Canada & New England: Collage Picture Tour of the Regal Princess

On October 30, 2016October 31, 2016 By ArlynnIn Vacations3 Comments

Princess Cruises’ Regal Princess <~~~link to all of her pertinent facts~~~ is for the moment, their newest ship. The Regal and her sister ship the Royal are Princess’ largest ships and they both have a ton of new and wonderful spaces to experience. As y’all know, we are not new to Princess and have sailed on several other of their awesome ships–the Coral-3 times w/2 more times booked and in the queue (our favorite), the Diamond, & the Star–We enjoyed all of them and they are all unique and wonderful in and of themselves. That said, where oh where do I start to tell you about this big, gorgeous, grand lady known at the Regal, a very appropriate name btw–She impressed us from the moment that we stepped aboard until the moment that we stepped off. Our week went way too fast and I could have easily just stayed on and done that cruise again. Seven days, nope, definitely not enough time for us to try out all of the eating venues, and truly, we really didn’t have a desire to do so because the buffets were so wonderful and extremely varied in their choices. We didn’t go and see one show because by the time the evenings rolled around, we were well settled in our Stateroom trying to choose between all of the movies and other choices that they had to offer on their interactive tv. Also, this particular Canada & New England cruise had a very port heavy itinerary, so, we were off of the ship a good bit of time time. Regardless, I have gathered a plethora of pictures and I will give you a tour of the wonderful Regal Princess.

Let’s get started, I will start on the Plaza Deck 5.

As you can see in this picture, the Gala decks is down one deck from the Plaza and that is where the doctor is located and it is also where we caught our tender boat to go ashore–Only problem was, I was taking video and not clicking off pictures, so I don’t have one picture of that deck…<epic fail>. Anyway, here we go:

Plaza Deck 5:

The Piazza:

Bar Piazza:

Sabatinis:

Passenger Services:

Gelato:

International Cafe:

Vines:

Celebrations:

Internet Cafe:

Symphony Dining Room:

Fiesta Deck 6:

Princess Theater:

Club 6:

Princess Casino:

Churchill’s Cigar Bar (I didn’t go in):

Bellini’s Bar:

Alfredo’s Pizza:

Photo and Video Gallery:

Concerto Dining Room:

Promenade Deck 7:

Limelight:

Calypso Cove:

Art Gallery:

Essence:

Crooners Bar:

Ocean Terrace Seafood Bar:

Meridian Bay:

Facets:

Effy:

Special Sales–75% off sale and rings sale:

Captain’s Circle:

Princess Live Cafe & Princess Live:

Aloha Deck–Deck 12

Mini Suite – A214:

Here is a link to the YouTube Video that I created and narrated; it is quite detailed:

Regal Princess Tour of Mini Suite A214

And a link to my YouTube video where I give you a little TV Tutorial

Laundromat:

Directory & Room Service Options:

Lido Deck 16:

Fountain Pool:

Here is a link to my YouTube video of the Fountain Show

Movies Under the Stars:

SeaView Bar:

My YouTube Link to the Bartender’s Flair Show that I videoed while on board…

SeaWalk:

Calypso Cabana:

Swirls:

Horizon Court, Bistro, Pastry Center, and Condiment Corner:

Crab Shack:

Outrigger Bar:

Sun Deck 17:

The Sanctuary:

Bonus Pictures

LED Screens abound on the Regal…These particular screens told us where we were each day of the cruise–these were at each elevator on every deck–.There were larger screen in other parts of the ship at different venues…

Unfortunately, the outdoor Promenade deck doesn’t go all the way around the ship:

And that about does it. I do believe that in this Series of blog posts, I actually shared just about every picture Chris or I took. It has been fun reliving our cruise and relaying our adventure to you all through my words and videos. We will not be cruising again until next September, but, that is gonna be a good one and hopefully well worth the wait. We are going to be doing back to back Voyage of the Glaciers cruises (Vancouver, BC to Whittier, Alaska and then Whittier to Vancouver). There is just something special about Alaska, it keeps calling us back again and again.

So for now, I’ll just say, until next time, y’all take very, very good care!! ❤

Remember, you can keep up and in touch with me by joining my Facebook travel page–Here is a link: Arlynn’s Travels – Cruise Blogs, Videos, & More…:)

And please like and subscribe to my Arlynn’s Travels YouTube Channel. 🙂

***If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there Your hand will guide me…Psalm 139***

~Arlynn ❤

Canada & New England: Halifax, Nova Scotia–Arrival, Lunch With Dear Friend, & Peggy’s Cove

On October 27, 2016October 29, 2016 By ArlynnIn Country Decor, Vacations3 Comments

When I woke up on this morning, I couldn’t believe that we were already at our last Port of Call in Halifax, Nova Scotia; this cruise had flown by way too fast!! As always, Chris was taking his morning walk, getting his coffee, doing his crossword puzzles, and catching some really great pictures.

Check out this pretty ship, the Seabourn Quest:

To show you how far away this ship really was, here is that picture before it was cropped:

Check out this pretty Lighthouse…

And here is another Lighthouse, only problem is, well, could they have put the cell tower out of the direct line of sight of the Lighthouse? Check it out…

Those cliffs are pretty amazing though huh? Wow!!

