Live from The Grand Princess - February 18 - 25

[talltexan]

Thanks for all your reports Judy!

 

You'll have a loyal readership hanging on your every word all week. I'm sure I'm not the only one interested in the daily temperature reports. Most of us are freezing in our home towns and really need the encouragement to hang on till we reach the warm Caribbean waters ourselves.

[budaman]

Didn't go to the "Jogging Track" but did regularly walk the Promenade deck. You can go completely around and it is so peaceful at the bow. Three times around is a mile and there are two or 3 clocks on each side to track your progress. There were some joggers on it as well, but mostly walkers.....not strollers, so it was easy to walk quickly to get pulse up. You even get some stair work at the bow.

 

Mike

[poetic license]

 

The weather summed up in one word was AWFUL! The high of the day was 52 and actually wasn't too bad for us since we left winter back home. It took a drastic drop in temp shortly after we arrived in Galveston and with the wind off of the sea and the drizzle, it was now a very raw, low 40's something outside. Not the temps we are used to leaving a cruise in.

 

Darn it! Too bad you did not come into town before Friday ... the temps were in the 70s and 80s the front half of the week! It HAS been cold since Friday .... feels good, bracing .... but not what someone heading out on a cruise is hoping for. I'll be reading with interest, since we are considering this ship for a spring break cruise with our two teenaged (and courteous and well-behaved, I might add) daughters in 2007. :)

 

Enjoy your trip!

 

Cheers,

[fishinjules]

Thanks for the great post. It makes me wish that I was still on the Grand! Next time you chat with Neil or Wendy his Deputy Cruise Director, you will have to ask them if Rich still holds the record for 15 lobster tails! That was quite the conversation on the Wakey Wakey show.

Julie & Julie

[fishinjules]

Hey out there. We were with you on the Grand last month. You are right,we hit a good week. We are booked on the Dawn later this year. Any first hand knowledge of that one. Thanks Paul and Katey

 

Hey Paul & Katey,

We did meet at the CC Party in Skywalkers if I'm not mistaken. Glad you had a great time also.

 

We did the Dawn in Alaska. I couldn't imagine being on a better ship of that size. It was amazing how they could turn the Dawn on a dime in front of the glaciers. I would have only wished that they had a retractable roof over the pool like the Grand does. So where are you going on the Dawn.

Julie & Julie

[Cruiserunning0133]

Runner- jogging track is on the Sports deck and it has a sign that says 10 laps make up a mile

[BLUEHEN]

Your reports are sooooo good and so much fun. TY

[cozgal]

Thanks for such great posts Judy!!!! Sounds like you have mastered the art of travel and are just having the best of times! I can almost taste that souffle!

How was your day in Costa Maya? Hope the tendering was not troublesome...Really appreciate all the time you are taking to make these reports so detailed! keep'em coming!

Linda

[purplefan]

Thanks for the cruise update. My daughters and I are looking forward to March 25th sailing!

I sailed on the Grand last September and enjoyed it very much. Everyone was very nice. The maitre d' in the Da Vinci dining room was very attentive. We lreally liked our waiter Adrian and our room steward Suchart was the best! (Whenever we left and returned our room was spotless).

I was not traveling with my girls last September. Do you see many kids around the pool or other areas? Have you heard of any fun activities for kids 9-11?

Have fun and thanks for the posts!

[rcrj762]

We are also on the Grand and are having a great time. For anyone out there thinking of canceling their princess transfers it was the best thing we could have done. We used Gulf Coast Limo and they were great. The line for the princess buses were very long. We will post a review when we get home. Food has been great people very friendly no complaints..

 

 

 

Judy- Don't have time to read all the post but wanted to say we got the invitation for the cc party and will see you there.

[Tresa]

Since there has been some back and forth on this in previous posts I thought I would ask you all onboard and see if we could get an answer. It is my understanding in the past you were allowed to purchase a liter of alcohol to be delivered to your room. Some have said that Princess has discontinued this. Do you know if we can or cannot place an order to be delivered to our rooms? I understand that there is an additional fee to do this but I really don't want to smuggle any hooch on to the ship, but I think I might like to have a drink on my balcony on occasion. I can't remember the last time I had a drink but I'll be on vacation and not driving so the thought did cross my mind....ummm.. a few times!

