Live from the Aloha Tribe on the Star

[caribill]

our beautiful daughter’s new CD had just won the NPR Album of the Year award. J How very cool is that? We are so proud of her as she and her partner have worked really hard to write and produce these songs and the new album. Her band is called “The Blow” and the CD is also called “The Blow”.

 

http://www.npr.org/artists/15396995/the-blow

 

[PunkiC]

Day Thirteen—Only Three Days Left.

How sad is that? I think we would all be happy if this cruise never ended.

You are going to have to forgive me for being such a braggart, but I can’t help it. We also learned tonight that one of our daughter’s songs, “A Kiss”, was included in the New York Times list of the top ten songs of the year. We are just so very happy for her and proud of her outstanding accomplishments. She and her girlfriend have worked so hard to make this happen and really deserve all of the Kudos they get.

We got ready early so we could go to the “Life @ Sea” program which was very interesting. David Cole and several other officers talked about their life on board ship—where they sleep, eat and play. I don’t think I could take 13 hours a day, seven days a week for 10 months as a crew person—I don’t even know if I could handle it as a passenger. I suppose I would be willing to give it a try. J

Today was our last Ukulele lesson and David Cole was the teacher. He taught us a C scale and that was pretty easy and lots of fun to practice. Who knew that practicing scales could be fun? I think it is so much fun because we are doing it together and singing (very poorly I might add) while we play. We actually sound pretty good and I would be totally comfortable playing the ukulele in the show but we are doing hula instead.

Ukulele class we had lunch and then went down and registered to be in the Ballroom Blitz contest. We are only dancing waltz, swing and foxtrot. Foxtrot is our favorite and we will be dancing to “New York, New York” which is our favorite song.

It was a rush to get from the Ballroom Blitz registration to Hula, but we made it and are feeling very comfortable with the three routines we will perform.

Following Hula, we went to the Princess Grapevine Wine Tasting. They had three white wines and one red wine, all four of which are no longer listed on the wine list. We can order them, but I have no idea how much they cost and we aren’t really white wine drinkers.

At 4:30 we went to hear the 2nd Officer talk about navigation in general and specifically offering information on what happens on a Princess bridge. It was interesting.

What a busy, busy day.

We had elite canapés delivered to the room and again received a combination instead of all caviar which we had ordered. This time I did call and ask for more caviar, but when it arrived there were only two golden caviar canapés, which I love, and two red, which I don’t like at all. I have never seen any of my favorite, black caviar, on a Princess ship.

Our dinner mates were the most boring people ever. I couldn’t believe it. So far on this cruise we have had really interesting dinner mates every single night and I had begun to think that maybe the Hawaii cruise just attracted a more adventuresome, lively, charming group of people. Well, we learned that that isn’t true of all of them. We had trouble dragging three words in a row out of any of them. This was not one of the evenings when we were the last people to leave the dining room. ;)

We danced a set in The Wheelhouse to warm up before we went over to Explorer’s for the Ballroom Blitz which really was a lot of fun. We already knew almost all of the other dancers from dancing around the ship for the past couple of weeks and we all had a wonderful time. There really are some lovely dancers on this cruise. They had lots of champagne in the V.I.P. area where we were sitting and we also received bottle of champagne for participating to take back to our cabin. We will take our bottle to dinner and share it with our table mates.

[Woobstr112G]

Day Thirteen—Only Three Days Left.

How sad is that? I think we would all be happy if this cruise never ended.

You are going to have to forgive me for being such a braggart, but I can’t help it. We also learned tonight that one of our daughter’s songs, “A Kiss”, was included in the New York Times list of the top ten songs of the year. We are just so very happy for her and proud of her outstanding accomplishments. She and her girlfriend have worked so hard to make this happen and really deserve all of the Kudos they get.

