Stop the Insanity

The craziness in this country is just too much for this person to bear. While I can't stop all this insanity I can stop my exposure to it. Time for me to keep away from the Internet and the television. Blog included. Hope I can be back when the negative nastiness is gone. I'd rather spend time with the foster kitties anyway.

 

Stay or Go?

I love traveling. I love seeing new places, doing new things, and pushing myself beyond my limits. I love airports, people watching, hotel breakfast buffets, watching movies on a big screen by the cruise ship pool, snorkeling, and rum punch made by island locals. If I had my way I would be doing one of those things every single day of the year. But after a few weeks I begin to miss my daughter. And my sewing machine. (Now if I could have my daughter, a kitty, and a sewing machine with me on a long trip life would be just about perfect.)

Then when I get home I want to stay home. I don't want to leave. I don't want to travel. I don't want another pat down at the airport (thanks a lot, knee replacements) and I don't want to be around another person on a tour. I don't want to get sticky from the salt water and I don't want to walk in the heat and humidity or the cold rain. I don't want to do anything but stay in my pajamas all day. (I'll keep the pool time and rum punch.)

How I feel about wanting to travel but then not wanting to travel is somewhat like the picture I took of the foster kitties. One is excited to get moving and the other decided to just hang in the recliner and take a nap.

What to do? Stay home for now.

Now if I could just get some really good rum punch.

Just a Few of the Fosters

Pub Lunch

On some sea days when traveling on a Princess cruise you have to option to eat a "Pub Lunch" in the Wheelhouse Bar or the Crown Grill (depending on the ship). It's always busy with a line usually extending out of the venue. The menu items listed are free, but drinks (other than water) are extra.

We usually have the fish and chips with mushed peas. It is all so delicious! Yep, even the peas. Who would have guessed smashed up peas would be as delicious as mashed potatoes? (Although the times we've gone right before closing time are the times the peas haven't been nearly as fresh and tasty.)

Only once have we veered from the fish and chips. Hubby went for the bangers and mash. Delicious, but too much food.

Dessert is usually bread and butter pudding. And we've never ordered it. Always a next time.

A Different Kind of Cruiser

Cruising is our vacation of choice. It's our own floating hotel. We can head out for a week and visit four or five countries without having to unpack but once. A lot of people take cruises for the ports, the entertainment, the food, or the activities on board. The reason we cruise has nothing to do with any of those things.

We cruise for the crew.

You may think working on a cruise ship could be somewhat glamorous. Travel the world, meet new people, have room and board paid. But the reality is a bit different. Crew members work up to 11.5 hours a day. Every single day. While they may get a couple hours off a week to go ashore, most of the time they are either working, changing their uniform for their next shift, eating, or sleeping. There isn't a lot of free time. A bar steward may finish off his long day by helping close down the bar at 2 AM and then have to turn around and be on wheelchair duty in the morning at 6:45 AM.

Over the course of our travels we've seen how very hard they work. We see how grumpy passengers treat them. We see how supervisors with an attitude treat them. We know how much money they make. Which is why we cruise for the crew.

And call ourselves the "have chocolate will travel" cruisers.

We bring chocolates and hand them out to the crew, going through at least one bag of chocolate a day. It took us a while to get a handle on how much to buy ahead of time. We've frequently used it up sooner than expected and have had to do a candy run in port. I was just thinking about it today. We've made candy runs to:

*Walmart in Ketchikan, Alaska, Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, and Ft. Lauderdale, Florida
*Kmart on the Island of Kauai and on St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands
*Target in Hilo, on the Big Island of Hawaii and in Seattle, Washington
*CVS in San Francisco and Rite Aid in San Pedro, California
*A liquor store type in Aruba

Thanks to the chocolates we have crew members who remember us from the different ships. Just recently hubby had a crew member come up to him and say, "Hey, I remember you. You're the candy guy!" (Yep, from two years before!)

Some of the crew members hold a dear place in our hearts. When we are ready to travel, we check with them to see which ships they are working on and then choose those ships for our trips. We hang out with them in the area where they are working, take them out to eat ashore, we go to the beach with them, and sometimes go drinking with them. And bring them gifts from home.

And if we can't travel to see them? We send them care packages.

We love our crew.