Pope Francis Dead at 88

Aloha Everyone,

Pope’s failing health has worsened for the last 2 months. However, on Easter Sunday, he gave his annual Easter blessings plus rode in his Popemobile around Saint Peter’s square waving to his adoring crowd and even giving his personal blessing to a baby and a special needs child.

Pope Francis, the first Pope from a Latin country, made a big impact on the Catholic Church. Now the selection process of choosing his successor begins.

J.J. and I recently watched the film, Conclave which showed how it is done. According to BBC News, new guidelines for choosing the next Pope is that the Cardinal must be under the age of 80. This would give a minimum of 10 to 20 years to serve. At present among 243 Cardinal only 108 are qualified. Among 10 top candidates, Philippines Cardinal Tagle is 67. He has been appointed by Pope Francis to liaison in Vatican and outside media. For political reasons, J.J. believes that next Pope will be chosen from Latin America, Africa or Asia. Stakes are high for the Filipino Cardinal.

Aloha -- Cathi

Happy Easter!

Aloha Everyone,

Wishing you all who are celebrating this special day, thinking of you and sending you unorthodox decorated Easter Eggs prepared by Crown Princess young pastry chefs.

Aloha -- Cathi

Puerto Chiapas, Mexico

Aloha Everyone,

Today it is 90 degrees temperature with 75 degrees humidity. We decided to remain on board.

Decorated Easter Eggs are on display in the Piazza. Many of them are imaginative Easter eggs. One can see strong influences of younger generations of pastry chefs.

Trophy and the facsimile of a $20,000 check by the corporate office of Princess are proudly displayed near the guest services desk. Perhaps management feels this is the safest place. The ship crew won the price during an annual contest be Princess ships.

Aloha -- Cathi

Special Italian Dinner at Sabatini

Aloha Everyone,

Tonight, J.J. and I enjoyed our special Italian dining at Sabatini. Ambience was better than our Crab Shack dinner.  Food was good while service was slow.

J.J. as usual enjoyed the dishes as they were brought out. After the first course of salad and their complimentary appetizer, I was already full. I skipped soup. Skipped the prima dish of pasta and waited for J.J. to finish his selections.

Our comments: Italianni chain restaurants in the Philippines, compared to Sabatini is not much different. Italianni’s service includes freshly toasted bread with EVO & vinegar. Refills available without asking.

Desserts were superb compared to Italianni. Their Chefs Special included 4 different cups were wonderful. Our server offered me one with chocolate. It was a wonderful treat to celebrate my sister’s birthday.

Aloha -- Cathi

Horizon Court Service Staff

Aloha Everyone,

At least twice a day, we are greeted by friendly faces on the Horizon Court service staff. Some know our names from taking previous orders at our table. These multinational staff not only learn to work together but also seems to establish genuine friendships that extend beyond Coral Princess work contracts.

While Napan from Thailand, Amalin from the Philippines have regional familiarity, it’s difficult to find areas of commonality with Hassan from Egypt. He was very happy to learn that we’ve visited Egypt, pyramids and the Spinx and appreciated when we mentioned that we are aware of the recent discovery of another cave where there are expected to find more antiquities never had been seen before.

J.J. and I with Hassan had a good laugh when most recent news reports of which that were thought to be some heads of important people turned out to be decorative items used to hold up parallel bars.

Aloha -- Cathi

Panama Canal Tourism Authority

Aloha Everyone,

The Panama Canal Tourism Authority was a huge disappointment. Princess Cruises and Chris Roberts did a phenomenal job of presenting this project. Like the two of us, most people who took the walkway thought we could get about one mile exercise each way.

No stores, no eateries, once we reached the other end, we were surrounded by people offering their visitor transport services. 

Main interesting thing was to see a USS Coastguard providing protection and rescue to ships.

Panamanian security, they were casual and laid back. No verification of government issued photo IDs required. All they checked was our medallions and we were back on the ship.

Aloha -- Cathi

Panama Canal Full Transit

Aloha Everyone,

This is our 7th Panama Canal Full Transit. Aside from those of us who are doing back-to-back full transit, passengers on this cruise seem to be older. Many are using canes and a number of them are using double canes that transforms into a chair. Passengers are not rushed or pushing others away to gain a better view of this engineering wonder.

J.J. and I were relaxed. No hurry to grab viewing space. Chatted with fellow passengers and exchanged pleasantries.

I was more focused on travelers whose reactions were from wow to ho hum.

Interesting activity of a helicopter hovering over the Crown Princess were spotted by many of us who were on the 7th floor promenade deck. It was explained that the helicopter was following us to take video footage which will be edited to short advertising clips. This, we assumed, is one of the benefits of being voted as the #1 among Princess Cruise ships.

Interesting history, numerous geopolitics and financial and human costs were involved in building the canal.

Aloha -- Cathi

Panama Canal Transit Lecture

Aloha Everyone,

This will be our 7th Panama Canal Transit. To update details and refresh our memories, J.J. and I attended this morning’s Panama Canal Transit Lecture.

One main information we learned is that they no longer call the locks Old and New. Reason seems somewhat political, but now they are referred to as Original & New Locks.

Aloha -- Cathi

Crab Shack

Aloha Everyone,

J.J. was happy with the Crab Shack dinner on board the Crown Princess. The entree crab, served both iced and boiled, included clams, mussels, shrimps and crayfish.

After I nibbled on my crab pieces, I enjoyed watching J.J. picking each morsel with his fingers.

The venue is one section of Horizon Court cordoned off for Crab Shack diners. Some tables were used multiple times.  Each table had a waiter assigned. Definitely one can almost feel like dining out in a specialty restaurant. $55 per person prefix menu was worth the experience. They likewise added an 18% service charge.

Aloha -- Cathi