We got ready early so we could go to the “Life @ Sea” program which was very interesting. David Cole and several other officers talked about their life on board ship—where they sleep, eat and play. I don’t think I could take 13 hours a day, seven days a week for 10 months as a crew person—I don’t even know if I could handle it as a passenger. I suppose I would be willing to give it a try. J

Today was our last Ukulele lesson and David Cole was the teacher. He taught us a C scale and that was pretty easy and lots of fun to practice. Who knew that practicing scales could be fun? I think it is so much fun because we are doing it together and singing (very poorly I might add) while we play. We actually sound pretty good and I would be totally comfortable playing the ukulele in the show but we are doing hula instead.

Ukulele class we had lunch and then went down and registered to be in the Ballroom Blitz contest. We are only dancing waltz, swing and foxtrot. Foxtrot is our favorite and we will be dancing to “New York, New York” which is our favorite song.

It was a rush to get from the Ballroom Blitz registration to Hula, but we made it and are feeling very comfortable with the three routines we will perform.

Following Hula, we went to the Princess Grapevine Wine Tasting. They had three white wines and one red wine, all four of which are no longer listed on the wine list. We can order them, but I have no idea how much they cost and we aren’t really white wine drinkers.

At 4:30 we went to hear the 2nd Officer talk about navigation in general and specifically offering information on what happens on a Princess bridge. It was interesting.

What a busy, busy day.

We had elite canapés delivered to the room and again received a combination instead of all caviar which we had ordered. This time I did call and ask for more caviar, but when it arrived there were only two golden caviar canapés, which I love, and two red, which I don’t like at all. I have never seen any of my favorite, black caviar, on a Princess ship.

Our dinner mates were the most boring people ever. I couldn’t believe it. So far on this cruise we have had really interesting dinner mates every single night and I had begun to think that maybe the Hawaii cruise just attracted a more adventuresome, lively, charming group of people. Well, we learned that that isn’t true of all of them. We had trouble dragging three words in a row out of any of them. This was not one of the evenings when we were the last people to leave the dining room. ;)

We danced a set in The Wheelhouse to warm up before we went over to Explorer’s for the Ballroom Blitz which really was a lot of fun. We already knew almost all of the other dancers from dancing around the ship for the past couple of weeks and we all had a wonderful time. There really are some lovely dancers on this cruise. They had lots of champagne in the V.I.P. area where we were sitting and we also received bottle of champagne for participating to take back to our cabin. We will take our bottle to dinner and share it with our table mates.

 

What a perfect day at sea.....:):):)

 

Bob

Edited December 18, 2013 by Woobstr112G

[PunkiC]

Stuff I forgot to say:

Lovely Assistant: Thank you for your kind comments. We don’t really do shore excursion very often so I honestly don’t know much about that department. David Cole is the Cruise Director on the Star and the moment and he is very, very good. Truth be told, he is our favorite.

anteaters: Yes, people are swimming in the pools and I don’t have any idea if any of them are heated. I don’t think so because I haven’t seen any steam rising, but then it hasn’t been particularly cold for most of the trip. We did see people who used the Hoppa On/Hoppa Off buses in Hilo to go to the beach to swim. Yes there is line dancing every sea day and, of course, hula is sort of a line dance.

sasha’smom: Yes, there are ballroom dance classes on sea days. We didn’t attend them because we have been so busy with ukulele and hula, but the gal who teaches them is the same gal who put together the Ballroom Blitz and she is lots of fun.

There is just so very much to do on this cruise that you just could not begin to do it all in one cruise. I guess that is why there are so many return passengers.

[BassettMom]

Brag away. She worked hard to get to this point (and parents earned a few brags) congrats!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Do you have any info on the Shore-X department (crew etc.) Also, who is this David Cole everyone is talking about. We board Friday.

 

BTW just listened to your daughters music on NPR stream. Amazing!!!

 

David Cole is the CD and specializes in Hawaii. The Shore Ex Manager for our cruise will be Nora Sabo.

[SunLakesBob]

PunkiC -- thank you for your posts. It is so wonderful that you took the time everyday to write the posts, when you could have been enjoying the ship. How was the response time on the systems?

 

You have a right to be a proud parent. What an accomplishment! We should all be proud of our children.

[BassettMom]

Thanks for the live thread!

