Caribbean Princess - Part II

Every cruise I've been on has had its ups and downs. I had high expectations for the Princess lines, because it has a reputation for being more upscale and usually attracts an older crowd (which was proven on this one). Of course, the time of the year you go matters too, but other cruiselines have had mixed passengers even at random times. The plus about this one was definitely the food, decor, and the open seating full-service dinner with the option to dine with your own party. (Due to it's bigger size, this cruise is one of the few that can accomodate open seating - usually it's either 6pm or 8pm and you're assigned with other people.) But I must say that's about the only thing. First off, the service wasn't as up to par as previous cruiselines I've been on. It wasn't as friendly and prompt as I would have liked. Another thing, the activities weren't as "fun" because the people who participated weren't as open-minded I suppose. Karaoke night (which I love) only occurred twice and when they did happen, no one wanted to go up! And I was not about to be a mic hog, so I sang only once. The other ships I've been on had karaoke every night just about, along with better group activities, gourmet food shows, and nightly evening stage shows. The mediocre stage shows on the Princess included bands singing (Beatles, Elvis, not much variety), a so-so song/dance show, and a couple of comedians/magicians. Most likely the older crowds are the influence of this ship's entertainment because the other ships included Las Vegas type dance/song, funnier comedians, better magicians, and a bigger variety of music in the shows and clubs. Also, the gourmet food/buffet shows on previous ships were definitely better and occurred more often! They had entire dining rooms full (and these dining rooms are two stories and jumbo banquet hall size) of chocolate statue shows and a seperate food/ice sculpture show. This Princess one...had none! Er? When they had one they called "show", it had, I kid you not, FIVE food statues - that were small! And no food to pick from along the tables! Except maybe fruit and veggies. So needless to say, the other ships had the good shtuff to buffet on, i.e. caviar (love it!), lots and lots of chocolate, a variety of everything, more exotic fruits, etc.

Princess didn't have classes during the days at sea like towel/napkin animal folding (fine, call me a nerd). The previous cruises had the room attendants make a different towel animal to be waiting in our cabins every night - they were too cute! We only got chocolates and a made up bed on this one...blah! It's the little things that matter, I tell ya! But like other cruiese, there were work out classes, boat tours, bingo, pool activities and parties, art auctions, and lotsa food availiable of course. The only thing we participated in was "lotsa food"..hehe. You simply can't go wrong with food at hand day in and day out. *burp* The rest of the days at sea were spent lounging around - the best way to enjoy vacation in my book! And for nighttime (and partly daytime), all cruises boast a decent casino and numerous bars and clubs. We were down quite a bit in the casino the first few days, but we were feeling lucky the last couple of nights and managed to break even and a little somethin' somethin'.

Bottom line: Caribbean Princess disappointed. This is a huge reason I didn't take that many photos. There wasn't anything I found as impressive as prior cruises. Maybe I had too high expectations, since this boat is the largest in their fleet as well as one of the largest in the world. Maybe I missed my lil P too much to care. Maybe I'm not good enough for "upscale" Princess taste. Whatever the reason - I don't recommend it! Go Carnival or Royal Carribean.

Anyway, enough critiqueing.


^^First night.


^^Formal night.


^^Which just so happened to be B's burfday! There were SO many bdays throughout the trip (and the same day).


^^A couple of the awesome waiters, who were the ones that sang to B.


^^Karaoke after dindin. This was the one time I sang - not being a mic-hog, thank you very much.


^^Then off to the entertainment of the night. This was a song/dance number and shown was the grand closing. The costumes and dancing kept you watching.


^^A few of the nights we spent in the Skywalkers Lounge mentioned in the previous post. We mostly just chilled and people watched, especially watching the youngens who tried to get some drink on by talking up old dudes. Now that's some entertainment if you've ever seen any.


^^Another part of the lounge.


^^Us with Steve Morris, one of the stand-up comics we saw. He worked for the Beach Boys awhile back in the day and he was on Showtime, HBO, and Jay Leno at the start of his comedic career. He was alright as a comedian, but definitely had some good ones.


