care for these new shows - he liked the old style Vegas type shows better. I did like the Latin Nights show; but we walked out of the Diva show.

 

As I think of other things, I'll post. If you have questions, please ask. I did bring home all Fun Times and any other papers left in our cabin containing information.

 

Have a great day, Donna

[De-Luxe08]

Oops, forgot. I do have pictures of the ship and once I'm organized, I will try and post some here and will have them on Facebook. This might not be to soon since my luggage is still sitting in our family room which is where we left it when we came home.

[HeidiHo]

Good Afternoon! :)

 

Donna - Glad you had a good cruise. Welcome back.

 

Eric came home yesterday. He's still here but will be leaving to go back to Champaign in a little while. we went to a Vietnamese restaurant for lunch. It was very good. I guess he misses Vietnamese food.

 

I'm working tonight. have a good evening. :)

[momofzeke]

WELCOME HOME, DONNA! :D Thanks for the mini-review! I was interested to read about deck 7, since that is the deck our cabin will be on, port side also. We are above the Fun Shops, so hopefully the issues with smoke drifting up from below won't be a problem. I had no idea that we wouldn't be able to look straight down and see the water from our balcony! That makes me a little sad.

 

We also stayed at the Holiday Inn POM when we cruised out of Miami a few years ago. I think we will most likely stay there again for the Breeze cruise. We ate dinner at Bubba Gumps and I also thought the food was ok but nothing real special. We had never been to one, so the atmosphere was fun. I don't remember what other restaurants there were over in Bayside.

 

Heidi, glad you got to spend some time with Eric! I don't believe I've ever been to a Vietnamese restaurant. What kind of food is it?

[Cruisin Dave]

Good morning Cupids,

 

Sue, Bettie and I are also on deck 7 and on the port side.

 

Heidi, glad you were able to spend time with Eric.

 

Donna, thanks for the review. Wonderful!

 

Taking Bettie to lunch before heading to work.

 

Everyone have a good day.

 

Dave

[Flick]

Donna< I would love to read your review but I don't know your name and therefore can't access Facebook. Same problem Heidi. I'm on Facebook as Rick Thorson.

[HeidiHo]

Good Evening!

 

Yesterday it was in the 60's and today it's snowing Go figure.

 

Donna< I would love to read your review but I don't know your name and therefore can't access Facebook. Same problem Heidi. I'm on Facebook as Rick Thorson.

 

Rick - I sent a friend request to a Rick Thorson who graduated from Illinois State back in the 60's. I hope that's you. There were quite a few Rick Thorson's. If it's not you, you can find me easy, I'm the only Heidi Ebneter Horstmann on FB.

[Flick]

Heidi; thanx for the info...I didn't have the middle name. Yes I am that Rick Thorson, sorry. Have no idea why I would turn down the friend request...don't remember seeing it.

[momofzeke]

Rick or any other new Cupids that want to find me on Facebook feel free to send a friend request to Sue Swingle Elder. :) Might jot a note that you are a Cupid because I don't accept requests unless I know who it is.

 

It's been over a year since we remodeled the house, and I am just now FINALLY getting all the remaining kitchen stuff brought up from the basement and put away, plus a few other things like beach towels and some bathroom stuff. Obviously, these are things we don't use that often, but I was just so dang burned out after moving everything into bins and down to the basement and then hauling most of it back up and putting it away. I ran out of steam at one point and left the rest down there. Now it's time to get it up here since we have to move stuff in order for Dave to continue his basement painting project.

[HeidiHo]

Good Morning!

 

Heidi; thanx for the info...I didn't have the middle name. Yes I am that Rick Thorson, sorry. Have no idea why I would turn down the friend request...don't remember seeing it.

 

Rick - I only sent the request last night after I saw your post about not having some of us on Facebook. Anyway, we're friends now. I also added you to our Cupid's group. And like Sue said, if any of you are sending friend requests, be sure and mention that you are a Cupid so we know who you are since we don't know everyone's last names here.

 

The temps are back down in the teens today and we got a little snow. Just a little though. To this day we still haven't had a snowfall of more than one inch at a time the entire winter. We made up for some of the lack of precipitation day before yesterday when it was in the 60's though. We had a lot of rain that day. If that had been snow we probably would have had several inches. Dave had to get up in the middle of the night that night and go down in the crawl space because our sump pump had come on but was not shutting off. It should cycle on and off as needed. It's not a real big deal though if our sump pump doesn't work properly because we have no basement at all, just a crawl space with a gravel floor. I little water down there won't hurt anything. In fact, for years we didn't have a sump pump at all but then if there was water down there it smelled kind of musty and the smell would make it's way into the closet in Eric's room where the access hatch is and then everything in that closet would smell musty. There are 2 closets in that room so we used to use the one with the hatch to store our luggage but it started to smell musty and no matter what I tried I couldn't get that smell out. We now only store stuff in there that either won't pick up odors or we don't care if it does.