 

Thanks!

[boogenspike]

Hey Paul & Katey,

We did meet at the CC Party in Skywalkers if I'm not mistaken. Glad you had a great time also.

 

We did the Dawn in Alaska. I couldn't imagine being on a better ship of that size. It was amazing how they could turn the Dawn on a dime in front of the glaciers. I would have only wished that they had a retractable roof over the pool like the Grand does. So where are you going on the Dawn.

Julie & Julie

 

We are doing the SFO to Acapulco and Back. We will stay in SFO for two or three days, then go boatin. Should be a good one. Our second choice is a week long horseback deal outside of Mexico City. We wont know for sure for a while. Stay in touch. Paul and Katey

[bjkTX]

According to the Princess web site they still offer bottles of liquor in the package deals - not sure about anything else. here's the link:

 

http://www.princess.com/onboard/services/gifts/cellars.html

[Tresa]

I've read that on their website, however, they don't generally update that site like they probably should, hence, them saying that the Grand is still going to Grand Cayman as of a couple weeks ago. The report from the ship has been mixed. Some say, yes, we can still order it. Others are reporting that you can't anymore. ?????

[karen2cruz]

Texas regulations dont allow the sale or distribution of alcohol until after the ship reaches Intl waters. My understanding from our trip in October is that the bottle(s) would be delivered to your stateroom at that time, and not before.

[houstoncruisers2001]

Texas regulations dont allow the sale or distribution of alcohol until after the ship reaches Intl waters. My understanding from our trip in October is that the bottle(s) would be delivered to your stateroom at that time, and not before.

 

Interesting, BUT both times on the Grand my gift to myself was brought to my cabin before we left Galveston.

[karen2cruz]

Houstoncruisers2001,

 

My experience was on NCL, not Princess. Maybe they aren't as stringent on enforcing;)

[sbwlw]

We are going to be on the Grand for the March 4th cruise. Your post are great and thank you for the time you are taking out of your vac. I do have one question if you don't mind. We are trying to plan some things in Playa. The tour place wants to know where we will be tendered off the ship. Since the Grand is not a regular they don't know. I also called Princess and to my suprise;) they didn't know either. Could you ask or post it when you get back from Playa. Thanks again for the great post and your help.

[San10s]

Well I finally found some time to get to the Internet Cafe. :)

 

I had taken you through our dinner on Sunday night....so I will start there. After dinner, we decided to try our luck in the Casino. There are about 11 penny slot machines and over 30 nickel slot machines. There are plenty of quarter, $ .50 and dollar machines as well. I don't usually play those so I didn't pay attention to the quantities! :rolleyes: Many machines are 'multi-denominational' as well. My DH went off to play in a Texas Hold Em tournament. I went for my penny machines. I found after about an hour that I was losing most of my $20.00 that I played so I left the penny area pretty disappointed! LOL I don't know why but I stopped at this quarter machine with some sort of lion head bonus and put my last of my two $20.00 bill into this machine. I hit the 3 coin 'max' button for the 4th time and I got a bonus! Something on top of the machine started going around through all these numbers and it stopped on 1000 coins....the biggest one possible!!!! So I won $250.00! :D Believe me, I am rarely lucky and this was just pure luck. They paid me with a voucher and I continue to carry it with me to keep the luck going. After I received it, I left the Casino for the night and stopped in to the Explorer's Lounge to listen to the music for a while. DH was still playing poker! I then called it a night and went back to get things ready for our first port.....Costa Maya.

 

I will start another installment for Day Three - Costa Maya shortly. I thought I would answer some questions now.

 

Tresa - Three couples we are with faxed in the back page from their Cruise Answer booklet with orders for liter bottles of alcohol....about 2 - 3 weeks ago. The alchol was delivered to their cabin about 3 hours after we sailed from Galveston. Another couple has since ordered a liter bottle of Baily's and it was delivered within minutes. So both ways of getting a liter bottle will work here on the Grand anyways! Speaking of Texas Laws and alcohol.....until we were out of port for over 2 hours, the bars are limited on what drinks can be served. Beer and wine were no problem but fancy frozen drinks were not available. Again, about 3 hours later, everything was available at the bars.

