Heading Home...

Our island adventures were done, and now it was all sea time to head home.  We had a little over a week's time to be back in Los Angeles.  

For me, that week started off with a celebration (or two)!  It was my 78th Birthday and my husband (and it seemed the crew) made sure it was going to be "extra special".  To begin with, Princess Cruise Lines has a very large (TV) screen at almost every elevator hub.  It shows you where the ship is at, at any given moment (latitude and longitude) and where it's heading - but, whenever I was near it (wearing my medallion, which we wear for identification) the screen would change and show birthday balloons, a cake with candles and a banner saying "Happy Birthday Marie B"!  It was such a hoot!  

 

On the night of my birthday which coincided (with "formal night" so we got to dress up too), Jack made reservations at one of the special restaurants on board, The Steakhouse.  Wow, what an experience!  We've been to wonderful restaurants in our travels, but I must say this was above and beyond anything we've ever experienced.  Of course they ended the evening with the staff coming over with a most decadent dessert (chocolate, of course) and sang to me.  I'm sorry I didn't take any pictures...

The funny thing was, and so very special, was that the following night, when we returned to our regular table, our wait staff immediately said "you weren't here last night for your birthday!"  I shared with them where we were, and Kwanravee said "well, we are just going to pretend that tonight is your birthday anyway!" So they did!  After they served me my cake and sang, I told them "well, if it makes you feel any better, you all sing better than the other restaurant staff!"  I told them although I love the dessert, I was just to full to eat it...she said "no problem, we will just have it delivered to your room for later".  When we returned to our room, it was there, along with a Happy Birthday banner across the wall that our room steward Danio had pinned up. They all made me feel so special.  

The Cruise Director and his assistance made sure there were plenty of things going on and entertainment for us to watch for those eight days and nights.  Of course they had a different show each night for us, everything from singers to acrobatics to instrumentalist, to piano to dancers.  Towards the end, they brought in the Culinary Team and showed us who they were and what they all do!  They read off some of the "amounts" of food items we consumed while on board - oh my!  

 

Another fun thing was two "recitals".  All during our cruise there were two classes passengers could take, hula and ukulele.  They met several times a week to practice with our Island Hosts.  We had seen a number of passengers walking around with their ukulele, some with their own that they brought with then, some belonging to the host's.  We spoke to one of the passengers once and asked her about the class and she shared that she had started taking a class on a previous cruise and got hooked and then bought her own ukulele and kept up the lessons.  She said it's harder than one thinks, but she enjoys it and always takes it with her now on cruises.  A few days before the end of the cruise, they gave us a recital!  I was surprised at how large the classes were. They sure looked like they were having fun, and we all enjoyed watching them too! 

Before we knew it, it was time to start packing up and getting ourselves ready to disembark!  32 days seemed like a long time, buy honestly, it flew by!  It was great being "unplugged" from emails, phone calls, texts, etc. and just relaxing.  However I have to confess, the  "no cooking (or planning), cleaning, gardening", was really the BEST part!  I am still missing Martin, Servio, Kwanravee and Danio! They truly spoiled us...

...and in no time, it's back to Arizona and our wonderful life here!

Marie