 

Boy is my kitty mad at me right now. This is the one that has the tumor above her eye. It has gotten real bad and is now affecting the eye so that it oozes a lot and then she had all this dried up gunk on her face. She looked really bad this morning so I picked her up and held her down while I cleaned her up a bit but she didn't like that AT ALL! She is now hiding under the sofa and will probably stay there all day. I feel so bad for her. It is probably about time to have her put down but I just can't do it, not yet anyway. She is still eating and drinking and walking around OK. When Eric was home the other day he spent a long time saying goodbye to her before he left because I'm sure he realized that there's a good chance he'll never see her again. :( She's his kitty, sort of anyway. When the kids were 6 and 8 years old there was a stray cat in the neighborhood that had kittens by our friends house. She came over with a little black and white kitty, handed it to Staci and then Staci came up to me begging to keep it. I said OK but then Eric said he wanted one too so we went back to the friend's house and got a little gray and white one for him. There were two other kittens but we couldn't reach them. They were under a central air conditioning unit outside the house. They were just too far back and out of reach. The mother cat moved them that night anyway. We used to see them all around the neighborhood for the next year or so but of course the other 2 kittens became feral. Eventually our neighbors trapped the mother and took it to an animal shelter because she kept having kittens and we really didn't want a bunch of feral cats in our neighborhood. The 2 kittens we took were real friendly though because they were only 4 or 5 weeks old when we got them. They were actually a little too young to be taken from their mother so I had to give them baby formula. I didn't have to bottle feed them thankfully, they were old enough to drink from a bowl but not old enough to be off of milk yet.

 

This weekend is the Cheerleading State championships again. Those of you who have known me a long time know that Staci was in cheerleading in high school and they had a very good team and always did well in the state championships. I miss going to the competitions but they now broadcast them live on the Illinois High School association website so I can still watch. Staci will go to the finals because they are being held where she goes to school and we have a good friends who's daughter is still on the squad.

 

Have a great day. :)

[Flick]

Thanx Heidi!

[momofzeke]

Good morning!

 

It feels like spring here! Yesterday was beautiful, and today is shaping up to be another gorgeous day.

 

Basement cleanout continues. Yesterday, we came across a Ranch & Land special edition of our local newspaper from April, 1977. Dave & I had only been dating about a week when it came out. What's funny is that both of our families are featured in this issue. An article about my dad's family heritage and one about Dave's family ranch, which is this same ranch we are on now. Obviously, the articles had been written BEFORE we started dating. I think it's pretty ironic. Maybe someone was trying to tell us something? Worked out ok, we are at 33 years of marriage and counting! :D

 

Heidi, I'm so sorry about your kitty. It's an agonizing decision to have to make, as I know very well. :( Hugs to you, I know it's hard. She'll probably let you know when it's time. There was no question the day we knew it was time to let Zeke go. Didn't make it any easier, but as Dave says, the animals are the lucky ones because they go to sleep and don't have to suffer any longer.

[Flick]

Hmmmm we all must have had a quiet weekend. Kay and I are in charge of our Parish photo directory (we have done all three in the last 12 years) so Saturday and yesterday we started sign-ups for photos. People can also sign up on-line. All of this to celebrate our new church which will be dedicated this Saturday.....YAY!! The only thing we are sweating at this time is the occupancy permit from the county which has NOT come so far. Our bishop is ill so the bishop from Orlando will come in his place. Although we extensivesly remodeled the church we did not realize it was a new church because we have a new marble altar instead of our original wooden one. When I use the word extensive....I mean it! The old church held 700 people, the new church 1850 people!!! It is huge......I guess every priest dreams of a cathedral and ours got his.

[HeidiHo]

Good Morning1

 

We have snow! Not a lot but for the 1st time this winter we've had a couple of snowfalls that were over an inch. We had a couple of inches on Saturday morning and woke up this morning to a couple more on top of that. I really don't mind the snow. It's the bitter cold that I hate. I'll take temps in the 20's and snow over temps in the single digits or below zero any day. Our dog loves the snow too. She will bury her entire face in it. I had to go make her come inside just now. I let her out about 8:00 this morning and just realized she was still out and it's 10:00 now. She didn't want to come in but I forced her because she was shivering. She just loves being out there but doesn't always know when to come in. She'll scratch the door or bark to come in when it's bitter cold though. If she doesn't want to come in but we make her, she will pout. Her head goes down, her tail goes between her legs and then she will walk real slow to the door. Once inside we usually offer her a treat but she won't take it till our backs are turned (we have to throw it on the floor). I have never seen a dog who could pout like that. LOL

 

I had to work last night and surprisingly, we were busier than I though we'd be. We weren't VERY busy but I expected it to be dead because of the Superbowl but we were just busy enough that I wasn't terribly bored and time went by fairly quickly. We were no where near as busy as we would normally be on a Sunday night though. I guess they had kind of a busy lunch but by the time I got there at 4:00 it was dying down.

 

Saturday night we met up with my dad, sister and brother in law for dinner at a German restaurant about half way between our homes. It was really good. We do that once in a while since they live about an hour from us. Meeting half way works out well. We were just getting ready to pay the bill when my dad whips out his credit card and says, "I got this." Of course we didn't say no and thanked him but then he said, "It's just coming out of your inheritance anyway." LOL

 

I hope everyone has a good week.