^^"Your fly is open." I'm drinking...milk? Ha, jk, it's a peenya cawlawdah of course! More fun in the semi-sun. It got cloudy some days, but thank goodness the weather was otherwise superb the entire time!


^^Posin'.


^^He forgot the Ipod today.


^^The grandpa standing in the background made me less self-conscious.


^^The atrium, or center of the ship. Everytime I walked by, there were set-ups for portraits here, so I couldn't get a shot of the atrium alone. Boo.


^^Deck party. Some crazy old folks got downnnn!


^^One of the cuter food sculptures.


^^Here's another, but not many more were much more impressive.


^^For $75/person, you can have the head chef cook/entertain you. Of course, our poor butts didn't do it but we did stand along side the rich folk (or maybe splurging poor folk?) watching for a bit. Here, the chef torched the lamb-kabobs while in suspension. oOooOOo!


^^My pretty boy...awwww. Good thing he doesn't read this.


^^Another post-dinner moment in da lounge.


^^"I need my coffeeeeeeeeeee." We lived on the stuff considering the late nights and early wake-up calls for the ports-of-calls. Here we are in the buffet, a daily morning (sometimes hourly daily) dining area.


^^Barely awake but ready to explore!

Next up, our ports-of-calls.

Carribean Princess - Part I

I've concluded that after this cruise (my 4th one), I'm going to opt for going straight to a destination and enjoy my time there, via plane. Don't get me wrong, I've had a great experience on every cruise. Of course, it all depends on who you're with too. But either you're into it or you're not. Some say you don't get an actual "vacation" feel and it's not "authentic" or "exotic" enough. Well, shoot, give me clear blue waters, food 24/7, a week or more days of pure relaxation and exploration, and that's a pretty good vacation in my book! Granted the authentic and exotic part does get cut short since you're not at the ports-of-calls as long as you'd like, but you can get a decent enough taste (with touring, excursions, eating, shopping, etc.). Then if you like the place, by all means, going directly there next time is a great option. What I like about cruising is that it's all planned out for you. The thing I don't like about it is that you gotta haul butt back to the boat before it leaves your behind behind. Although it can get a bit boring at sea, there are many things you can do like bake in the sun, work out, take advantage of the many events throughout the day, and sleep and eat a lot. Btw, yes, I actually worked out about 4 times during the week that I lost a few lbs! It definitely was a good feeling since we ate like cows and were litereally rarely ever hungry when another mealtime came along.

Views of the ship:


^^Alllll abooooarddd.


^^Pools, pools, and more pools!


^^Bow.


^^Stern.


^^Sky bridge.


^^Inside the sky bridge that led up to a club.


^^A club properly called Skywalkers Lounge.


^^What us skywalkers had almost every night. (Well, probably just twice for me..seriously! I had to watch the calories since all that food really adds up. So of course, I had cocktails otherwise..hehe.)


^^Sunbathing. Don't mind the flab please.


^^Ipoding.


^^View of the ship blocked by Royal Carribean and Carnival. I liked RC, too, probably even better than Princess lines. But I probably liked Carnival lines best. The Princess food is yummmmzz though!!


^^Our view every evening.

Never-ending Landscaping Catastrophe

If you've ever been to our home (actually, B's home), you'll know that B doesn't exactly have the manual labor skills of the landscaping gurus of Westpark. (Fyi, if you don't live in Houston, Westpark and various hardware stores are where the landscaping/manual labor "folks" like to hang out looking for some dough in case some patrons would like to get some yardwork done.) Mind you, we got the knowledge - but the patience and motivation to get and stay in the yard? None whatsoever.

So, I've made it a personal goal to get this ish done. And this past weekend was the first time I put some great effort out to have a vast majority of the planning done and much of the little things cleaned up.