 

Purplefan - There are a lot of kids by both the Neptune pool and the Calypso pools. The water was pretty cool until today so what kids were swimming was limited and many were in the hot tubs earlier in the days. I have no first hand knowledge of the kids programs but some Cruise Critic folks (146) are sailing this week so maybe they will have better info. I did see one boy about 7 years old weraing a really cute T-shirt that had obviously been colored by him. His grandfather was telling him what a great job he had done. I think it had a ship on it and some sea creatures maybe.

 

Well, that concludes the first sea day so now I need to work on our day in Costa Maya. I am so tired after today in Belize that I am having trouble typing so I think I will head for some rest and try to do the Costa Maya version later tonight.

 

Have a wonderful evening CC buddies! :D

[jdk944]

We are going to be on the Grand for the March 4th cruise. Your post are great and thank you for the time you are taking out of your vac. I do have one question if you don't mind. We are trying to plan some things in Playa. The tour place wants to know where we will be tendered off the ship. Since the Grand is not a regular they don't know. I also called Princess and to my suprise;) they didn't know either. Could you ask or post it when you get back from Playa. Thanks again for the great post and your help.

 

We were on the Grand the week of 1/28 - 2/4. We tendered in Playa at the North Pier which is called Ultramier Pier I believe. There are only 2 piers and they are approximately a maximum of 1 mile apart. The ship docks relatively close to shore between the 2 piers. It took us less than 5 minutes to tender from the ship to the pier.

 

Have fun!!

[GreenValleyDogWalker]

Hi -

Great reviews - we are thinking of booking the Grand next January - seems to me I read somewhere that the aft balcony rooms are not as "private" as they should be (we are hooked on aft balcony rooms - just love the ones on the Dawn)

heard (or read somewhere (?) that you "can see right down onto the balcony on the deck below you" Anyway you can check that out ?

THANKS !!

(Have a great trip !)

[simplyme39]

We were on the Grand last week and had no issues ordering a liter of Remmy Martin VSOP for room service delivery. The cost was $38 and was delivered within minutes. We also brought a couple of bottles of wine but forgot a wine bottle opener. Our room steward offered us one of his. The room service attendant was also willing to uncork the wine at the time he delivered the cognac. Later in the week I found that the shops carry wine openers for $6.

 

We traveled with another couple who brought a bottle of Martel with them. Princess did not confiscate or comment on the bottle at all.

 

As far as the kids club, I was a bit disappointed. I had heard all these wonderful things about the program prior to traveling. My daughter who is 7 accompanied us on the cruise since she had a number of days off school last week. She was placed in the 3-7 year olds program. The age breakdowns are 3-7 and 8-12. Even though there were a couple of other 7 year olds on the ship, the activities for this age group were geared more for the younger kids. They did activities such as coloring, watching movies, and puzzles. Very few "games" or interactive things. The kids ended up playing by the pool and coming to shows with us at night as a preferred alternative. She also met more of the older girls (8 & 9 yrs old) by the pool. She enjoyed playing and chatting with them way more than the "kids zone". Her friends at home tend to be a little older than her as well. She claims that the best part of the cruise for her was all the shows. She was very excited to meet Neil at the CC party as the "guy" ultimately responsible for all the great entertainment on the ship.

 

One day when we walked past the older kids activities room, it seemed much more lively and the kids there seemed much more engaged in what was going on. I think next year she'll prefer the kids zone more since she'll go to the next age group.

 

Anyway, that's my 2 cents...

[Tresa]

Thanks for clearing that up for me. And I love the live thread as well as the review from simplyme. My daughters will be traveling with us ages 17 and 12 and a friend that is 18. I'm sure my youngest will want to hang out with the older girls, we'll see how that shakes out.

 

*sigh* it's sleeting here right now. We haven't had any snow all winter to speak of until this past weekend. I'm thrilled because it makes going on a nice warm cruise all the sweeter. I feel like a little kid .... mooooommmyyyyyyy is it time to go yet????:confused:

[San10s]

Why...you ask...is she sitting in the Internet Cafe typing??? Well I am here since I have given back some of my winnings to the Casino so I needed to find something better to do with my time!!

