Turn Around Day

As I wake to the thrusters pulling the ship towards the dock I open one eye and glace at the time – 645.  You can never sleep in on turn around day.

After enjoying some breakfast in the cabin (a perk some friends arranged for us because we are staying on) we shower and pull out the cases.  Packing is always easy if you are just moving cabins on the ship.  All clothes on the hangars stay there and the contents of the mini bar get packed into the Princess tote.

The flowers I received a week ago for my birthday still look amazing so we will be moving them to the new cabin.  I am impressed how long they have lasted.

We also throw in a load of wash in the washer on deck 8 (the closest laundromat to our new cabin).  We always like to do at least one load of wash on turn around day so everything gets a good cleaning and we start fresh.  Tokens are dispersed from a machine that you tap your card to the medallion icon.  Each token is $3 and it takes one token for each machine.  We brought our own laundry pods, otherwise you can buy soap with a token in the laundry room.

We let our cabin steward know that our room can be cleaned and we are ready for our stuff to be moved. 

Oh I forgot to relay that last night when we got back to the cabin we had a knock at the door.  It was someone from housekeeping and I knew immediately it was Antonio’s friend.

Antonio is a retired executive housekeeper that we met many years ago and have been very close friends with.  Last year we travelled to Portugal to stay with him and his wife for five nights.  He is very special to us and we miss him.  He had messaged me that he knew a few housekeeping supervisors on board and we should look out for them.

Tonight Menino came to introduce himself.  It was so nice to meet him and he promised to take care of us at turnaround with moving our stuff.  Normally we just move our own things but they are insisting they move them for us.

Right now we are siting in Vines enjoying a coffee and waiting for our meeting time for all in transits.  We have been told to be at the Coral Dining room for 10:10 and to make sure we have our in transit cards, our old and new cruise cards and also our passports.

I am anticipating a long in transit process as there are many, so if it goes fast we will be happy.

I just reviewed our bill and everything looks fine.  I added up all the beverages we had including wine, cocktails, coffees, and waters and the total price came to $420.  If we would of gotten the drink package it would of cost us $476 each – a total of $952.  Sure we would of probably drank more with the package but I doubt we would of drank double.  So for us the drink package is not worth it.  

Sometimes they throw it in when you book (note there is a cost even if it is thrown in but cheaper than if you buy on board) but we did not have that perk. Remember too if they do have that promo of free sip and sail you can opt out of it and get an on board credit in lieu.

We meet at our designated time of 1010 and within 15 minutes we are directed off the ship.  We go to the lower level of the port building and I am able to get my computer out and do some work.  But within a few minutes they announce we can go thru passport control.  We show our passports to the agent.  They glace at it and look at us and confirm we are the actual person in the photo.  Then we go up the escalator and right on the ship.  Again we have to bing into the only handheld system and then again into the Ocean Medallion system. 

In all it took us less than an hour from when we arrived at our designated area to when we were back on board.  One of the fastest in transit experiences we have ever had.  Very impressed!

Once on board we see that when we log onto Princess’ site it is a bit different. We have to re register with Ocean Medallion wifi and we are then on a new page that says because of our loyalty level we are entitled to unlimited wifi for this voyage.  But when we go to apply it is says error.  We go to the internet café to get it dealt with and it seams there is an issue with those of us who were in transit. 

A few hours later we are a okay.  Still have some issues logging in but once on it is very fast.  Note you can only log on to one device at a time.

For sail away we head up to the Sun deck and enjoy a beautiful sail away.  Carnival Conquest goes ahead of us then Harmony of the Seas.

love all the art in the cabins

huge tvs

We are hungry so we decide to have an early dinner and head to the Buffet.  Love that salad Bar!  For dessert we indulge in our first milk shakes.  $2.50 each and very good.

We are in a new cabin this leg, E508 and is an obstructed ocean view cabin but the view is quite good right over the life boat.  The air conditioning is working but it is still a little warm for us so we take off the grate that covers the vent and it helps a lot. 

There are definitely a lot fewer kids on board but there are still a lot!  The pools are full of little people!  Again I think we will venture to the adults only pool this sailing. 

Not sure how much blogging I will do this trip.  I don’t want it to take away from time on my vacation so bear with me if I am not posting regularly but only when there is something to report.