My yard and gardening goals:

~ Cut, root, and rid of as many weeds as possible; apply weed killer spray all over.
~ Clean up branches and leaves of the oleanders in front yard and walkway. Maybe even rid of the front yard ones? Sure they might look nice in the spring but they are like yard polluters, getting leaves and flowers everywhere! Might replace them with something else like bushes? Will think this over.
~ Prune and cut down some front yard trees. I had no idea there was a method of pruning. Rather overwhelming when reading up on it, but simple when doing it - just go cut crazy!
~ Add hardscape (i.e. stones/concrete).
~ Rake up leaves and clean up garden areas. Put on new fertilizer.
~ Plant some easy-to-maintain flowers and bushes to add some color.
~ Perhaps add new patches of grass? Believe me - we need it. Some areas are so well covered from sun light (by the mile-high oleanders) that grass has stopped growing there. And bushes that don't get sunlight actually are growing away from the oleanders pointing towards our driveway where nothing covers it. I noticed this when I was trimming the bushes. o_O
~ Hire those Westpark peepz (and maybe my dad) to do the majority of this! My dad is so into gardening and is literally outside 24/7 that he has been approached by random people who walk by his house if he can work on their yard because they think he's some sort of landscaping company. They have said they see him outside every weekend so they mistake him for a manual laborer. Ha, the one-man landscaping crew. But seriously people, can ya get a hint that the man lives there if he's working on this one yard (his own) all the time? Aiya. Oh yeah, and he's the one who so greatly enlightened and influenced me to get into this mode. He kicked start most of the cleaning up (to where we can actually get to our front door!) and even got his people who are working on his lakehouse project to come pick up all the yard waste for us.

I mostly got this sudden motivation because I've been jogging outside a lot more lately. I observed that all the other homes had a clean, decent-looking yard, except, yep you guessed it, ours! Now, why do we have to be the blacksheep? I don't want us looking like lazy slobs. Too late maybe? Eh, better late than never.

Also if we have more kiddos, they need more house room and yard space, which means a big move! So I figured if we plan on moving (hopefully by end of this year or next year), I'd want this yard to look decent for selling or at least renting. There's nothing quite like having a fresh start, especially when you have new people to share it with.

This past weekend, I spent about 3 hours each day working on the yard - weeding, cutting, pruning, trimming, raking, and cleaning up. It sounds like a lot, but when you look at the yard, it looks like I didn't do anything. Well, it does look somewhat cleaner? Sigh. Needless to say, I'm sore all over. Talk about a major workout. No wonder my dad is so fit for his age! And not to mention (some) of those landscaping workers.

I know this whole landscaping/gardening thing isn't exactly entertainment weekly, but hey, I just wanted to stress what a great workout it is and how satisfying it is when you see such a huge project accomplished. Plus, it's very stress relieving!

OK, wish me luck!

I will post pics of progress later.

Mail to: Future

She tried to control her shaking hand as she attempted to write.

The nurse came in and noticed her struggling with the pen.

"Good morning, wutcha got there?" said the nurse.

Startled, she looked up at the nurse. "Oh, I'm trying to write out this damn card. And my hand ain't helpin' any."

"'I can help you there! Is it a birthday card or something?"

"Yes, this one is," she replied, focused on keeping her hand steady while she wrote.

"Here, would you like me to write it for you? You can just do the talking." She walked over next to her.

"Oh, would you mind? That would be great."

"No, not at all!" The nurse took the pen from her hand and looked down at the card. Then she looked over, and noticed on her bed a box of assorted cards and stationary. "So you're writing to a lot of people, huh?"

"No, these are just for one person, my son. He's two. I don't think I'll be here for his third birthday or so." She smiled.

"Oh - that is so...sweet," she said, for lack of a better word.

"I'm sorry, dear. I don't want you to feel uncomfortable." The woman proceeded to take the pen back.

"Oh, no no no. I'll be more than happy to help you. Trust me," she said, as she smiled whole-heartedly.

"Thank you. Thank you so much."

Imagine writing to your son - to be read in the future. I wonder what was going through her mind. It seems she long accepted her fate. Hearing a story like this pulls at my heartsrings, especially having a child of my own now. My sympathy and empathy to anyone and everyone going through this or knows someone going through this.

Don't take a moment for granted - especially with your loved ones.

"Certain plates are not what you ordered, but sometimes the menu doesn't have anything else to choose from, so you just gotta stick with it. Just be grateful for people around to support you."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Long overdue pics.

Christmas 2007.

Hanging out with Uncle D and company!