The Captain just announced we will have an itinerary change because of Hurricane Isaac. We will skip St. Kitts, St. Lucia, Antigua, and St. Maarten. We will instead be visiting San Juan, Amber Cove, Grand Turk, and Nassau.
To those in the path of Hurricane Isaac, Florence, and Helene we are sending positive thoughts your way.
Monday, September 10, 2018
Caribbean Princess Sea Day, Sept 10
Happy Monday! Here's my view today.
Well, that is after I had this view:
Medallion™ Update:
That's the onboard medical center. After a decent-feeling evening, hubby had a pretty miserable night. So off we went to the medical center first thing this morning. No broken ribs, just a problem with the muscles between the ribs. I didn't even know that was a thing. The doctor said it's not like rest will help because you have to breathe (which means those muscles aren't getting any rest), so it will take time to heal. Then throw in his back problem? We came away with plenty of pain medications. And charges to our onboard account. I know the doctor visit was $95 but I didn't even look at the med prices. I just don't want to know. And here we were trying so hard to walk off the ship with a zero balance due. Plus my $100 loyalty onboard credit for this cruise is still not showing. They sent an email to the finance department yesterday but it's still a no-show. We have travel insurance so the doctor visit will be reimbursed, and I think they'll get the onboard credit straightened out, but dang.
We got hubby some coffee, some breakfast, and one of the sweet gals from International Cafe also brought him a little snack from somewhere else. They like him and he likes them. I'll be doing a blog post in the coming days about the International Cafe on this ship. The vibe here is pretty darn great.
Not great? The service at the buffet still, well, just plain sucks. We've spoken to the supervisor multiple times and it seemed to get better for about two days. Then it went back to the super-slow service with non-engaging crew working the seating area. I feel like we've already used up our one going-over-your-head complaint for the trip when we had the issue with the gals smoking on the balcony next to us that wasn't addressed. The smoking one was safety related but the buffet one is service related.
I really don't want to be seen as a complainer. (Although I guess I'm doing that right now.) Here's the thing - if this was your second or third cruise you might not think much about it. But we've been here going on four cruises now and and we see it's a consistent problem. We cruise a variety of Princess ships and we know what the standard of service is on other ships. Some of the hardest working crew members we know (and still keep in touch with) are buffet stewards. But we see that on the Caribbean Princess the majority of crew working the buffet seating area are not meeting those typical Princess standards. It has been the biggest disappointment on the ship.
Otherwise on this ship we've had nothing but great service. Even our cabin steward from the last three weeks is making a visit to our new cabin. A couple weeks ago some passengers were upset with him because their luggage was missing. We were staying on and so our luggage wasn't going anywhere, but hubby joked with him about our luggage being missing, too. The steward joked back and told us he put our luggage in our mailbox.
Now in our new cabin, with our new room steward, on a different deck, we have mail from our old room steward. Our orange luggage - in our mailbox. Funny guy.
Random photo of the day - we've been on the ship for 23 days so far and I finally got to ride in the Shark Week elevator.
To make the progression of the roll-out more clear I've grouped the posts by week. You can find today's post here.
Want to see the progression of the roll-out? I started on Caribbean Princess back on August 18. Check out how we got here:
Encouraging Words Money Pocket Drop Off:
I left it in the medical center this morning.
I left it in the medical center this morning.
Tonight is formal night and they'll be no dressing up for us again. Tomorrow we're off to St. Thomas.
As usual, if you have any questions or comments, please click on the envelope icon at the top right of this screen.
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