My outfit for the day:

Check out this Canadian Navy’s Submarine! The Captain actually came over the public address system to alert us to their presence. 🙂 We all walked out and waved to them. 🙂

Here comes the Pilot to help us navigate through the local waterways…

Here is the Carnival Pride again, she’d been with us at every port:

We’d noticed that several of the Ports that we had come alongside (not tender ports) on this trip had been very industrial in nature. Chris and I are more accustomed to the Alaska ports which cater more specifically to cruise ships where shopping and other cruising/tourist related activities are more easily accessible. Actually, we think that Alaska is the exception because Hawaii’s ports were similar to the ones that we experienced on this trip. One thing that we have noticed though is that because the ports are industrial in nature, the local folks have tried to make a more welcoming facade by providing tents or booths where they sell their wares. In Halifax for instance, the entire cruise terminal was full of booths from one end to the other–In St. John, they had a huge tent set up for their folks. Anyway, just an observation that we made while on this trip…

Here is the Princess Patter and Halifax Port information:

Here we are snugged up against Pier 21…

That bagpiper was awesome!!!

So now that we were securely moored up in Halifax, Chris and I made our way off of the ship–Of course, the elevators, as always, told the tale of where we’d be for the day.

As I mentioned in the video up there ^^, we’d be meeting my dear friend Nancy and her sister Jane today–I met Nancy via Facebook back in 2008, 2 days after I joined Facebook. She had a Newfoundland dog too and we had a ton in common and as we got to know one another better through the years, we figured out that we had much more than our pups in common. 🙂 Our first task after disembarking was to pick up our rental car from the Hertz place. (Chris made those arrangements online before we even left home) … The Hertz building—really it was just a small room inside of another building right off of the street about 2 blocks from the cruise terminal–easily enough found. 🙂

Here was our mode of transportation for the day:

We had printed off directions to where we were to meet Nancy and Jane so off we drove through the streets of Halifax. A pretty little city with very busy streets as there were several cruise ships in port on this day.

We managed to find the restaurant pretty easily and we parked and waited for Nancy and Jane to arrive. 🙂 I had butterflies fluttering around in my belly big time…I was so excited!!! They pulled into the parking lot and then the HUGS began!!! 🙂 It was so nice to finally meet Nancy in person!! ❤

Yes, the tears were flowing through those smiles!!! ❤

We had a lovely time together exchanging gifts, here is one thing that Nancy made for me…How talented is she?! Wow, I was blown away!! And I will cherish that very special gift forever!! ❤

One more picture before we said our goodbyes…I was so sad to leave her side, no doubt about that…:'(

–All right…Moving on to our next destination…Chris and I left there and started driving toward Peggy’s Cove–It was about a 45 minute drive–very pretty, and an easy trip to do on your own–it is really not necessary to take a planned (Princess) excursion, just rent a car and head on out. If you don’t have a cell plan that would provide you with a GPS, make sure your rental car has one or you print off the directions before leaving home.

The leaves were gorgeous on our way…

And before we knew it, we were arriving in the sweet little town of Peggy’s Cove…A very, very quaint little community that has been in existence since 1811—And the Lighthouse, that is still a working structure, was built in 1914—It is run by the Canadian Coastguard.

I am a real fan of music of all sorts, and bagpipes have always really intrigued me–I play a bad clarinet…haha…So blowing into those pipes seems to me like it would not be an easy instrument to master…this fella was doing a fantastic job at entertaining all of those who were there visiting…

And Chris put his wide angle lens to work–My favorite shots, pretty much of the entire trip, were shots like this one–I just think that this is an amazing picture (and we have probably 10 of them that look similar to this)…

And that was our day in Halifax…We really had a fantastic day, I especially enjoyed this day and the day that we spent in St. John in that we weren’t hurried or herded (like I do feel we are sometimes when we’re doing a more structured excursion). We headed back toward the ship and turned in our rental car (the Hertz representative wasn’t in the office, but they did provide a drop ‘box’ in which to deposit the keys when the car is returned). We then headed back onto the Regal, but, first, I stopped to do a bit of shopping at some of the booths that were set up in the cruise terminal. I met Chris back in the room and before long, we headed up to the Horizon Court to grab some dinner…It was Italian night—Some of my very favorite food on the planet thank you very much. 😉

I just love their ice sculptures! This one was dubbed “The leaning tower of ‘pizza'”…hahaha. 😉

Honest to goodness, we did not have a bad meal in the Horizon Court or Bistro all week long, everything was always great! Now that we had exhausted ourselves running around Halifax and then filled our bellies with delicious Italian food, we headed back to our stateroom, and we again, entertained ourselves with some movies from the massive selection available. (I’ll add a little video of said tv in my next post).

My next and then last posts in this Series will touch on our last day on board (including a video of how the Stateroom TV works and what it has to offer), then disembarkation morning and then, I will also include a little video of our welcome home committee…;) (Think large, furry, beings) 😉 My very last post in this Series will concentrate on the Regal Princess. It will include a detailed collage picture tour of all of the venues that I could find to photograph. It is probably going to take me several days to compile that one. But, it will be worth it when I’ve finished…:)

Here is a link to the next post Canada & New England: Last Day On Board, Shopping, TV Tutorial, Disembarkation Morning, and Welcome Home

Until next time, y’all take good care! ❤

***If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there Your hand will guide me…Psalm 139***

~Arlynn ❤

Canada & New England: St. John, New Brunswick (Canada)–Exploring, Shopping, Bday Tartan Cape, & More

On October 25, 2016October 29, 2016 By ArlynnIn Vacations3 Comments

This day was my 55th Birthday—Now that’s a milestone…haha…But, what better place to spend it than in St. John, New Brunswick? 🙂 Chris, of course, was up, out, and about gathering his morning coffee and my morning tea and taking pictures and videos before I even opened one eye. He actually caught the sunrise on this particular morning. 🙂

And he panned across the city from the very top deck of the Regal Princess:

We did not have a planned excursion to embark on today, instead, we were just going to get off of the ship and do some exploring and a bit of shopping. This was my chosen outfit for this nice, low-key day.