 

While your cruise is in the final days :(, ours is getting closer. So while I empathize with how sad you all must be getting, I can't help but be happy and excited that I'll be boarding as you leave.

 

Enjoy the last few days, and thank you again for posting. (It's really made the last few days somewhat bearable as the excitement builds.)

 

:D

[outgate08]

Hi PunkiC,

Thank you for doing this LIVE from. It has been very informative and we are getting more excited every day as our cruise on the Star rapidly approaches on January 4.

 

By now you probably have received the disembarkation schedule, which is always a sad point in the cruise....:(

 

Would you please report as to what time Princess has scheduled the Express Walk Off to begin. We plan on carrying off our own luggage and need to give a pick up time for our travel once off the ship.

 

Thank you!

[PunkiC]

Day Fourteen—Too Close to The End

 

It’s overcast as we head toward Mexico on our last sea day and it is fairly cool, but the sea is pretty calm. These cruises used to be only 14 days long with a token stop in Ensenada but now a full docking stop is required so the cruise ships had to add in an extra day to make certain that there would be plenty of time to dock in a near foreign port. Otherwise they wouldn’t let the ship go back to LA, which would probably be fine with most of the passengers.

This morning on the Wake Show they announced that our daughter’s CD “The Blow” had been chosen as the #1 Album of the Year by NPR. This is very exciting stuff for all of us.

We had a friend video one of our Hula rehearsals so we can practice in our cabin to get ready for the big show today. There will be so many people on stage that I doubt they will notice if we make any mistakes.

They had a Technical@Sea presentation at 9:45 this morning and I really wanted to see it but slept in too long so DH went to find out how many tons of tomatoes and dozens of eggs it takes to accommodate a 15-day cruise to Hawaii. He is not a very good reporter so it will probably take me weeks to get the information out of him. So far he has just told me that The Star uses evaporated sea water for drinking water and that they have been having serious plumbing problems on this trip.

I had to take extra care with my hair and make-up this morning because we had rehearsal at 1:00 and the show at 2:30. So, before breakfast (a very late breakfast) I got ready for the show and even put in my contacts, which I never do before dinner. It is amazing how comfortable it was to wear contacts all day long. Maybe I should do that more often.

The rehearsal was great fun and went very well. They did take a fair amount of time getting all of us to sign a paper saying that we had received a safety lecture and giving us the safety lecture. They take safety pretty seriously. There was a woman in front of me who is an excellent hula dancer so I could sort of follow her. When the rehearsal was over a bunch of people behind me told me they were following me, so it is a very good thing that I had someone good in front of me to follow or we could have messed up the whole show. ;) We had had a friend video the rehearsal so we had to run back to the cabin and download that video and get a new battery before the real show.

Wow, was the show ever fun!!! It went extremely well and everyone was very, very happy. When it was over, we gave David Cole a Christmas present—a David Apron—and he thought it was a kick. A bunch of folks gathered around to take pictures of him in his new apron. If you don’t know what a “David Apron” is, check it out on e-bay. We finished the session with lots of pictures of us and our friends, both new and old. I can hardly wait to come back and do it all again. What fun!

There was barely time following the show to go up and get some food before they shut down the Horizon Court. Did I mention that these days they close the Horizon Court in the late afternoon? They do maintain a small food station where they serve baked potatoes (my favorite food after pizza) and, of course, you can always have pizza and hamburgers, etc., all day long.

After lunch we went down to the Elua Meet and Greet and bought another CD to save even more memories of this wonderful cruise. I had a vision of listening to wonderful Hawaiian music while cooking dinner at home and watching the snow on our deck. I do hope we get some snow this year.

We went back to the cabin and took a nap before dinner. We needed that. We also finally saw the end of this movie which we had been watching is segments whenever we were in the cabin, all day long.

Tonight we had very interesting dinner mates. Yeah, and we shared the bottle of champagne that we had received in the Ballroom Blitz with the whole table. On our way out of the dining room, we danced every dance in the last set of Elua in the Piazza and then headed up to The Wheelhouse, where we danced another set with The Janos Quartet and then went up to our cabin and crashed.

