NCL Epic Cruise October 2010

Please refer to this link:

http://myyearofmore.blogspot.com/2010/11/epic-vacation-october-14-24-2010.html

and a photo video :
http://myyearofmore.blogspot.com/2010/11/our-epic-vacation.html

Weekend Get a Way!

WHEW! So glad that I have finally finished posting all about our trip last year!
I was waiting on that so I could now start posting on what we're doing now.

Now it's end of February 2012 - 1 week from today, will be 3 months since the Jamaician 'incident'.
That's a LONG time ( as 4yr old grandson Eli tells Mark every time "your leg has been broke a LONG TIME!" )

We have Dr. appointment this afternoon for more xrays and monthly check on the leg. Will be interesting to see what is next. Mark started doing physical therapy  on 2/7 and goes Tues & Thurs every week. Well, except for today.

We are taking off for Niagara Falls right after Mark's Dr. appt today - and not coming home until Sunday! YAY!!  Seems like it's been a long time since we've been away - at least for more than an overnight. We did go to Turning Stone 2/4 for overnight @ Microtel and we both won @ BINGO! YAY!!

Well, this weekend, we're staying 1 night free at Seneca Niagara Casino, 1 night deeply discounted there and on Saturday we're heading over the river into Canada and spending the night at the Hilton Suites (jacuzzi suite overlooking the Falls, complete w/ fireplace!) I will be taking photos and will post next week.

Not much else to report. I have tomorrow off work as a floating holiday, as last Monday was President's Day and I worked, w/ boss off.  We have to 'use it or lose it' within a week of these type of holidays. Works out very well for me, as I was going to have to ask for vacation time. Now it's a holiday! :-)

November 2011 - Road Trip--Pearl Cruise part 10 (end)

FRIDAY, 12/2/11  COZUMEL

   I was up at 6:30am (well, 5:30 with the time change) and turned on the tv to the BOW camera and soft musak playing, Mark read and I got this caught up.

            We will have to go get a ‘cruise reward’ today, as we have decided that we definitely need a ‘do-over’!! Sharkbait show is again tonight with the 4 Seasons, sharing the show time. Nice couple of shows we wanted to see, but missed. Will be nice to get to see a little of each.

            And this is where my journal ends. The rest of this will be from memory (and it’s getting cloudy already!) Actually the rest of the cruise was about the same. We ate at Blue Lagoon, and did the buffet again. We went to that show. It was pretty good. I think we went to the casino for a little while afterward. It was rather crowded with the wheelchair, so we didn’t stay very long.

There were several other ships in Cozumel this day. I saw 3 other NCL ships, I think! We were docked at a different pier that I am used to in Cozumel. That was interesting. We were parked right next to another ship ( I don’t remember which it was) Was nice seeing the other ships at night with their lights on.

            I went and got our Cruise Reward. Have to book and sail within 4 years. I don’t think that will be a problem!

I think  we had room service for late dinner and watched another movie, although I don’t remember what it was.

SATURDAY, 12/3/11  Sea Day

Lazy day today. We sat poolside for awhile and ate from the buffet there. Mark enjoyed being out of the room, people watching, reading his book, listening to people at the next tables. Definitely helped to take his mind off his leg for a little while, anyway.  I went down to the casino for awhile. He enjoyed hanging by himself. I think he snoozed!  LOL

            I really don’t remember too much else that we did. I know we went to Harold’s restaurant again for dinner. It was not as eventful as the previous time…but a good dinner. J 

            Seriously, the rest of the day is a blur. I have no idea what we did, when or where! I know I must have sat on the balcony for awhile. And I had to get everything all packed up and in the hallway. My most least favorite thing to do on ANY cruise!!  Other than that…no clue!

Talk about ‘forced restfulness’ this was it! 

SUNDAY, 12/4/11  end of cruise

            Well, all things must come to an end. Whether good or bad! We ordered room service for breakfast. Got showered, dressed and ready to go. We had priority passes and were able to leave whenever we were ready to go. The sooner, the better. We were ready to get some crutches and get headed for home.

            It took forever to get through customs – as usual. We had an escort off the ship – and another ‘driver’ once in the port building. We had a guy handling our luggage. Nice with wheelchair that we didn’t have to do the whole line, but still quite a wait.