Here was the Princess Patter for that day:

Here were a few more pictures that Chris caught as he was traveling around the Regal that morning:

There was the same Royal Caribbean ship that had been shadowing us for the entire route, the Serenade of the Seas…

And then here came the Carnival Pride…

After a leisurely morning, we headed on out to go and see what St. John had to offer up. 🙂 Our little Steward had been busily about, and this Happy Birthday sign had appeared on our door…Sweet!

And Princess left me a Birthday card…:)

So off to the elevators we trekked, and I *totally* missed taking the “Welcome to St. John” picture, instead, I captured this one. Notice that it says that the gangplanks would be moved according to the tide, the tide change was ridiculous as we went through the day. We thought about going to see the “Reversing Rapids”, but, chose instead just to shop and explore…

As we were heading through the Piazza, we looked up and saw that they were preparing for the balloon drop that evening–and nope <big fail>, I did not catch that happening…haha…BUT, the balloons sure looked neat up there…

And through the tunnel we traversed…

Once we were off of the ship and walking through the cruise terminal, one gentleman stopped me and handed me this pin–Little did he know at the time that I’m a total geek and that that pin would have a very special place to be kept…

We were happily on our way to explore St. John, our first stop, a picture opportunity at this sign:

Local merchants has set up a tent right beside the cruise terminal and many local folks had booths set up and were offering all sorts of neat items. One of the first things I saw was this gorgeous Lamb’s Wool cape—And I dared to stop and take a peek at it, and poof that was all that Chris needed to see, he purchased it for me quick as could be as my Birthday present…What can I say, he is very good to this old girl. ❤ Here is a picture of the cape, and I have a snippet from my “Facebook Live” video below the picture showing you more of this gentleman’s wares…

Next up, we started walking down the street and exploring–Chris has mapped out a little route for us to take and as you could see in the video, that nice fella that sold us the cape had pointed us to a very nice place where we could grab some lunch.

This was a mall of sorts, and we had just walked up steps and saw the library there in front of us, and also at the top of the steps was this spiffy ship model…wow!!

This was a marvelous place with more of the local merchants all set up selling their wares, and believe it or not, I got all of the way through there without buying one little thing! I was surprised at myself!

And there was even a little entertainment…Below, another snippet from my “Facebook Live” video…

At the end of that little video, we were headed over to King’s Square…Here are some of the sights we took in while taking our leisurely walk:

And then, I found a tree with the leaves changing. Little story for you: I am one of the Administrators in the Facebook Princess Alaska group, and as we all know, I’m the “Selfie Queen”. 😉 Well some of my dear friends in that group took a Poll of places where “Arlynn should take a selfie in front of”…LOL…Well, “A tree with changing leaves” was one of the Poll requests, and I’m all for having a good time, and I’m always a good sport, so here I am in front of a tree with changing leaves. 😉 🙂

After that little task was completed, we headed back through the City Market and we were on our way to take a quick peek at the New Brunswick Museum and then we caught some lunch at a local restaurant…

On our way to the restaurant we came across this big guy…:)

And now it was time to catch a bit of lunch–The food was excellent here at Grannan’s:

The view from the restaurant’s window…and that big ship is where we were going next…

Wait!!!! I lost Chris…WHERE in the world did he go?!!! He was just here?!!! And me, “Mrs. Directionally Challenged” might have a little trouble finding her way down a one-way street with a sign!! 😉

OH PHEW!!! THERE HE IS!!!

Hahaha…I texted that picture to both of our daughters who got a huge kick out of that. 😉 ANYway, off we trekked back to the ship…

But, wait, as we were picking up my spiffy new Cape:

I also picked up one of those pretty scarves:

And then we climbed back aboard our home for the week and continued on with our nice and relaxing day—It has been a wonderful Birthday, one that I will not soon forget. 🙂

We were steaming toward Halifax, Nova Scotia, our last port of call on this wonderful journey. I’d be meeting up with a dear Facebook friend of mine and we’d be renting a car and heading to Peggy’s Cove…Here is a sneak peek and link to my next post Canada & New England: Halifax, Nova Scotia–Arrival, Lunch With Dear Friend, & Peggy’s Cove:

Until next time, y’all take good care! ❤

***If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there Your hand will guide me…Psalm 139***

~Arlynn ❤

Canada & New England: Bar Harbor, Maine–Lighthouse Boat Tour, Lunch at a Local Restaurant, The Crab Shack, & My Birthday Song

On October 24, 2016November 2, 2016 By ArlynnIn Vacations7 Comments

What an exciting and lovely journey we’d had up to this point! We were already anchored up right off of Bar Harbor by the time I stirred that morning. And oh what a sight it was to see when we opened our curtains and gazed out onto what God’s paintbrush had provided. It was so pretty and we were finally getting the chance to see some color in those trees. The scene was breathtaking!

My first task of the day as always was to try and pull myself together, this is the outfit I chose for this day, it was quite chilly:

And here were my first thoughts of the day:

Here was our excursion ticket, yes, we did sign up for this excursion via Princess as well:

Here are some of the other excursions that Princess offers in Bar Harbor…

We received a port guide and map as well…

And here is the Princess Patter for this day:

We spent a bit of time out on our balcony taking in the sights before we left to go on our excursion…

All right, enough lallygagging around, it was time to go to catch our tender and then our Lighthouse tour boat. 🙂

As always, if we didn’t know already, our spiffy sign at the elevators told the tale. 🙂

Here is a little video of our tender ride…

As always the crew was running those tenders like a well-oiled machine, and those little boats were running back and forth all day long…they never missed a beat…