What a wonderful day. What a wonderful cruise!

[lukesgrammie]

Day Fourteen—Too Close to The End

 

 

It’s overcast as we head toward Mexico on our last sea day and it is fairly cool, but the sea is pretty calm. These cruises used to be only 14 days long with a token stop in Ensenada but now a full docking stop is required so the cruise ships had to add in an extra day to make certain that there would be plenty of time to dock in a near foreign port. Otherwise they wouldn’t let the ship go back to LA, which would probably be fine with most of the passengers.

 

This morning on the Wake Show they announced that our daughter’s CD “The Blow” had been chosen as the #1 Album of the Year by NPR. This is very exciting stuff for all of us.

 

We had a friend video one of our Hula rehearsals so we can practice in our cabin to get ready for the big show today. There will be so many people on stage that I doubt they will notice if we make any mistakes.

 

They had a Technical@Sea presentation at 9:45 this morning and I really wanted to see it but slept in too long so DH went to find out how many tons of tomatoes and dozens of eggs it takes to accommodate a 15-day cruise to Hawaii. He is not a very good reporter so it will probably take me weeks to get the information out of him. So far he has just told me that The Star uses evaporated sea water for drinking water and that they have been having serious plumbing problems on this trip.

 

I had to take extra care with my hair and make-up this morning because we had rehearsal at 1:00 and the show at 2:30. So, before breakfast (a very late breakfast) I got ready for the show and even put in my contacts, which I never do before dinner. It is amazing how comfortable it was to wear contacts all day long. Maybe I should do that more often.

 

The rehearsal was great fun and went very well. They did take a fair amount of time getting all of us to sign a paper saying that we had received a safety lecture and giving us the safety lecture. They take safety pretty seriously. There was a woman in front of me who is an excellent hula dancer so I could sort of follow her. When the rehearsal was over a bunch of people behind me told me they were following me, so it is a very good thing that I had someone good in front of me to follow or we could have messed up the whole show. ;) We had had a friend video the rehearsal so we had to run back to the cabin and download that video and get a new battery before the real show.

 

Wow, was the show ever fun!!! It went extremely well and everyone was very, very happy. When it was over, we gave David Cole a Christmas present—a David Apron—and he thought it was a kick. A bunch of folks gathered around to take pictures of him in his new apron. If you don’t know what a “David Apron” is, check it out on e-bay. We finished the session with lots of pictures of us and our friends, both new and old. I can hardly wait to come back and do it all again. What fun!

 

There was barely time following the show to go up and get some food before they shut down the Horizon Court. Did I mention that these days they close the Horizon Court in the late afternoon? They do maintain a small food station where they serve baked potatoes (my favorite food after pizza) and, of course, you can always have pizza and hamburgers, etc., all day long.

 

After lunch we went down to the Elua Meet and Greet and bought another CD to save even more memories of this wonderful cruise. I had a vision of listening to wonderful Hawaiian music while cooking dinner at home and watching the snow on our deck. I do hope we get some snow this year.

 

We went back to the cabin and took a nap before dinner. We needed that. We also finally saw the end of this movie which we had been watching is segments whenever we were in the cabin, all day long.

 

Tonight we had very interesting dinner mates. Yeah, and we shared the bottle of champagne that we had received in the Ballroom Blitz with the whole table. On our way out of the dining room, we danced every dance in the last set of Elua in the Piazza and then headed up to The Wheelhouse, where we danced another set with The Janos Quartet and then went up to our cabin and crashed.

 

What a wonderful day. What a wonderful cruise!

 

 

Glad you had such a wonderful time...and thank you for your posts. If you do not mind..how cool is the weather? What would you recommend as far as clothing? How heavy of jackets to enjoy the deck and will I get much use out of our balcony? We are sailing January 19 and getting excited, but it has been so cold and snowy here in MI, I am so looking forward to warmer weather. Safe travels!