 

So more of the day by day stuff from the Grand....:D

 

Day #3 - Costa Maya

 

As I reported in another installment, on top of leaving from Galveston over 2 hours late, we lost time during the night on Sunday into Monday due to strong currents and head winds. The hour we had made up was lost again. So in the morning while still heading to our port, I enjoyed breakfast in the Da Vincci dining room (I had two pancakes and a half grapefruit with coffee). I spent some time here at the computer and also did my 'open booking' for our next Princess cruise. I then enjoyed some reading time on my balcony while watching the coast get ever closer. We finally arrived off the coast of Costa Maya just afternoon and finally were berthed at 12:35 PM! The skies were almopst clear with only a few high thin clouds around. The temp was a on the inner side of the pier. On the outter side was Carnival's Liberty. Since we backed in, that meant my Port side cabin was facing the shore. We were cleared for going ashore at approximately 12:50 PM.

 

We had booked our Chacchoben Ruins tour with David and Ivan / Native Choice. Since we had to get to Majahual to meet up with them and we were already so late, we were standing in the Plaza atrium ready to go when cleared. The gangway, Plaza Atrium and stairways were packed with people. If you don't have to get off right away, then waiting another half hour would have been much easier. Once off the ship we took the long trek off of the pier and into the small terminal and shopping area. We exited the terminal and found the buses to Majahual. There was a booth selling tickets ($3.00) so we bought ours and got on the bus. It was a 10 minute ride down to the 'fishing village'. David and some of his staff were waiting for us in front of the Cats Meow restaurant as promised. I would have loved to look around the area but we were very late so we were back on a bus and off to Chacchoben. The bus was filled! Their tour continues to be very popular and most of the folks were there because of the info shared on Cruise Critic.

 

The bus ride to the site of the ruins was just about an hour. There was not a lot to see on the way as the area is not very developed. David spoke during most of our trip telling us all sorts of great info on the Mayans and the Costa Maya area. Once at the site, Ivan met up with us there. Both David and Ivan are terrific tour guides and they speak with pride and concern about their land, culture and community. I won't go into detail here except to say that I had always wanted to tour a ruins site but thought I might be bored and wishing I had been at a beach. The ruins and our time spent with these two gentlemen was more than I expected and another highlight of our cruisings. I will write more about their tour on the Costa Maya posts when I get back home. Our weather was perfect to tour the ruins site. No rain has been seen so far!

 

I had been so looking forward to having lunch in the village with a host family but due to our very late arrival, it would not happen. After the tour concluded, we were brought right back to the terminal. We headed right out onto the pier and back to the ship as it was now 6:05 PM and we were to be on board by 6:30 PM. :eek:

 

We barely had time to get our selves showered and presentable before we had to be at the Sterling Steakhouse for our 7 PM reservations. There were 12 of us dining together so things took a little longer but we had a very enjoyable meal. After five Princess cruises I decided it was time to try one of the specialty restaurants! :) It was definitely worth the $15.00. I had the biggest shrimp in a shrimp coctail that I have ever seen. They hung off the side of the margarita glass and practically touched the plate. They had to be 7 or 8 inches long! I had a New York strip steak that was cooked very nicely and enjoyed it all along with a raspberry creme brulee for dessert. I am so glad I decided not to have a salad as I was stuffed with what I had ordered.

 

The deck party was going on and I walked through there to watch some of the fun. I did not get anything at the big buffet they set up but it looked great. The music and party atmosphere was festive and fun. I finally decided since I needed to be up early (5:15 AM) the next morning (today) for our tour in Belize that I had better get to bed so I called it a night at a little before midnight. We had thought about going to the Disco but that will havw to wait until tomorrow night!

 

Well that brings Day 2 to a close and I will now call it a night. I will try to find time tomorrow for the next installment about our Day 3 in Belize that we enjoyed today.:D

 

Meanwhile....have a great night everyone. :D

[crazy4themouse]

Judy, you make me more and more excited about being there -- like I wasn't excited enough already. :D I can't wait for our tour with David and Ivan, that's for sure.

 

So glad you're having a good time! May each day be better than the next!! :)

 

-gina-