Now it was time for our Lighthouse Boat Tour—This was one of my favorite things that we did on this cruise…Here are some pictures that we captured–with a video to follow…BTW–We got really lucky on this day to be able to do this tour, just the day before, the tour company was running the tour boat as a tender for another cruise ship, apparently the waves and wind were whipping and help was needed. 🙂

Our boat was also a Whale Watching boat, and its name as you heard me mention in the tender video was the Friendship V. 🙂

Here is a map/informational sheet that we were given on our tour:

And look what else we saw!!! This is a juvenile bald eagle! For those of you who might not know, the bald eagle doesn’t get its signature white head until they are 5 years old…

Here is a video of our time on the Friendship V:

I always love seeing our cruise ship from afar like this…What a beauty the Regal Princess is…I do have a treat for y’all at the end of this Series. I will put together a Regal Princess Collage Picture tour–I took SO many pictures of so many venues, I have no earthly idea how long it will take me to organize them and put them together into on cohesive post…but, I’ll get ‘er done, I promise! 🙂

Wow, what a wonderful tour that was…truly, the little Naturalist was very informative too, I loved listening to her stories and learning all about the history of those lighthouses and Bar Harbor itself. 🙂

Now, it was time to go to a local restaurant for lunch…Chris had been craving a lobster roll…me, eh, not so much…haha…believe it or not, lobster is not my favorite, crab yes, lobster, not so much. 🙂 We could see the restaurant that Chris had found online before we ever left home from the Lighthouse/Whale watching boat:

I know, I ***know***!! I should have stuck my face in that hole and had Chris take a picture…shoot…LOST opportunities you know? 😉

We chose to eat outside on the upper deck…That was one comfy seat right there…No, really it was. 🙂

And our view…

And our little friend! 😉

Here is the menu:

SO many choices!!!

And what we chose…Chris’ Lobster Roll:

And my Crab Roll:

We really enjoyed our meals, we tried not to eat all of those french fries though honestly, we knew we had the Crab Shack that evening, so we just ate the Rolls and cole slaw. 🙂 We were happy campers. 🙂 It was now time to go and catch our tender boat back “home”. This is us up on the upper deck of the tender.

And here is a little video of our trip back to the ship:

We had reservations at The Crab Shack for later that evening, so we kind of just chilled until it was time for our dinner to start…For those who are not familiar with this special meal option, they close down part of the Horizon Court and put spiffy Crab Shack tablecloths on all of the tables, offer you a nice menu from which to choose your delightful meal, and give you fantastic service. 🙂 There is a $29 per person up-charge (and we were told that we could have as much as we wanted). Here are some pictures of our time at The Crab Shack:

Whoops, I forgot to take a picture of the appetizer…goodness gracious it was delicious though…fried shrimp and hushpuppies:

And they gave us this bowl of warm water and a lemon so that we could wash our hands…

And then, this happened!!!

HOW sweet was that?!!! My gracious, and all of those fellas spoke to us every single time they saw us for the rest of the cruise…such a nice crew…truly. 🙂

Here was my sweet treat:

After we finished eating, we went and did a little shopping and looking around in the Piazza…

We stopped and watched and listened to the entertainment in the Piazza–a video for another day–there was *always* something going on in the Piazza. 🙂 We were bushed, so off to our Stateroom we headed, once there, we chose a movie from the plethora of choices offered, put our feet up and were quite content to just sit and relax for the rest of the evening. 🙂 We had had a great day in the beautiful port of Bar Harbor.

On the itinerary for the next day was St. John, New Brunswick…Here is a sneak peek and link to my Canada & New England: St. John, New Brunswick (Canada)–Exploring, Shopping, Bday Tartan Cape, & More:

Until next time, y’all take good care! ❤

***If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there Your hand will guide me…Psalm 139***

~Arlynn ❤

Canada & New England: Newport, Rhode Island

On October 18, 2016October 23, 2016 By ArlynnIn Country Decor13 Comments

Chris and I hadn’t planned any special off-ship excursions for this our first Port of Call, Newport, Rhode Island, we just hadn’t seen anything that interested us too much when we perused around the different options online before our trip. But, it turned out to be a God send that we didn’t have anything special planned as I woke up with a stupid migraine–yep, I’m a migraine sufferer, stupid headaches. Thankfully, I do not get them as frequently now-a-days, and they are not nearly as intense as they were when I was younger…I can thank my ‘friend’ menopause for that. Regardless, I took some Advil (I refuse to take prescription medication for my headaches–Advil works in a cumulative fashion for me, so I will definitely stick with what works) and went out onto the balcony to see what Newport looked like from a distance because we were anchored off shore. 🙂 Well, as it turns out, it wasn’t a very pretty day in Newport on that day, it was a bit windy and rainy and a smidge foggy–NOT that that bothered me that much, I was just so happy to be where I was in that moment in time; nothing, and I mean nothing, not a threatening hurricane, not a migraine, and certainly not a little rain was going to ruin my good spirits and positive attitude. 🙂 This is what I saw when I walked out onto the balcony…

What a cool schooner huh?! 🙂 I just love looking at old ships like that! 🙂 The next thing I did was to check our little mailbox for our Princess Patter, here is what it had to offer up on this day:

Princess also provides you with a map of the Port that also includes a list of shopping venues. This came tucked in with the Patter…

The day before, Chris had picked up some Excursion information just in case we wanted to sign up for something. Yes, there was still room on many of the excursions (we are used to needing to book online when going to Alaska, those Excursions can fill up rather quickly). We normally do take Princess Excursions, that said, we will and did this time venture out on our own as well.