            Mark called our ride and told him we were in customs line. We got through the line. Our driver kicked someone off a bench outside, and deposited Mark there. Our luggage was taken off cart and sat on the curb next to us. And that was that. Our driver had trouble getting in the correct lane – the port police were not letting him next to curb – until I yelled at the cop that my husband had a broken leg and could not possible walk across 2 lanes of traffic to get into van! “Oh, calm down ma’am, I didn’t know…” blahblahblah from cop.  Finally our driver was allowed to come to curb. Mark had difficult time getting in van, but finally made it.

            Back to our hotel where we left the car. She was still there, ready and waiting for us! I transferred the luggage and got the car ready. Mark was able to get into the car and we were off for Walmart for crutches.

            Made it there – I  parked and went in – had to use bathroom, suddenly I was not feeling well.

Guess what – no crutches! Pharmacy said only place in Miami to get crutches was a medical supply place – and none were open on Sundays! Great… now what??! I talked some guy in a Walmart vest to bring out an electronic cart to the car so that Mark could get in to use the bathroom.

            Then we were off. I felt more like crap the longer the day went on. I had a bug of some kind. I would have paid good money to be able to lay down and just sleep the day away! Ugh, I felt like crap.

Headache, flip flop stomach. We had to stop for me to take a short rest. I could not keep my eyes open. I think I slept for about a ½ hour in the car in some parking lot.

We started another book on tape on the way. We were headed to South Carolina to a Knight’s Inn for the night. Mark called ahead to see if we could be moved to a handicapped room. I’m sorry, sir, we don’t have no handicapped rooms. Oh well

            At one point, we stopped at a rest stop and there was a security guard sitting in a pickup truck.
I went and asked him if they had a wheelchair available to get Mark into bathroom. He said no, but there was a ratty dirty old desk chair on wheels…would that work? He then proceed to wheel Mark into the bathroom and back out to car. He was awesome! J

 We stopped someplace else, later, to get gas and food and I slept again in the car for awhile.

I did have a bit to eat, as I really hadn’t had much to eat all day. Ever onward. I remember wondering if this day would ever end! LONG DAY!!

            Finally made it to the hotel – actually a motel and if you are a traveler, you know the difference. ;-)  I brought out the chair from the room for Mark to use as a walker to get into room and move around while in room. I remember asking him “is there anything else I need to do for you?” and falling on bed to absolutely die for the night!

Monday, 12/5/11 – Road Trip, Day 2

            There was a little breakfast area – I brought back toast, cereal & juice to room. We called around to find crutches. Finally made contact with Walgreen’s in Diamond Head. NO rush this am. Took our time getting ready – then we were off again. Noticed that it had rained overnight.

Thank GOD, I felt soo much better today! I seriously didn’t think I would make it another day like the one before!

            We found the Walgreen’s – and I snagged the very last pair of crutches on the shelf! Got Mark situated with them, and then back inside so he could use the bathroom.

Okay, now we were ready to do the rest of our road trip!

            Mark called ahead to the Knight’s Inn in W. Virginia that we were staying at tonight to see if they had a handicapped room. Nope. So, we cancelled and he called Holiday Inn and we got a room at an Express in Charleston, WV for the night – in a handicapped room.

By this time, it was nearing lunch time. We found some family style restaurant and decided to stop there.  The mgr was in the parking lot (on the phone) when we got there. He then came over and helped Mark with tips no using the crutches. That was very nice of him to help. We had a nice lunch. We both used the bathroom. We were then on the road again.

By afternoon we ran into rain / drizzle. Dreary grey day. Nice for listening to book on tape! At one point at night ti was very very foggy and difficult to see driving in the hills of Virginia, or West Virginia.  Stopped at a rest stop…Mark had hard time, but had to go. No place to pull over for him to water the grass. (like we did the night before) Very slow go with the crutches and it was drizzling and I couldn’t get any closer with parking.

Finally we made it to hotel. It was busy. Some guy was trying to be overly friendly ( we think he was drunk) to helping Mark – more help than we wanted / needed!  Crazy thing about this handicapped room. You had to walk ½ way down hallway to elevator, then ½ back down hallway when getting off elevator. Long walk to handicapped room. Okay if you’re in a wheelchair, not so great on crutches! Oh well. Preaching to the choir.