[Solara]

Thanks for your wonderful live. I can't wait till March even thou it's the 4th time doing the Hawaii cruise. Always one of my favorites. I finally did the hula show when we went in January & agree it was alot of fun.

 

Any idea how long the bands will be onboard. Sounds like you were lucky with the dancing music. Hope we are too.

 

Thanks again for taking us along with you.

[melody hounddog]

Thanks again for the live review. I have really been enjoying it.

 

We board the Star tomorrow. Any word on whether or not the new trial all inclusive beverage package will be available on the next sailing? I may leave my wine at home.

 

Thanks!

[judy-judy]

thank you so much for doing the live posts. I have enjoyed your reports very much and looking forward to doing this cruise some time in the future.

Judy

[PunkiC]

Solara, according to the Pitter Patter, Phoenix Rising is boarding today so I would imagine that one of the bands is leaving. We like Phoenix Rising.

[dchip]

Wow!, you have every right to brag about your daughter's success. As someone who has been close to the music business for a long time.....this is a BIG DEAL.

 

Thanks again for the live. Leaving on the Grand a month from today.

 

Cheers, Denise

[Caribensun]

Congrats on your daughters success, isn't her band in Portland?

Hope you can join us first week of Feb, same ship. Glad you have had so much fun, your live has been so enjoyable. Hopefully Phoenix Rising" will still be onboard with us- really like them. Sad to see you go home. Enjoy the holidays. Seadeck2

[Solara]

Solara, according to the Pitter Patter, Phoenix Rising is boarding today so I would imagine that one of the bands is leaving. We like Phoenix Rising.

Thanks PunkiC, We have sailed with Phoenix Rising before too. Hope they will still be on in March. Edited December 20, 2013 by Solara

[Cruisin' Chick]

Looking at the date on my computer, I just realized a year ago today we were boarding the Golden Princess for our third Hawaiian cruise. And on January 1, I was dancing the hula (more or less:o) in the Aloha 'Oe show.

[PunkiC]

Congrats on your daughters success, isn't her band in Portland?

Hope you can join us first week of Feb, same ship. Glad you have had so much fun, your live has been so enjoyable. Hopefully Phoenix Rising" will still be onboard with us- really like them. Sad to see you go home. Enjoy the holidays. Seadeck2

 

She was in Portland for a few years and then decided that serious musicians had to be in either New York or LA so she and her girlfriend moved to New York. They have lived in Brooklyn for about 4 years now and they (and we) love it. New York is one of our favorite cities in the world.

 

Day Fifteen—Ensenada, The Bitter End

I don’t remember who asked, but the earliest disembarkation time is at 8:00 for folks who can handle all of their own luggage.

It is cold in Ensenada and very overcast. Not the greatest day in the world for a champagne breakfast on the deck, but this is the day we picked. Well I guess I picked it so I will take all the blame. Not only was it cold, but as we were docking there were thousands of seagulls flocking around the boat. It felt like an Alfred Hitchcock movie out on the deck so we elected to eat in the cabin.

What a crazy breakfast. They brought us eight different dishes, plus the champagne. We couldn’t deal with champagne that early in the morning so we put the bottle in our fridge to share at dinner. There was also no way on earth we could have made it through all of that food, as good as it was, so we ended up sharing with our cabin neighbors. We just waved over anybody who was out on their balcony and told them to come grab a plate.

By the time we were ready to head into town it was raining like crazy. We just took the $2.00 shuttle and walked from one end of town to the other. I did buy a fun Mexican blouse which DH says is very sexy and it definitely moves a lot for dancing.

When the rain became torrential we popped into this cantina and had a margarita each. Well the owner also brought us chips and salsa (very good salsa) and then proceeded to keep refreshing our drinks with more tequila—One tequila, two tequila, three tequila, floor. J So we finally broke down and bought some nachos, which we didn’t like at all because they were made with cheese sauce, and another margarita to share. We had a grand time as the rain came down in buckets and we laughed our heads off with our cantina neighbors. Such a good time.