Next up…Breakfast in the Horizon…Yum Yum!! I chose to go to the Omelet making center on this morning…

It is obvious that I did not worry about my diet during this week—Nope, I truly didn’t—And honestly, that is something that is usually rather prominent on my mind on a daily basis, but, I wasn’t going to allow the thought of gaining a few pounds keep me from indulging in some great food on this cruise.

Before we left the Horizon Court, I stopped by one of their self-serve drink centers and clicked off some pictures of what they offer for free all day, every day. They have several of these stations set up throughout the Horizon Court and Bistro. 🙂 This is where Chris came every morning with one of our thermos cups to gather hot water, tea bags, and Splenda for my cup of tea. Bless his heart, he’d always have it back in the Stateroom for me to drink when I woke up every morning.

OH yeah, btw, this was my outfit for the day…And I ended up wearing my red jacket with it, it was quite chilly, windy, and wet in the morning and the weather worsened as the day moved on along. 🙂

We took some more time to walk around the ship and explore, I’ve got so many pictures of the ship and I am planning to share them all with y’all, here are just some…

We headed back to our Stateroom to hang out in there for a bit and here are some of the sights we saw as we looked off of our balcony.

We also had a bit of business to attend to…We needed to fill out our “Disembarkation Questionnaire”–Hated doing that honestly, after-all, we had just embarked on our journey…but, business is business, and Princess runs like a well-oiled machine, they are very organized in just about every aspect. 🙂 For the first time ever, we checked the box to say that we’d be “Walking Off”. 🙂

Next up, well, guess what? It was time to eat again! YaY! LOL This time we chose to go to the Italian restaurant that is located right of off the Piazza called Alfredo’s. Boy oh boy was it ever good!!!! We greatly enjoyed our little pizzas.

Chris got “Pizza Capricciosa”—And he loved it!

I got Pizza Regal Princess, and I ate every last bite, it was delicious!

They prepare the food right there on site (instead of carrying from one of the other kitchens on board).

And of course, as always, the staff was so cordial and nice. 🙂

Next up, a bit more exploring…

We climbed aboard an elevator and headed on up to 16 to take a look outside from there…

It was just a tad windy…lol…

Then we headed to the very aft of the ship so that we could take some pictures, we passed the Outrigger Bar on our way…Check out the cute fella behind the bar…LOL. 😉

We took these few pictures while we were fighting the windstorm, it truly was like a wind tunnel back there.

This was Fort Adam’s State Park–It has been in existence since July 4, 1799. It was named after President John Adams.

We headed back to our Stateroom and had a little bit more business to attend to, we had this Custom’s form and letter waiting for us in our mailbox. We needed to fill it out and hand it to our Steward (or leave it on the desk for him to retrieve), by that evening.

We then walked out onto our balcony and we noticed that there were several of the Tender boats bobbing around near the ship–it appeared that they were having some trouble navigating back to the ship. It was quite the show and Princess as always was being extremely careful and they were ever mindful of the people on those Tenders.

The weather was definitely deteriorating as the hours were passing by, here are some of the other sights we saw while watching those Tenders and other boats maneuver through some waters that were getting quite kicked up…

And here is a little video that I took spanning the afternoon into the evening–It took them hours and hours to safely get all of those Tenders back on board. But, in the end there were no injuries and all was well. Thank goodness…:) 🙂 The Captain came on often and kept us up-t0-date as to the happenings…

And that was our day in Newport, Rhode Island, we spoke to some folks who had been on those Tenders and they said that it was quite the harrowing experience, but, they always felt safe and well cared for. We ended up watching a couple of movies on the tv in our Stateroom and turning in a bit early (a ton of stuff is available on the Regal’s tvs…I’ll put up a little demonstration video that I made in another post–this one is long enough..haha).

As I said in my video up there…”And the saga continues”…Those seas didn’t let up and actually got much worse through the night, but, I will tell you all about that in my next post. Here is a little sneak peek & link: Canada & New England: Boston, Massachusetts

Until next time, y’all take good care! ❤

***If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there Your hand will guide me…Psalm 139***

~Arlynn ❤

Canada & New England: Packing, Traveling, & Embarkation onto the Regal Princess

On October 16, 2016October 29, 2016 By ArlynnIn Vacations8 Comments

Hurricane?!!! “There is a Hurricane Matthew heading New England’s way!”. What?!! My goodness gracious, those are the words that I heard come out of Chris’ mouth a week before we were to leave for our cruise. Let me preface my following words by saying that my thoughts and prayers were with ALL of those that were in Matthew’s path, it was a horribly devastating storm and it left behind it major damage and many injured and dead–It was a terrible storm and I would never want y’all to think that all of those people and places that Matthew ravaged were out of my mind and I was only focused on our cruise as that wasn’t the case. I had many friends who were in the path of that storm and I spent much time in deep thought and prayer for their safety as it ravaged passed them. I will admit though, that when I turned the tv on and saw a map such as this, I started taking deep breaths and also praying that the Princess cruise to Canada and New England that we had been planning for the last 6 months wouldn’t be affected.