Tuesday, 12/6/11 – Road Trip, Day 3

Restful night. Nice breakfast. Think I got it and brought back to room again. We were up and out early as we could. Anxious to get home.

Ran into wintery weather after getting into upper PA, and NY. Finally arrived at home. I think it was about 7pm. Snowy. Cold. Welcome Home.

I shelped everything in out of the car. We had doctors appointments the next day to get something done with his leg.

Vacation officially over. We will try again soon! J

November 2011 - Road Trip--Pearl Cruise part 9

Thursday, 12/1/2011 – Grand Cayman

            Happy December?! Well, my white rabbit didn’t work; Mark still had broken leg at 6:30am!  We ordered room service for breakfast. (We had one issue with the room. The only phone is on the nightstand on the side of the bed closest to the bathroom. Unfortunately, the cord was not long enough to move it someplace else. It was a pain for me to crawl over the bed to get to the phone to use it. Okay, that was my big gripe with the room. I know I really need to stop complaining.)

            We were in Georgetown, Grand Cayman today. We had no excursions planned as we were going to do some gift shopping at the pier. We had to drop anchor on the south side of the island, due to major swells where we would normally ‘park’. Well, glad we were not getting off the ship! Apparently 2 other ships decided to just skip the stop and didn’t attempt to visit today. We saw one other ship turning away and leaving. Not sure what ship it was. Anyway, there is announcements about the tendering process and a shuttle to the downtown area (where we were supposed to be) and that it was a $5.00 charge per person each way. Now, that’s not a bad price, even unexpectedly – unless there are 6-8 in your group and you needed to take that to get to your scheduled tour. Lucky for us, we did not have that issue at all.

            My chores for the day: Going to the excursion desk with the note from the Doctor to cancel our excursion in Cozumel tomorrow – and get a refund for that. Also go to the spa to get Mark’s pass refunded as there was no way for him to use it now.  We got our invite to the Silver + Latittudes Party for this evening – probably will pass on that.

            Mark said he had an ‘okay night, but could have slept better’, much as expected. We just hung out in the room all morning, keeping his leg elevated as much as possible. It was difficult for him to get up to go to the bathroom, without any crutches or cane or anything to use for support other than the wall. There is a step up into the bathroom, which was exceptionally difficult for him to manage. He did go take a shower, as the hot water on his calf seemed to help his Charlie horse.        

            By early afternoon, we were both ready to get out of this cabin for a bit. Perhaps having something else to do would get his mind off the pain he was in. So, we called for a wheelchair and driver. We went up to the Great Outdoors for lunch. Our driver (Garvin – who was our favorite and AWESOME!!) left us and said to call for a driver when we wanted to leave. I go to the outdoor buffet area and found empty space. I asked someone where the food was and was told that there was no food until about 3pm. Great. So, in I shelped to the inside buffet to carry plates back out to the Great Outdoors. Then back to get drinks, and then back again to get something for dessert. That’s a lot of Shelpping! LOL  It WAS nice to get out of the room, tho! The weather was great and there was a nice breeze during the time we sat out there.

            We called for driver – Garvin to the rescue - went to the medical center. Mark could not get rid of the Charlie horse pain. Unfortunately, the Doctor’s hours were 4-6pm tonight, so we obtained the ‘doctors excuse’ for canceling the shore excursion –but, that desk was closed until 7pm tonight and headed to the Spa.

            Well, the spa manager could not have been nicer! She was awesome! She gave us no hassle to revoke & refund Mark’s spa pass, and mine as well! Even though I told her I had already been and used my pass, she just smiled and said I probably wouldn’t be using it much the rest of the cruise. She was correct; I just didn’t feel right about leaving Mark in the room alone for any length of time.  We had a nice chat with her. There was an older couple there, disputing some charge and not being very happy about it. Hmm….we had no problems. Darn, I don’t remember the Spa Mgr’s name – but she said she’d see us tonight at the Silver+ Party.

            Not much else we can accomplish at this point, so back to the room. We spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing. We figured that we would go to see the Dr. before he closed at 6, then up to the Silver+ Party for a little bit. Then we’d go to dinner at Blue Lagoon and hit the excursion desk. Sounded like a busy evening.

