We both slept fitfully last night, as the Pacific Princess continued to shake and shimmy its way across the North Pacific Ocean. At 2:08am I was awakened, and again at 3:17am, 3:41am, 4:29am, and so on. I remember taking a sip of ginger ale at some point, but don't recall eating a cracker, but I must have done, as the detritus was littered on the nightstand and floor this morning. It was a rough start to the day.
That it's so beautifully sunny just adds insult to injury. It looks like we should be having a grand time sailing our way home, and many passengers are spending these sea days quite unscathed by the conditions. Unfortunately, I am not among them, and am having more difficulty than I've had in over 1000 days at sea in such typically rough water as the Tasman Sea and Cape Horn. I believe that the small size of the Pacific Princess is definitely a factor.
I was feeling well enough to have a simple breakfast of melon and oatmeal in the Club Restaurant, but had to leave in a hurry when a sudden bout of nausea hit. G returned to the cabin to find me not just lying down, but lying down on a blanket on the floor. Even the bed had too much sway for my comfort. It was not even 9am at that point, not the best start to the day, but things did improve throughout the day and by now it's actually pretty comfortable.
G turned the TV to a replay of the Navigation@Sea lecture that had been given yesterday afternoon in the Cabaret Lounge. We had missed it because...well, it was held in the Cabaret Lounge at the front of the ship. And there was football. Mostly, there was football. Third Officer Alex from England made an excellent presentation and we learned quite a few things we hadn't previously known. But then the floor was open to questions and, not surprisingly, considering the timing of the presentation, the first question asked was "What happened this morning?" The Senior First Officer, Giuseppe, who is third in command and also the ship's safety officer, took the question. He said he just happened to be walking by and thought that someone might ask. ;-)
Giuseppe said that the power outage was still under investigation, but what could have happened is that all four diesel generators had been running at full power to get the Pacific Princess back to Los Angeles by December 3. There may have been an issue with one engine, and, without the ability to shift power demand to another, they all went into a protection mode and shut down. The backup generator provided power to run some AC, return the elevators to Deck 5 (which is the default deck as it is where the muster stations are), provide minimal lighting and, most importantly, maneuver the bow into the wind and water so that the ship was not at the mercy of a side wind. Within 10 minutes, they had begun to restore power and within an hour we had fully recovered. When the investigation is complete, a summary of what had occurred and the causative factor(s) will be sent to California and all the other ships in the fleet as a preventative measure. It was an unfortunate (but interesting to me) event that could have been very serious but turned out well.
I finally took over control of the TV, searching up and down the channels for an NFL game. I didn't even care which game it was; I have been so far removed from the season that it would go a long way in catching me up just to listen to the commentators. There was not a single game to be found, just a 'best games in history' replay on the only sports channel we were getting (ESPN2?). Well...shoot. I have lived quite complacently being football deprived all season, but it seems like the closer we get to home, the more acutely I'm missing it. Or maybe it's more a factor of finally having time on my hands.
G started watching some "ant" movie with Michael Douglas and I tried reading but had better luck with my dizziness when I just played a card game on my iPad. We went up to the Promenade Deck at one point to check the temperature. It's dropping now, around the mid-70s as we make our way northwest. Tomorrow is supposed to be in the low 70s, and, while I know that Los Angeles on Thursday is supposed to have a high around 70F, I suspect we may be in the low to mid 60s for the last couple of days at sea.
We left the cabin again to go to lunch in the Club Restaurant. I ate very lightly, just vegetarian spring rolls, but did have mandarin frozen yogurt for dessert. It tasted just like those orange dreamsicles I used to eat as a kid...so yummy!
We decided to skip this afternoon's Grapevine Wine Tasting (is it possible that I have reached my wine saturation point? I think maybe...), and G headed off to a Meet the Cast session in the Cabaret Lounge. He promised to tell me all about it, because I returned to the cabin to tackle a project best done alone in the cabin: coloring my hair with the last box of hair color I'd bought at the Hilo WalMart in September. I guess I could have waited until I got home, but I didn't want to haul the color home with me. I also needed to time this so that I can repeat it again before we leave home in early January. Today was the day.