I watched with great interest and worry and saw many maps such as the one pictured above as we worked our way through the week prior to our cruise. Finally, on the Wednesday before we were to leave the following Saturday, Matthew decided that he was going to make a turn and go out to sea instead of heading over our home and then onward up the East Coast. This was a relief, not only for our cruise, but, also for our oldest daughter and pups that would have had to weather the storm in our home. I cannot express the sense of relief that flooded my very being. Yes, I’m a bit high strung at times and yes, the stress of worrying about that hurricane on all fronts just about caused me to go into full panic attack mode (literally) <~~~Not even kidding! I turned my attention once again to my planning and eventually to my packing for this lovely trip. 🙂 I was doing this while watching the devastation that that awful storm was reeking as it marched up the coast of Florida, onward into Georgia, and eventually touching South and North Carolina–I must pause here and say that both Chris and my good thoughts and prayers went out to all that were affected, it just broke our hearts. 😦

It did finally come time for us to get ourselves packed up and ready to go, I created a little video for y’all to watch and in it, I show you how I utilize my medium packing folder and my packing cubes. I then explain how I packed everything and that I had to change course from my original packing plan and adjust (NOT easy for me) to my new plan. 🙂 Here is that little video:

As I just mentioned in that video, I do not do well when I have to change course after I had one plan in my head for months and months…but…I managed to do so without having a meltdown…go me! 😉 🙂

Now fast forward to Saturday morning, very early on Saturday morning, like 4am on Saturday morning. EVEN with the excitement of heading out to hop in the car and drive to our cruise port, I am still not much of a morning person, but, hop up out of bed I did and before I knew it, we were in the car and on our way…YES, we got to DRIVE to this cruise port!! YIPPEE…We’d never been able to do that before…what a pleasure it was not to have to worry about airport security, rushing from one gate to the next, and being smooshed like a sardine in a can as we made our way to our destination. We drove out of our driveway at 5:45am on that Saturday morning and when the sun finally did come up it was a lovely day!

Our first stop was at the “Maryland House”, we grabbed a bit of breakfast and took a tiny break before continuing Northward to our eventual destination, the Brooklyn Cruise Port where Princess Cruises big, beautiful Regal Princess would be waiting.

Before I continue on, here is what our Itinerary would be for the coming week (the one pictured below is actually the Itinerary for 2017, but it is the same one for which we were fixin’ to depart):

After our little break, we hopped back in the car and got back on the road heading on out of Maryland and into Delaware…

Being very grateful that we had an E-ZPass…Makes going through toll booths so much easier not to mention quicker…

And eventually we made it into New York…

And over the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge:

That led us into Brooklyn…

And eventually, with a little help from our GPS, to the Brooklyn Cruise Port. NOTE: The route once you leave the interstate and are weaving your way to the cruise port it is quite challenging for a first time visitor (like us). I highly recommend that you have some sort of a navigational tool…i.e. Car Navigation system, GPS, Cell phone nav…***something***. It was a bit of a harrowing experience, BUT, we finally turned a corner and this is what we saw…

And listen to Arlynn the excited goober in this little video…haha:

The road led us straight to the cruise terminal and we dropped our bags off with the Princess representatives before we went to park…yay, we didn’t have to roll our suitcases across the parking lot after-all! I LOVE Princess! 🙂

Then we made our way around to the parking lot and parked our car. Chris found a lovely corner parking space where his car would be nice and safe for the next week. It is a secure parking lot too, just to let y’all know that. 🙂

Then of course “Ms Chatty Cathy” started talking to some folks who were parking their car close to us as she was trying to take a selfie in front of the Regal—To say I was a tiny bit excited at this point would be an understatement. 🙂

Chris finally grabbed a camera and clicked off this picture:

We then gathered our backpacks and walked to the cruise terminal which was no more than 2 blocks or less away…You can see the door that we entered through on the very right side of the picture above ^^^. 🙂

And for the very first time in our cruising history, we were directed to the “Preferred Check-In” line…what?!! My gracious, **that** was nice.

We were handed our “Platinum” room cards (the sticker means that I purchased a “Soda & More” package online before we left home) and a map of the Regal Princess…

We were pointed to the VIP room (what?), lol, and before we knew it, we were being told we could board the ship. The following is a little video that I took as we were boarding the gorgeous Regal Princess!

Stay tuned, the fun is *just* beginning! Next up, I’ll tell you about our Sail Away out of Brooklyn and share with you a tour of our Mini Suite. 🙂

Here is a little preview of what we saw as we were sailing out of New York City:

Until next time, y’all take good care!! ❤

***If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there Your hand will guide me…Psalm 139***

~Arlynn ❤

Here is a link to my next Blog post in this Series:

Canada & New England Cruise: Mini Suite Tour, Muster Drill, Sail Away, Princess Patter & More

**And if you are interested in checking out the wardrobe that I chose to take on this cruise and my pre-cruise packing report, here are a couple more links for you to peruse through:

Canada & New England Cruise Wardrobe Choices

Canada & New England: Pre-Cruise Report

I also have a Facebook travel page, please feel free to join! Here is that link:

Arlynn’s Travel Blogs & More

And one more, I also have a YouTube travel channel, please like and subscribe if you’d like!

Arlynn’s Travels

Canada & New England: Pre-Cruise Report

On September 18, 2016July 30, 2017 By ArlynnIn Country Decor4 Comments

Good day to all of you happy travelers out there! Well, the tick, tick, tick of that clock that I mentioned in my Canada and New England Wardrobe Choices post has really started to move fast now! We are less than 20 days out from our cruise—I’m SO excited I can hardly stand it and I’ve been itching to write a little post to bring y’all up-to-date on what I’ve been working on to prepare for our next amazing journey on the Regal (what???) Princess.

Before I get started, I wanted to share that I’ve met a person online that will actually be on the cruise at the same time as us. Her name is Jill and we met through a cruising forum on Facebook; we are going to be making arrangements to meet at the International Cafe while on board the Regal for a cup of coffee/tea <~~(in my case). I can’t wait to meet this sweet lady as she and I have done a lot of conversing and she sounds like a wonderful woman! I’m hoping that she’ll allow me to share a picture of the two of us in one of my trip blogs. 🙂

Here is what our Itinerary will be:

We’ve made a few Excursion reservations through our Personalizer on Princess.com, we will not be doing scheduled excursions out of every port, instead, we are going to venture out on our own renting cars when need be. As a matter of fact, I’ve made arrangements to meet one of my dearest Facebook friends Nancy when we’re in Halifax. I met her through our love for our Newfoundland pups…she is an amazing lady and I canNOT wait to give her one of the biggest (((hugs))) ever!!