[momofzeke]

Oh, man, I went WAY off my "better eating" plan yesterday! Dave asked me to make my homemade jalepeno poppers, filled with cream cheese & wrapped in bacon. He also asked for deviled eggs. I made pulled pork and also a chocolate cake. Now, you'd think with all that food we must have had a big party....NOT. It was just the 2 of us!! LOL! I paid for it last night, my tummy was telling me all that rich, fatty food does not set well. I was disappointed the 49ers didn't play better, but that's football. I really didn't even watch that much of the game, but glad they at least made it interesting at the end.

 

My favorite commercial during the superbowl was the Dodge Ram one with the voice of Paul Harvey and his tribute to farmers, "So God made a Farmer". That was frickin awesome!! Even though we consider ourselves "ranchers" rather than "farmers", it was really cool. So many of the things mentioned are things we do, and it really hit home. I always loved Paul Harvey, but I hadn't heard this one before. Made me love him even more...miss hearing him on the radio!

 

Saturday was a red-letter day, especially for my hubby! WE SOLD OUR BALER! You may remember what a stressful haying season we had last year due to our baler breaking down several times. Well, it's all fixed now and was running fine at the end of the season, but Dave just doesn't want to trust it and wants to go back to a Hesston brand, which is what he knows and what we've always run before we got this german Krone. The guy who bought it is the owner of Sierra Pacific company, which is a huge (1.9 million acres of timberland) forest products company in CA & WA. What's funny is that this guy could buy a brand new baler without even blinking, and yet he is buying our used one. He even tried to offer Dave about $5,000 less than he was asking, but Dave held firm and the guy paid our price.

 

Dave is on his way now to Klamath Falls to look at 2 balers over there. These are brand new balers, not used. We had always bought new balers before, and the one time he tried a used baler (the Krone we have now), it bit him in the butt, so he is going back to brand new. We buy tons of other equipment used, but the baler is just so important and has a lot that can go wrong. The reason he bought the used one last year is that our old baler was giving us trouble, and the Krone was about half what a new baler cost....new will cost us $115,000.00 or so and we got the Krone for $60,000.00. That and a dollar will get you a cup of coffee when the bargain priced baler is not baling hay because it is broke down. We will just take our butt-kicking and like it and buy brand new this time. Lesson learned!!

 

Hope everyone is having a great day!

[De-Luxe08]

Rick - send you a friend request on FB and all a message telling you I did the same.

 

My pictures of the Breeze are now uploaded on FB but they are kinda mixed in the other other vacation pictures since I was unable to upload them all at one time. So the are some what out of order.

 

Didn't get any snow here on Fri. but it still took me 2 hrs. to get to work since every city on my way to work was getting blasted. Since then, we have had snow the past 3 days with some accumulation everyday and it is still snowing.

 

I was a little disappointed in the Superbowl commercials. I'm not one to sit and watch sports on tv, that is unless is Daytona 500 or The Masters. The Bud commercial was good but most of the commercials were about tv shows and movies. I was looking forward to the new etrade commercial and didn't care for it at all and those babies are usually really funny. The Taco Bell one was pretty good but not great. I don't know about anyone else but wasn't very found of Beyonce either. Oh well, it was at least a nice evening since it was spent with my daughter and son-in-law.

 

One thing I remembered was about chair hogs. There really are a lot of chairs on ship. Lido deck middle and both sides. By the aft pool and on Deck 12 looking down at the Lido pool. Most of the chairs were not held but by 9:00 it was kinda of impossible to find a chair in the prime areas. I actually went to get our chairs the one day at 7:00 a.m. since we didn't like sitting on the sides of the ship because you can't see or hearing anything happening around the pool. Since we wanted to be on Deck 12 overlooking the pool, I went that early. At least Cheers was playing on the big screen. At no time did I see any chairs being tagged, but there weren't too many unattended chairs. At least one person in a group would stay with the chairs if the others stepped away but most of them were not gone very long. I was questioned about my husband's empty chair by a clean-up person and he reminded me of the policy and mentioned if he came back and my husband was still gone, he would start the 40 min. process. My husband had just left to go get something but was back very shortly. The Serenity Deck is very nice but there is not a whole lot of seating up there but I was told my someone as the afternoon comes around your chances of getting a place to sit get better.

 

I have never been on a ship that had to deal with a medical emergency. This trip we had two. One of the first day which took us into Nassau in wee hours. Nothing like getting up at 5:00 a.m. looking outside and seeing the Liberty docked. We weren't there very long and since it was our first sea day no change in schedule. On our last day at sea in the early evening they made an announcement that we were headed into San Juan because of a medical emergency and it would take about 3-4 hrs. to get there. Nassau was our last port and we did make that also.

 

Hope everyone's week has started out well. I'm finally feeling so much better from the cold that I caught the last couple of days of our cruise. I'm still tired but at least my voice is back.

 

Have a great evening all, Donna