Day 11 LA to Hawaii Cruise

Day 11, January 26,2013 Saturday
Partly Cloudy, Rain Showers
High 72 low 64
Sunrise 7:23 Sunset 6:01
At Sea Headed North East
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Breakfast in the Horizon Court Buffet smoked mahi mahi instead of the salmon for the lox.

Sue got up and traded a couple of clothing items that she had bough previously for ship credit.

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Cassie and Newsome

I went to the uke lessons. The two younger girls were late (see below)... but it was good that they kept coming. We learned the notes on the frets. We also worked to hit each string individually in arpeggios of scales to go with the chords that we were pressing ion the neck. My barre chords are getting better. One guy behind me said the sound from ukelele sounded so much better than his. I told him that I had pulled several ukuleles down from the wall when I was choosing mine. The one I bought had the best tone of the ones I was shopping. Mine had better tone than many that cost more. I checked the price of mine in Lahaina ukulele shop in Lahaina and they wanted twice the price for the same one with the "islander" brand on it.  Later I think that there was a cost difference because mine is laminated wood and the one I was looking at in Lahaina was solid... both made in Indonesia with supervision from a very respected Hawaiian ukelele company. It was nice to hear that from my fellow student. One of the ones in Lahaina was a dread naught with a front cutaway so that the very highest notes could be played with ease.

The girls borrowed my snark  (tuner) to tune their ukes after the lesson.  Its hard to practice with a ukelele out of tune.

They said their names were Newsome and Cassey. Newsome was a psychotherapist and Cassie was working as a rec specialist with the same degree as Lindsay's.... planner. They were both from LA. I told them about my daughters. They wanted to know why they were not with us. Newsome was 29 and Cassie is 5 years older. They said that they had not planned on taking lessons on the ship but they were happy to "fall into them" Cassie has natural blond hair and had it up in a French braid. Newsome is a dark brunett with black rimmed glasses. They were also doing the hula lessons.

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Sue bailed for lunch but had been up the whole morning working on the heirloom lei.

She settled for the 5 cheese pizza and headed back to the room for some rest.

I walked into the dinning room restaurant and had lunch in a "made up table" with a couple from Las Vegas.
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Steve and Connie from Las Vegas

Steve stumbled into the restaurant with a major hurt foot. He had worn a pair of shoes that was not broken in on a hike prior to getting on the ship. Steve was a 42 year old that was a major baseball fan with red hair. Connie, Steve's wife is a 4 foot eight inch asian wife who was having difficulty with her stomach. Steve had been leaning on her when ever they traveled so that he would not need a crutch. She had no problem with that as long as he didn't grab her by the neck to support him.

 They were the only couple I met that said that they really would have preferred flying to Hawaii and spending more time on the islands.

Steve presented himself as a 240 pound red haired meatball. He thought that the SF Giants were the best. He was looking forward to seeing a couple of games in Spring Training when he meets up with his friend from Indy who is a Cubs fan. So we talked pitchers and those dreaded Dodgers. he mostly sees Dodger games on TV although he would rather see Giants games. He said that he was not much of a football fan... although he is cheering for Colin Kaeperneck. He has followed his career since he college career in Nevada.

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I have been working on some watercolor illustrations of ukelele and lei maker couple on a card. I was hoping to give it to them as a thank you. Its really pretty far from representation. Sue says that the most distinguishing feature of Ural (the female of the group) is her artificial eyelashes.. they are gigantic.

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I left my 4 boys in Alberta

A very attractive 43 year old burnett with a gold stud in her nose aske if she could sit down in front of me and drink her coffee and eat her pastry. I said sure.

She told me that it wasn't easy to get a spare seat at the Piazza and that some guys had turned her down. She just shook her head in disbelief. She continued,"Maybe they were afraid of what their wives would say."

She said that her husband and her were from Alberta, Canada. She had left 4 boys with her sister who assured her that she would not do that again.  She had been to Alaska with her elderly father when she had lost her sister and her mother 3 months prior. When they finished the land route.. which took them through Canada and back down from Alaska on Holland America, her dad turned to her and asked, When do we do it again?

Her husband who works for the Royal Canadian Police, told her she wasn't going on another until he had gone on one. They figured out a trip to Hawaii but it didn't work out for his cobbled vacation time, but the princess one worked out... so here they are. They have anytime dining but have started to "collect" people from traditional dining spots to join their table. They were collecting people that were closer to their age groups and and little more lively than most of the older set that was on the ship. I told her our number and she said that many people from around us were at their anytime dinning. In our dinning room, room and entire table has disappeared from getting service at their appointed time.  Some people did the buffet each night. Some people are not ready to sit through the courses and the social exchanges that are included in the assigned table.

The RCMP dispatcher showed up and I was happy to relinquish my seat to him at the piazza. He had been checking the kids via email and had been making arrangements for pick up in Alberta . They were amazed at the number of people that were from their province on the ship. I told them that I suspected there would be many as they were well represented in the roll calls in the social media forums for this ship. Both Princess through Facebook and Cruise Critic maintain these social blogs and people are happy to meet up with others before getting on the ship.  She wasn't too familiar with these venues. She wanted to know what they were saying on them.  I said that they were grouping up to save transportation costs on the LA side to get to the port from LAX. She said that they used the Princess connection. I said that I used it to find out information regarding renting a car since most of the information on the corporate websites were for renting a car for 24 hours or more. I didn't know whether they would send a shuttle for ship people or if a taxi call as needed. The roll calls netted someone that had been on this trip before and had all of the answers.

Dinner: Italian
Pat's
Appetizer: Eggplant Parm
Penne Pasta
Entree: Roast Beef with a carrot cooked through the center
Desert: Tirmasau

Sue:
Appetizer: Shrimp coctail
Fettuccine Alfredo
Desert: Limoncello sorbet

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Sue made it all the way through dinner . We watched "Safe House" a movine on the in room TV before going to bed.