Here are the Excursions we’ve chosen (so far…we might definitely change these up, we’ve been known to do that once aboard):

Anticipation!! A-N-T-I-C-I-P-A-T-I-O-N!!! That feeling really ramped up when my travel agent Joy called and told us that she had printed off our boarding passes, travel insurance info, and luggage tags…yes, yes, I know, I had the ability to do that myself a while ago, but, it is always fun to go and pick our travel docs up from Joy and discuss any last minute items or ask any questions that we might have. When I got those luggage tags home, we put them in our spiffy new luggage tag holders, and placed our paperwork into one of my folders. 🙂

Wow, that was exciting!! Okay, so maybe not all *that* exciting…lol…but, I was pretty happy to have taken one step forward that would bring us closer to heading out on our cruise. 🙂 For those of you who have gotten to know me, you know that I am a pretty organized person so it will not come as a surprise to you that the planning process for our trips is one that I embrace wholeheartedly. I decided today that I would start to pack up what I could and those packed items would sit on my cedar chest for the next 20 days waiting for me to pick them up and carry them to our car on the day we debark on our adventure.

I’ve packed up my Carry-On bag, well as much as I can get it packed that is. 🙂

And I’ve gathered everything else that I think I might possibly need into a basket and have set it out on my cedar chest. Here is a shot of that basket:

As you can see, I have gathered our Princess thermos cups to be used for our morning coffee/tea (Chris carries mine up to the Horizon Court every morning and makes up my tea—bless his big heart). Then next, I packed up my three Vera bags that I will use for various things:

My “Must Haves” in the first bag:

Our medications in the middle bag, and the last plastic bag will be used for my perfume/shampoo/hairspray/etc…I’ll wrap the breakable items in bubble wrap to pad them a bit:

I’ve also included my small Thirty-One jewelry case:

And I’ve set out my Make-up case, also from Thirty-One:

As I mentioned, all of these bags will sit right like this on my cedar chest until it is time to finish packing all of them:

Then I will place them into my large 29″ Spinner suitcase–and if need be, any overflow will go into this Vera Weekender bag:

As I’ve mentioned before, that Weekender bag has a sheath on the back of it and it will slide nicely down over the handle of my suitcase:

I placed our luggage tags on my luggage and I’ve put an extra one in the front pocket just in case the one on the handle is lost:

And one more thing that I’ve collected to take along is this magnet of my pups that my dear friend Liz gave to me as a gift when we were visiting with her and her hubby last April in Vancouver:

Also, I ordered myself up another magnet from Shutterfly, this one is of my human family to take along as well–Remember the walls in the Staterooms are metal:

OH one last thing, I’ve already picked out my outfit for the car ride up there…*This* outfit is definitely subject to change though, but, for now, this is what I’m planning to wear:

AND now, I will watch that time tick, tick, tick on down to GO TIME—Again, I’m not wishing my life away **^^Mom^^**, but, I wouldn’t be sad if that time would pass by quickly. 😉

Happy Traveling ALL!!

Until next time, y’all take good care! ❤

~Arlynn ❤

PS–Here is my Blog post covering my Canada & New England Cruise Wardrobe Choices

And here are links to the posts that I’ve written since our return home

Canada & New England: Packing, Traveling, & Embarkation onto the Regal Princess

Canada & New England Cruise: Mini Suite Tour, Muster Drill, Sail Away, Princess Patter & More

Canada & New England: Newport, Rhode Island

Canada & New England: Boston, Massachusetts

Canada & New England: Bar Harbor, Maine–Lighthouse Boat Tour, Lunch at a Local Restaurant, The Crab Shack, & My Birthday Song

Canada & New England: St. John, New Brunswick (Canada)–Exploring, Shopping, Bday Tartan Cape, & More

Canada & New England: Halifax, Nova Scotia–Arrival, Lunch With Dear Friend, & Peggy’s Cove

Canada & New England: Last Day On Board, Shopping, TV Tutorial, Disembarkation Morning, and Welcome Home

Canada & New England: Collage Picture Tour of the Regal Princess

Packing – 8 Day 7 Night Cruise Series: “My Must Haves”:

On August 18, 2016August 23, 2016 By ArlynnIn Country Decor18 Comments

Yes, yes, I know, I have already written a extremely long blog post expounding in great detail about *all* of the things that one might need to pack for any length of cruise. And when I wrote it we were preparing for a 15-Night Hawaii cruise, so those were the parameters in which I was working, 15 days seemed like an eternity to be away–well for this country girl anyway. Admittedly, there is a plethora of information in that one post and it might be a smidge over-whelming. 😉 All that said, since most of our cruises are 7 day adventures, in this new “Series” I want to show how I’m planning to downsize that extreme list and share how I am going to try like crazy to consolidate everything into one large suitcase. In that other blog monstrosity, I covered “What’s In My Carry-On Bag”, tons of “Must Haves”, and I even included my “Packing Tips & Tricks”. I thought it was time to break up the monotony of that long post into several separate, shorter, more succinct, and a bit easier to peruse through posts, especially since I’m going to be downsizing the amount of ‘stuff’ I take which will work well for a 8 day cruise–yes, I do count embarkation day as Day 1 and disembarkation day as Day 8–I’m talking Saturday to Saturday cruises here (or whatever other day of the week a cruise starts on and ends on exactly a week later). For Hawaii, I took a small’ish’ Spinner suitcase ***just*** for my “Must Have” items. Here is how that suitcase looked right before I closed it up:

Whew–I took A LOT on that cruise…I will admit though, I did utilize every single item I took. BUT, my goal is to downsize a bit considering 8 days isn’t that long to be gone, so, I have gathered the following items to take along with us on our next cruise which will be to Canada & New England on the gorgeous Regal Princess this Fall. So let’s get started.