It also marked the last unopened item we had purchased in Hilo in September, save for one tube of sunscreen. I have to proudly say that, after six years at this long-term cruising, we've gotten very good at predicting consumption. I suspect that, had we had some sunnier/hotter weather on Rapa Nui, we might have had a 100% success rate. The last couple of days have seen me use the last of several items: Fabreze, OxyClean laundry stain remover, shower gel, body moisturizer, face cream...and now hair color. It's a sure sign that it's almost time to go home.
I moved myself only as far as the Promenade Deck, where it was very pleasant, although windy and salt-spray-ish. I needed to get some fresh air, but didn't want to venture up to the pool deck. The pool has been open but half emptied of water since we left Hawaii to prevent it from sloshing out. By 4pm, the seas started to calm quite a bit (I hope it lasts!) and I was feeling the best I have since Maui (I hope that lasts, too!). Still, we skipped the Elite Lounge in the Pacific Lounge and instead went directly to dinner. We took our award bottle of Korbel from the Captains Circle party last night to share with our next-door tablemates.
It was Italian night, and I surprised myself by ordering a salad AND spaghetti and meatballs AND lemoncello sorbet for dessert. I was hungry! We attended comedian Doug Funk's first show at 6:45pm and called it a night. When I go online to post this, I am going to check the score from the Broncos game. Frankly, I'm scared. My luck today kinda sucked. Big seas, big seasickness and no football on TV. But lemoncello for dessert saved the day.
A few more disjointed thoughts aimed especially at those passengers coming on for the 50th anniversary cruise on the Pacific Princess on December 3. I've been getting lots of emails with questions, and can't answer them all individually due to Internet limitations (even Mom gets only very occasional emails from me). Instead, I'll try to answer some here...
- The mattresses are totally hit and miss. We've had three cabins with six mattresses so far this season. Three of the mattresses have been good, one okay and two pretty bad. This is not a case of mattress comfort being a subjective matter. A mattress that is hard on the edges and broken down in the middle appeals to no one. The pillows and linens are in pretty good shape. I've had just one pool towel that was ragged and returned it to our cabin steward.
There are two 110V outlets for North American plugs and two 220V outlets for 2-pin plugs on the vanities. We bring two 2-pin adapters and charge our iDevices on the 220V outlets and use the 110V for other things like the toothbrushes and waterpik.
- The TVs are fairly small flat panels without any on demand capability. The remotes are a bit more miss than hit. I've found that the arrow buttons work for channel and volume changes; the channel and volume up and down buttons don't.
- The cabins all have refrigerators. Not all the refrigerators have shelves in them, or storage on the door. We keep the door of the cabinet they're in propped open with a bottle of cheap champagne to allow the refrigerator to vent and cool.
- The CD staff is not being augmented for the 50th anniversary cruise. Neither is the crew or the Captains Circle host. What we have is what you'll have, which is to say you'll have wonderful service and a lot of fun.
- After receiving the notice about Elite laundry taking 72 hours to be returned, mine has been returned in 36-48 hours this cruise. That's with 98 Elites on board this cruise. If you're one of the 300-400 Elites on the next cruise, you may want to bring at least enough clothes for 7 days. There is a passenger laundry on Deck 7 with 8 washers and dryers and they've worked fine. Ship's cards can be used to get laundry tokens: $3 to wash, $3 to dry, $1.50 for detergent, etc. I've only had one laundry issue so far this season, a tiny pinhole in a T-shirt front.
- Neither chef Curtis Stone nor his menus will be on the ship.
- The ship has not been especially spruced up for the cruise but it is spotlessly clean. The railings on the Promenade Deck are in pristine condition. There have been buttons installed on the two aft doors to the Promenade Deck to make them handicap assessable (a hugely positive addition). You will notice lots of wear and tear, especially in cabins and on the varnished arms of dining chairs. Keep expectations in check and you'll be very pleased with the entire cruise experience.