We got back to the cabin and discovered the movie ‘The Help’ was on at 3pm. I wanted to catch that, as I had not seen the whole thing. Nice that we were able to get out of the room for awhile. We had been feeling ‘stuck’ in there for about 20 hours. Not exactly much of a vacation at this point. Especially when Mark was so uncomfortable. We watched the movie and enjoyed it a lot.

We cleaned up a bit and changed clothes.  I called for a driver and we headed back down to see the Doctor. Mark got more meds – and to take 2 of the muscle-relaxers now. He also got a B12 shot, which was supposed to help with muscle pain. He was also given some powdered Gatoraid drink mix and got the flex cast repositioned. Mark asked the Nurse (who was from Ohio) about how much this all was going to cost us. Praise the Lord! Since it happened on an NCL sponsored excursion – there is NO CHARGE for any and all medical treatments, drugs, tests, etc. YAY!! If we had been on our own, this would be thousands of dollars, easily.  Just one more reason (that we were not aware of previously) to always. ALWAYS book excursions with the ship! We do that now anyway, just for the security of the ship not leaving without us! LOL It is sure worth it to pay a little more for a ship sponsored tour. No way we’d ever do differently now. This truly was a blessing!

Well, we got Mark fixed up as good as we could. Received a new driver to go to Spinaker for upper level Latitudes Party. Only had to wait about 10 minutes before they opened the doors.  Nice thing about wheelchairs and their drivers – they get to go to the head of the line. Officers were lined up to greet us on the way in. “M”  (mgr from the SPA) was there and I stopped and chatted with here for a few minutes. Found Mark was parked right down in front and I went to join him. Our Cruise Consultant, Lucy, welcomed everyone, and that was about it. There was music playing, and staff passing drinks and hors-de-vours. Garvin was passing cheese – and we had the chance to visit with him for a few minutes. Very nice guy – he definitely got a STYLE card!! (as did our room steward and M from the spa) We saw the Bavarian Chef again wandering around and hoped that he would come near us, so I could talk with him. He didn’t. We know we sailed with him before and can’t remember if it was on the Epic or Dawn. Oh well.

We ‘enjoyed’ a drink and a few nibbles, then we were ready to go to Blue Lagoon for dinner. Had yet again a different driver. He was great – NOT! He ran over my toes in the elevator!! Geesh! Then we weren’t down a hallway w/ cleaners carts out all over. We had to back down the hall the way we came to go to a different floor. Brother. Finally we arrived at the Blue Lagoon. Again – the place is EMPTY!  So nice that everyone else seemed to think there was something wrong with this place. It was definitely our GEM on the ship! It certainly felt like it was our own private restaurant. More so even than the Epic Club – which was exclusive only to suite guests. This was MUCH better!! I asked our waiter if I could get a side salad (not on the menu) and he replied SURE, anything you want, we can get it for you!” how nice!

The Bavarian Chef was wandering through the restaurant and I called him over. It WAS on the Dawn that we sailed with him before. He joked that he KNEW he knew us from somewhere! – yeah right…after sailing with thousands of other cruisers since then, he remembered US?!? Okay.  We had a real nice visit with him. We told him how much we LOVED this Blue Lagoon, and how the one on the Dawn sucked in comparison. Service at the one on the Dawn was the worst service in any place, ever. He’s very personable. He asked our cabin number, and wrote it in his notepad. Wondered what that was all about? Anyway, it was a nice chat.

I so do not understand about all the complaints on Cruise Critic about the staff & crew on the Pearl! We have found this to be totally unfounded. Everyone we have come across has gone out of their way to be so friendly and helpful!

We called for driver. While we were waiting, I went down to the excursion desk to cancel our Mexican cooking class in Cozumel. L So sad. The girl at the counter was great! No problem. So sorry you cannot make it, understandable. We had booked & paid for this online pre-cruise…so the refund was just put on our onboard account as a credit. If there was some unused, they would send us a check after the cruise. I laughed at that!

Back to Blue Lagoon to collect my husband and still waiting on driver. We got some pound cake to go to have later in the room. Mark needs something on his stomach to take his meds. Garvin arrived to drive us ‘home’!!  We told him how awesome a driver he is! J 

I got Mark all settled, and then I headed out to casino for an hour or so. Lost $$, nothing paying, but a nice little break for me.  Back to cabin. Mark was just getting ready to crash, so we chatted a bit and then went to bed. It was 10:30pm.