Steward Robert’s little chat with our neighbors worked. We had no door knocking in the middle of the night. Instead we had extensive chit chatting in the corridor, but, fortunately, not at 3am. More like 1am. We haven’ti experienced this kind of thing since we did the short Spring Break cruise on the…was it the Caribbean Princess? I think so. That’s when the college students loudly returned to their cabins around 5am or so. Fun times!
We were in Sabatini’s at 7am (opening time today). I had asked Restaurant Manager Priscilla if she could get me some nutritional info on the Greek yogurt they use, and her staff came through for me this morning. I’ve never heard of this brand, and its protein is definitely lower than the Fage brand I use at home, but that’s fine. I have to closely monitor my protein to make sure I don’t go over a certain number of grams. Thus gives me more leeway at lunch and dinner. I’m glad I asked.
We didn’t linger over breakfast today. Instead we left the ship and took an Uber over to Sea World San Diego.. Somewhere (I forget where), in the past two days I saw something online that said that veterans and their families could get a free admission to Sea World until September 30. Tickets had to be pre-purchased online, and eligibility verified through ID.me, but we are set up for that already, so the process was not too onerous. I completed it and downloaded our tickets (usually $79pp but frequently available with a discount for $59). Ŵe Ubered over from in front of the ship on Harbor Drive for just under $20.
I should mention here that I had purchased $200 of Uber gift cards for $160 through Costco less than two weeks ago. I should had started doing that earlier in the summer. We’re limited to $200 every 14 days, and our $200 was exhausted part way through the return ride today. Luckily I’ll have time to make another purchase before we arrive in Hawaii.
If yesterday we got our exercise pedaling, today it was all about walking. I had been to Sea World Orlsndo in 2003 and loved it. No surprise, given my affinity for underwater sea life. I had gotten in for free then, too. G was away for military, I was meeting my sister in law and two very young nephews for a few days at Disney, and flew out a day early to take advantage of that free day. Totally alone with complete freedom to explore as I wanted, I spent a long day at the park, despite having arrived after a red eye flight, and remember the shows, the mime, the displays and how much I had enjoyed it.
Frankly, Sea World San Diego seemed like a poor relation. It was busy- lots of families- but a bit run down. Everything seemed to have an extra charge, and our first impression was that our free tickets were just a starter pack. We were most struck by the number of food stalls and gift shops. In fact, we later learned that guests could pay $40 for unlimited all day food. Not a bad deal…but it’s all junk food. The number of shows seemed rather limited, but we quickly learned to just see the animals separate from the shows.
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| This was on display at Sea World, but we were able to watch part of the airshow from a hot tub on the back of Deck 16 later in the day. |
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| The dolphins were impromptly (is that a word?) doing flips on their own. I’d like to think it was for fun, but it’s hard to say. It could have just been muscle memory. |
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| Orca whale |
I especially wanted to ride the two roller coasters, but one never opened all day, and the second seemed to run sporadically. Still, we waited in line for quite a while and finally got a ride. The wait didn’t dissuade us; we’ve been known to wait 100 minutes to ride 97 seconds on the latest highest, fastest, steepest coaster in the world at Ohio’s Cedar Point. Of course, we were much younger then.
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| Yep, we did that! Old but still kicking. |
When it came time to ride Tentacle Twirl, G didn’t think he needed to, but I definitely did. That was fine; at least he was able to take a few pics of me on the ride. I stood in line for 15 minutes or so with all the excited kids and was excited myself. The 4 year olds were saying “Woohoo, I’m tall enough to ride this with dad (40 inch minimum height); the 7 year olds were saying “Woohoo I’m tall enough to ride this without dad (48” minimum)!”; and this 66 year old was saying “Yay, my ba$$ fits in this swing seat made for kids!”
We finally visited the jellyfish display, which was one of my favorites of the day. My favorite way to see jellyfish…in a tank. Not brushing against me as I dive or snorkel.
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| Upside down jellyfish reflected it a mirror underneath |
By then it was after 2pm and we were starting to fade a little. Or maybe we were just peopled-out. We left the park, Ubered back to the ship (under $25) and stopped in the International Cafe for a light lunch before returning to our cabin. I dressed for another water workout and G chatted with new friends on the Terrsce Deck as I used the pool for an hour. Then we both adjourned to a Deck 16 hot tub to warm up.
By the time we had gotten cleaned up, it was 4:30pm, so we swung into the Elite Lounge in the Vista Lounge and I took a pic of the uncovered windows to show how it really does open up the room. I like it! I also love the food display by Jimber and one other cook from India whose name eludes me. Today the acoustic guitarist was playing some light accompanying sounds and it was really a nice event.
Dinner with Libres and Sulton was fantastic. They are so good to us (all the crew we’ve encountered, which is obviously not many in two days, have been wonderful). I especially like how the dining rooms open at 5pm and the evening’s Princess Theater shows are at 7:30pm and 9:30pm. We are not having to rush through dinner at all. On the Star Princess, the Sanctuary Dining Room opened at 5:30pm and the first show was at 7pm. We were always racing through dinner. I mean, G darn near had to stuff his cheeks full of filet mignon (every night) to chew on while we awaited the start of the shows! 😉
The ship was a little late leaving San Diego and I joked that they were, as a result of the unknown path of Hurricane Polo, still trying to work out where to go. Captain Ravera announced that we were heading south as planned, and he would keep us out of harms way (of course) but I’m not convinced that the remainder of this cruise will follow even the revised itinerary from three days ago. It doesn’t matter. I’m just kind of relieved to have some time to really relax and catch up on sleep (neighbors permitting).
Tonight’s show Princess Theater show was two singers called Cruise Control and they were excellent. However, they were originally supposed to do a soul show and instead did hits of the 80s. I hope we’ll still get to see them in a soul show later (and with three days at sea and heading into Hurricane Polo, anything is possible).
We had just enough energy to spend a little time at Silent Disco (I love that) before sleep was calling us. Well, G slept. I had to write yesterday’s blog post, and tried to make headway on this one, but didn’t get too far before I finally succumbed. I hate falling behind with blog posts but it’s hard not to with two port days immediately following embarkation day. Tomorrow’s goal is to be totally caught up.
