Day 10: Ponta Degada on São Miguel Island, Azores

Two months ago we booked an all day excursion through Viator for São Miguel Island and were quite excited about it. This was our final virgin visit of the cruise, and we wanted to make the most this 290 square mile island, which is a department of Portugal.

When we returned to the ship in Vigo two days ago, I received notification that our payment for that excursion would be charged to our credit card the next day. That was fine, but it did prompt me to look at the weather forecast for Ponta Delgada for the day we would be there. It was abysmal, a 100% chance of rain with heavy rain warnings. Ugh.

We had already looked at the map for our planned excursion, and knew we would be on twisty-turny coastal roads, which sounded extremely picturesque when we booked the excursion but not so much fun in a heavy rain. We decided to cancel before the payment was charged the next day. We would have had one additional day to cancel for a full refund, but I know too well that it’s easier to not pay in the first place than to chase after a refund due. An extra day to consider wouldn’t have mattered anyway; the forecast didn’t improve.

Sure enough, we awoke today to a grey fog with rain, though the forecast did call for improvement this afternoon. We lingered over breakfast in Snobatini’s, then moved to dry seats on the Horizon Terrace. The rain continued but lessened a little, and finally, about noon, we could start to see some clearing.

Friend Sherita had just been in Ponta Delgada on a HAL ship a couple of days earlier, and she had had brilliant weather for an island tour, but suggested to us a walk around town as an alternative. So we set to get some exercise and see what there was to see.

I was most fascinated by the art work on the pier next to a marina with hundreds of smaller boats and yachts, most of them sailboats. I knew São Miguel was known to be a stopping point for boats sailing across the Atlantic, much as Nuku Hiva is for Pacific crossings. In Ponta Delgada, sailors commemorate their crossing by painting their ship name on the pier, often accompanied by their own names and country of origin. I walked around looking for my favorite sailors, SV Delos, but didn’t see anything. I don’t specifically recall that they’ve been here, because they crossed to South America directly from Africa.

There were several floating Air BnB type boats in the marina.

A whopper of a ship 😆😆

The sun came out in full force by mid afternoon, and we joined a long line of guests and crew to re-board the ship. Once back on board, we headed to the Horizon Court Buffet for lunch (chicken fajita salad for me). We ran into Restaurant Manager Roxana up there and told her we wouldn’t be going to dinner in the Symphony Dining Room, and stayed up on deck through sailaway and sunset.

Megayacht Capricorn was berthed next to the Regal Princess

We were in port with the Fred Olson Bolette, which was formerly the HAL Amsterdam, which was much like the HAL Maasdam, which we loved. Fewer than 1400 passengers, it does unique itineraries to lesser visited ports. G observed, “I bet you’d love that ship”. How well he knows me.

It was so foggy this morning that we didn’t even realize there were mountains on this island until we returned to the ship this afternoon.

We had never even gotten cleaned up for the evening, so we took advantage of that to spend some time in a hot tub and skipped the lower decks altogether (and missed production show Fiera- shocker!).

We were already back in our cabin a couple of hours out of Ponta Delgada when Captain Traverso made an announcement into the cabins that there had been a medical emergency and a passenger had to be taken back to the island for care. That all took two or three hours to play out, and then we were on our way, with five days at sea to Antigua.

Day 9: At Sea

We enjoyed another typical day at sea, content in the knowledge that we have several more in the offing. The seas have picked up slightly; Captain Traverso said in his noon announcement that we would be seeing waves in the 2.5 meter range, which is nothing on a ship the size of the Regal Princess, but is still more than we’ve encountered to date. Today marked a first for us as we both pulled out shorts to wear, though I still teamed mine with a fleece jacket.

I also changed up breakfast today, opting for sourdough toast topped with avocado and egg along with the usual fresh fruit. It was one slice of toast too many, and kept me from eating lunch at all. Unfortunately/fortunately, our dinner planswere also disrupted (read on) and we didn’t dine until late tonight.

We attended CD Aaron’s Behind the Scenes talk in the Princess Theater at 11am, and then I had to just stay put in the cabin for a while. I brought my Kineon red light therapy with me (IYKYK) and am supposed to use it for an hour total each day, but I’ve actually successfully done that about three times since we left home. I need to be more faithful about it, starting today. It makes a huge difference for me. At 1pm we attended Angela Delgado Kelly’s lecture on Ferdinand Magellan’s circumnavigation of the earth, which was fascinating, then squeezed in some additional hot tub time before getting cleaned up for the evening.

Tonight the first two of four Captains Circle parties were held in the Vista-less Lounge, and we attended both. We were honored to be this cruise’s Most Traveled Guests, with 1734 days, but the competition was fierce. I’m constantly teasing G that he is only the first most traveled on cruises he takes solo and that I’m bad luck, but I guess I have to stop saying that. He just received a $50 store credit on a Ruby Princess cruise he took in September for being #3, but so far we’ve seen the Sabatini’s breakfast benefit (the only one that really matters in our eyes) and a bottle of champagne. I’ll report here if that changes.

