So how did we like sailing on the world's biggest cruise ship?

The three story atrium on the Grand Princess

Some pluses: Great service from our room steward. Very enjoyable shore excursions. Great food in the specialty restaurants and good food in the dining rooms, plus personal choice dining meant you could go to dinner whenever you liked. Good and fast service from the onboard doctor. Friendly fellow passengers onboard.

Some minuses: So-so food in the buffet areas. Don't bring your teenaged kids. They were bored stiff and had nothing to do onboard. The "teens only" disco and sun deck were deserted all trip. The music was so loud there that even teens couldn't stand it. The singers/musicians were pretty mediocre with the exception of a classical music string quartet. These 4 ladies were definitely hotties. Ow! Sorry, dear. I meant that they were accomplished musicians. There are 2 theaters on board, though the headliner entertainment was a bit disappointing. Both of us thought charging $1.50 for a cola and $3 for a water bottle were nickel and diming ways to get as much money out of us as they could.

Would we do another cruise with Princess? Probably not, but we would like to spend a week in Cozumel, now that we know what's there. There are lots of vacation packages flying out of Denver, so it's just a matter of when we can make time and if we can set aside the money.

Now we're trying to get used to life as normal. Last weekend was pre-dog preparation with time devoted to finishing the fence around our yard. Unfortunately, I didn't think to call to have our utilities lines marked before I dug. Sure enough, the gas line was cut and we called it in. The service on this is a bit faster than cable or phone lines, so rather than next week, the Colorado Springs Utilities folks came out in less than 30 minutes. They were nice and didn't charge me for the work, plus it could have been much more exciting than it was!

Two rescued Maltese dogs we visited but were not able to adopt	Max taking over the doggie basket

Denelle and I finished the fence on Sunday and now all we need is a Maltese dog or two. Max took over the doggie bed we had set out for our expected dogs, and doesn't know what to do with the dog toys! We've signed up with a Maltese rescue group that gets dogs from breeding farms and people who don't want them anymore. We visited 2 cute dogs at a foster home, but they bonded better to someone else, so the dogs got to decide where they would go. The rescue folks will probably let us know that we can pick up our dog in a month or so, when another comes into Colorado.

That's it for this update. Hope you enjoyed reading our adventure! Now Denelle is preparing for next week's classes and I'm diving into preparing a book on Hartt Genealogy.