Disinfectant Wipes:

The very first thing that we do when we enter our Stateroom is to wipe down all surfaces, door knobs/handles, the telephone, the tv remote, the balcony railing, etc…

Hand Soap:

Bar Soap:

We do not care for the shower gel that they provide in pumps in the shower, so we bring our own favorite bar soap…

Odor Eliminating Spray:

I think the reason that I take this is obvious… *wink*…

(there are no exhaust fans in the bathrooms on a cruise ship)…

I never use Tums off of a cruise, but I always use Tums while on a cruise…

A Pop-Up Folding Laundry Hamper

This fits nicely into the Stateroom’s closet and collects all of the dirty laundry so that it is not spread all over the floor–Compact to pack too…

Clothes Peg Clip Pins

I mostly use these to hang up my shower cap on one of the towel racks inside the shower, but, they could also come in handy to hang things up on their provided clothing line (that is located in the shower–you can pull it out from a receptacle on the shower wall and attach it to the other end of the shower–I’ll show you a picture below:

Here is that clothesline:

I always take my own hairdryer, yes, Princess does provide a hairdryer in every room, but, for my hair which is fine but rather thick, well, it just doesn’t do the job in a timely fashion.

Here is the hair dryer Princess provides on all ships I’ve been on so far:

(I do hear that on the Royal and Regal, there is a hair dryer in the drawer at the desk, I’ll let y’all know when we get back from our cruise how that puppy works)

Tide Pods and Downy Dryer Sheets:

Yes, I normally will do laundry onboard, yes, even on a 8-day cruise, so I throw a few pods and some dryer sheets into a zip-lock bag because they don’t take up much room or add much weight and I’d rather our clothes smell like I like them to smell rather than how they smell using the products that you can get on the ship…

Here are the laundry rooms on board the Star Princess’ Dolphin deck, most of the laundry facilities on board are pretty much the same and are on several of the Stateroom decks (check your ship’s deck plans to find specific locations for laundry facilities). On the Coral’s Dolphin Deck the washers and dryers were stacked, on the Star they weren’t. You use your cruise card to purchase tokens, one color of token that will start the washer and dryer and if you choose to purchase their products, another color token can be used in the vending machines–See pictures below:

Magnet Clips

The walls in the Staterooms are metal–I usually will hang up the day’s Patter or my Card Lanyard, etc…

A Flashlight

Just in case we lose electricity, one never knows you know…

Scissors

Travel Illuminated Clock

I like to be able to see what time it is if I happen to wake up in the middle of the night…

Sewing Kit

Zip-Lock Bags

We purchased these coffee, and in my case, tea thermos cups on board our last couple of cruises. Chris is so sweet, every morning, he takes these cups and goes and gets me hot tea and himself a cup of coffee from the Horizon Court’s self serve counter.

Now, I know y’all are going to chuckle at me with this next item, but, I usually will take a small bottle of dawn with us so that I can wash up those cups each day–Yeah, my anal retentiveness rearing its ugly head…;)

And believe it or not all of that stuff (minus the cups and the hair dryer) fit inside this Vera Bradley Grand Cosmetic Bag and will fit into my one large suitcase (hopefully, the jury is still out on whether or not I can fit everything into one large suitcase; if necessary I will add one Vera Bradley Weekender Bag).

BTW–As an extra precaution, I will put any bottle that could potentially leak into ziplock bags before placing them in my Vera Bags. Even though the Vera’s are lined and I doubt if leaks would escape, I don’t want to take the chance. 🙂

Now to finish up this post, there are two other things that I always take with us…

Small first-aid kit

And

A grab bag with different OTC medications, these things can cost you a pretty penny if you go to buy them at the Sundries shop on board, so I just take a smattering of things, pain relievers, cold meds, anti-nausea meds (we’ve never been sea-sick, but, this girl likes to be prepared) That Vera Bradley bag is a Large Cosmetic Case:

Well, that does it, I feel pretty good that I’ve been able to downsize the amount of items that I’m planning to take with us on our 8-day Canada and New England cruise.

I’m trying to wrap my mind around what other smaller more succinct posts to create, I do know that I will be doing these specific posts moving through the next several days/week:

What’s In My Carry-On
Tech’y’ Stuff
Packing Tips & Tricks

Beyond that, well, we’ll see what I come up with…haha. 🙂

Until next time, y’all take good care!! ❤

~Arlynn ❤

⚜️ Arlynn's Country Craft Corner ⚜️

Tag: Regal Princess

Canada & New England: Collage Picture Tour of the Regal Princess

Plaza Deck 5:

Fiesta Deck 6:

Promenade Deck 7:

Aloha Deck–Deck 12

Lido Deck 16:

Sun Deck 17:

Bonus Pictures

Canada & New England: Halifax, Nova Scotia–Arrival, Lunch With Dear Friend, & Peggy’s Cove

Canada & New England: St. John, New Brunswick (Canada)–Exploring, Shopping, Bday Tartan Cape, & More

Canada & New England: Bar Harbor, Maine–Lighthouse Boat Tour, Lunch at a Local Restaurant, The Crab Shack, & My Birthday Song

Canada & New England: Newport, Rhode Island

Canada & New England: Packing, Traveling, & Embarkation onto the Regal Princess

Canada & New England: Pre-Cruise Report

And here are links to the posts that I’ve written since our return home