We were join by guests Brian and Christine who we discovered live near us. They’re on their first Princess cruise. We met them in the terminal in Southampton and have gotten together a couple of times on the ship. They took our same flight a day earlier than we did.

The days, for those interested:

1- 1734

2- 1716

3- 1644

There are 1014 Elites on this voyage. I was going to say that laundry was taking 48 hours, as our first submission did, but our second submission is now at 60 hours and counting and I’m down to two more pair of clean undies so I see a self launder in my day tomorrow if it’s not returned PDQ.

We listened to Nattany in the Wheelhouse and then returned for the second party at 6:30pm, then finally went to dinner at 7:30pm.

The Princess Theater entertainment tonight was piano entertainer Luis from the Wheelhouse accompanied by the Regal Princess show band, which we would have enjoyed, but the evening’s schedule was already a bit convoluted, so we continued on in that manner and went to the watercolors fountain show at 9:15pm. It’s nice for a once or twice a cruise kind of thing, but it does blow quite a bit, so stand back. Or wear a rain coat.

And with that we called it a night. Our plans for tomorrow in Ponta Delgado were in place, and then I cancelled them based on the weather forecast from two days ago. We’ll either be sorely disappointed or glad we did that…stay tuned to see which way this goes.

Day 8: At Sea

I can’t say I’m actually resentful when we have to interrupt our blissful life at sea by getting off the ship in a port…at least not yet. But I am certainly loving these sea days!

It was nice to turn off the alarm and wake up naturally. Still we were in Snobatini’s by 8am, and lingered and lingered there. I finally left and walked around the ship checking out pool temps and whether hot tubs were open or netted over. I had read a post on Facebook that stated they were all closed except one. Well, thankfully that wasn’t the case this morning. Only two of six were closed. The pool temps seemed very comfortable.

White I was out and about on the open decks, I reserved the Sanctuary for a port day afternoon later in cruise. The manager said I shouldn’t have waited so long, as every sea day was fully booked there, but, frankly, I was so ambivalent about it that it wouldn’t have been the end of my world if I hadn’t gotten a lounger. But I do enjoy a nice afternoon tea up there!

We have a really excellent enrichment lecturer on board, Angela Delgado Kelly. She spoke the first sea day on the history of ocean liners and cruise ships. Today’s lecture was about Scott’s and Amundsen’s race to the South Pole. Her lectures have become don’t miss events in our day.

We went right from that, held in the Vista Lounge today (too small a venue…a man pitched a fit at me for turning around a chair to sit in front of him. I moved on, then watched with a tiny bit of satisfaction as EVERY seat was eventually taken and he ended up with an even taller man sitting directly in front him…karma) to lunch in the Allegro Dining Room. After all, it had been two whole hours since we had eaten, and Restaurant Manager Nelson looks out for us with a very private table for two. Just lentil soup for me, but Princess’ lentil soup is excellent.

We finally fit some pool and hot tub time into our afternoon. The air temperatures are definitely warming, and we’re seeing more and more shorts on board (and tank tops, proving that personal thermometers are just that). While soaking and swimming, we heard an announcement by Cruise Director Aaron, who we’ve known since he was a baby cruise director, about two matinee shows being held in the Princess Theater called GiddyUp Lounge. We got cleaned up and went to the 3:30pm show just to see what this was all about. It was about the show band accompanying the four production show vocalists performing country songs. Now, I used to not be a fan of country music, but my guys both are, very much, and are turning me around on that, especially the modern country rock that they so enjoy, and that’s basically what this was. It was quite fun to see these vocalists who we’ve so far only heard performing more opera-type songs in Bravo, and two of whom have British accents and one is from (possibly) Argentina all sing with a country twang.

Speaking of my guys and country music (sea day story incoming)…their favorite performer is Zach Bryan, and I was tickled to receive a text from one of them a couple of years ago telling me that Zach performs “my” song, You Are My Sunshine, which I sang to them exactly 832,167 times when they were very young, and that it reminds him of me every time he hears it. My heart… I’m not sure he knew that “my” song has been covered at least twenty times in the past 100 years or so.

We stopped by the PES Lounge which featured herbed goat cheese and bruschetta, which are my personal downfalls, and then to dinner where I branched out from pescatarian and had jerk chicken with black beans and sweet potato, and, oh my, that was delicious.

Mediterranean salad from the vegan menu-yummy!

The Princess Theater entertainment was the ventriloquist again, which totally opened up our evening, so we broke from our usual entertainment style and instead went to Princess Live (I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve been in that venue on ANY ship over the years), for a riddle game, and then stayed in our seats for Majority Rules (first time ever seeing that on any ship, too!). It certainly is popular, and CD Aaron did a great job with it. It was obviously highly contrived, but people seem to love it.