As we were heading back to the shuttle a cab driver offered to drive us to the ship for $4.00 for two people. That worked for us as it prevented us from having to cross the river that was running down the street. As soon as we got back to the ship, the rain stopped and the sun began to threaten to come out. By that time, however, we were too tired to go back out so we decided that it must be nap time. While I rested, DH started packing. I just couldn’t bear to participate in such a dreary task.

We napped a bit and then got ready for an early dinner. Serendipitously we were seated with our old friends and a bunch of other really funny people, including a lady who also contributed a bottle of champagne to the table. So with two bottles of champagne and a bottle of wine shared by all, it was a very convivial evening. J

As it happened, Phoenix Rising did not board the ship. Apparently that was just a glitch in the Pitter Patter. We danced a bunch of dances in The Wheelhouse to the Janos Quartet and, when we could dance no more, we went to bed. I crashed almost immediately and DH finished the painful task of packing the big bag and putting it out for collection.

DH also went down and bought a copy of the ship CD for Aloha Oe and we all looked and sounded great. It will bring back great memories.

We also bought more Future Cruise Credits so we are ready to book this cruise again as soon as we find out when David Cole and Elua will be on it once again.

That’s All Folks!

[judy-judy]

Since it sounds like so much fun, would you please notify me when Dave and Eula will be on board again and maybe we can do it too. thanks judyharris40 at gmail.com

thanks again for the wonderful reports!

[PunkiC]

I will be happy to post the info when I get it. You can also "freind" Elua on Facebook and track their schedule there.

[Elua]

Since it sounds like so much fun, would you please notify me when Dave and Eula will be on board again and maybe we can do it too. thanks judyharris40 at gmail.com

thanks again for the wonderful reports!

 

Aloha,

How nice of you to think of booking because of us and David Cole. We really appreciate all the positivity that has come our way from past guests, (and future ones as well) as we truly love passing on the aloha spirit to everyone!

 

As far as when we will all be together again, it is hard to say. David has just been extended to March 20th, and then will be off on a well deserved vacation. As far as next season, no one can say for sure where anyone will be, as we have yet to be told our ship assignment, and the same is true of David Cole. Princess is not going to have a "full time" Hawaiian ship as they have had in the past, so we are not sure if we will be on the Grand Princess or the Star Princess for 2014-15. The only thing I can say is to keep an eye out on our Facebook page, as that is where all announcements are made first for our friends. Just follow the link at the bottom of this response.

 

We certainly hope to be an integral part of the Princess Hawaiian experience for many years to come, so as soon as we know something, we will let everyone else know.

 

 

Mahalo,

Dave

(of Elua)

http://www.facebook.com/eluamusic

[judy-judy]

thank you Elua! sorry for the misspelling!

will try to find you on Facebook.

judy harris

[Solara]

Aloha,

How nice of you to think of booking because of us and David Cole. We really appreciate all the positivity that has come our way from past guests, (and future ones as well) as we truly love passing on the aloha spirit to everyone!

 

As far as when we will all be together again, it is hard to say. David has just been extended to March 20th, and then will be off on a well deserved vacation. As far as next season, no one can say for sure where anyone will be, as we have yet to be told our ship assignment, and the same is true of David Cole. Princess is not going to have a "full time" Hawaiian ship as they have had in the past, so we are not sure if we will be on the Grand Princess or the Star Princess for 2014-15. The only thing I can say is to keep an eye out on our Facebook page, as that is where all announcements are made first for our friends. Just follow the link at the bottom of this response.

 

We certainly hope to be an integral part of the Princess Hawaiian experience for many years to come, so as soon as we know something, we will let everyone else know.

 

 

Mahalo,

Dave

(of Elua)

http://www.facebook.com/eluamusic

Hi Dave, Thanks for the update. We are boarding on the 20th. So glad you will be on the ship. Sorry to hear we will miss David Cole since we have sailed with him our other 3 Hawaii cruises. Any idea yet who will be replacing him? We are looking forward to sailing with you again.

 

[realtreebar]

thanks for sharing this is awesome!!:)