We finished out our evening listening to piano entertainer Carlos in the Wheelhouse. We love party band Gravity in the Piazza, but I’ve think we’d have to claim a seat to listen to them by 9am, and we are always late to the game.

I ended the evening discovering on social media that McGee continues to collect major accolades in his sport.

Warming temps, lots more sea days in the offing, seeing people I love pursuing their passions and being recognized for it…life is good!

Day 7: Vigo for Santiago de Compostela, Spain

Vigo was another virgin port for us, which, as you know, makes me so very happy. It was also another early morning and long day. We were in Snobatini’s when it opened at 7am, and, boy, are we going to come down to earth with a bang when that is no longer.

We booked today’s excursion to nearby Santiago de Compostela through Viator, which is simply a tour consolidator, but they do a wonderful job with their app, emails and notifications, which is a welcome benefit of using them. This morning at breakfast I was greeted with this pop up on my phone (just in case we had forgotten), and the links to the meet up information were definitely appreciated.

Fueling up before a busy day. It’s especially nice to dine in Sabatini’s in such peace and comfort when I know what a zoo the Horizon Court Buffet is on port days.

We walked off the ship about 8:40am, into another large and beautiful terminal at the port for Vigo. The weather was mostly sunny and nicely mild; we’ve been lucky with weather (so far, at least). We were instructed to exit the terminal and look for an orange umbrella with the words “Optimus Tours” on it, and our guide Christina was right there. She checked us in, sent us to the large, nearly new bus across the street and our group of 46 was soon on its way.

The drive to Santiago de Compostela took about 75 minutes, and Christina filled the time first telling us about Vigo and the Galician region, which is a department of Spain, like the Basque Country two days ago. Again, the language most commonly spoken is Spanish, but Galacian is also widely spoken.

As we got closer to Santiago de Compostela, Christina expanded her narrative to the history and religious significance of that site, which, along with Jerusalem and Rome, is one of the three primary centers for Catholicism.

The Church and Convent of San Francisco, founded by St. Francis during his pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela in 1214

We had just a short walk from the bus to the Plaza Franco, on which is located the Cathedral de Santiago, the city hall, a former school for boys which is now part of the University of Santiago, and the historic “hospital”, which was more of a hotel for pilgrims. It is also the site of Mile 0 of the Camino de Santiago, also known as The Way of St James. The Camino is a network of pilgrimages that have been used for over a thousand years, all leading to the Cathedral, believed to be the burial site of the Apostle James.

Cathedral de Santiago de Compostela

Pazo de Raxoi (Raxoi Palace) today used as a city hall

Another view of the cathedral

The terminus of all the Caminos in Plaza Franco

The scallop is the symbol of the Camino, with its veins representing the various paths to the cathedral. These gold symbols are located all over the streets of the town

Main altar, Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela

We had almost two hours of free time before we toured the museum and cathedral, and G and I walked around the narrow city streets (all cobblestone-oh boy!) and stopped at a sidewalk cafe to have beverages. We were served tapas which were kind of a sweet scrambled egg in a square form, not my favorite thing but apparently a local dish.

I had originally wanted to buy a crucifix or cross but I didn’t like the Cross of St. James, which had a pointed bottom, and the one cross I saw that I loved I realized I already had an almost identical one from Montserrat near Barcelona more than 25 tears ago.

Photographs were not allowed in the museum, which was a shame because there were some astounding relics housed there. Walking in the museum was very difficult as it was dark and we had walk up two flights of curving stairs and there were a lot of level changes on cobblestones (so be prepared).

About 2:30pm we returned to bus, and it was a very quiet ride back to Vigo and the Regal Princess. Our weather had been perfect, warm but not too, and we had had a beautiful day of sightseeing with possibly the best guide I’ve ever enjoyed (tied with Steven on our Normandy tour last year).

We did a quick clean up and phone re-charge and stopped in at the PES Lounge before dinner. We were hungry!

Berenice is so kind to us. She has seen me logging my food in the Cronometer app at dinner, and so realizes I track things carefully. In particular, I have to carefully watch my protein, and what I order at dinner depends on how many grams of protein I’ve already had that day. I ordered the seafood bowl last night and then, after logging it, realized I was about 6 grams low for the day. I figured I’d swing into the buffet and get a little something else, but she must have read my mind, because, without me saying a thing, she offered to bring me a little more shrimp. Now that’s a fantastic waiter!!

The Princess Theater entertainment last night was the comedian who missed the ship two nights earlier. Well, we had dodged a bullet that night. He was pretty awful. We sat in the “just in case” seats and there was a regular parade of people leaving almost from the start. We lasted about 15 minutes and joined them.

We sat in the Wheelhouse for a bit to listen to live music before we called it a day. 12000 steps on cobblestones had worn me out.

Next up: We move clocks back an hour tonight and have two wonderful days at sea to look forward to. I might just be lazy and combine them into one blog post, so don’t be surprised.