Day 9: At Sea

We were actually awakened by the sun shining in our cabin this morning. G slid the balcony door open a foot or so, and, instead of the rush of cold air we’d experienced earlier in the cruise, it was nearly the same temperature as our cabin. However, for the remainder of the day, the weather was changeable, with frequent rain showers and short glimpses of sun. The forecast for tomorrow in Barcelona calls for rain showers...but then, that was the forecast for Gibralter yesterday, and the weather there was perfect. 

G sped off to breakfast somewhere, but I took a few minutes to finish yesterday’s blog post and publish it. I could only let that slide because today was a sea day, but I mustn’t get complacent about keeping my posts up to date. It was late enough by the time I finished that I skipped breakfast altogether, and instead waited to join G for the British Pub Lunch.  It was held in the Savoy Dining Room on Deck 5 Port side, and lunch was served by the friendliest bar waiters anywhere. Sometimes they can be a bit surly when they’re turned into lunch waiters, but not so today. We had a wonderful time...and I even ate fish and chips!

Afterward, we returned to the cabin to start to build G’s entry in the Egg Drop Contest. This is always huge fun, and, from G’s perspective, to build an apparatus that will protect the egg when it lands on the marble floor of the Piazza from two stories above is secondary to creating a spectacle. Once again, he managed to do both. He didn’t have a New Years Eve whistle to stick in the deflating balloon, so we used a half Euro coin in the neck of the balloon and it worked perfectly. His prize was a Princess string bag filled with lots of things we won’t have room to take home with us.

We headed to a hot tub afterward, and I have to say again how pleased we are that all eight of them on this ship are open and hot and bubbling. Even the pools I’ve been in so far (the covered Calypso Pool and the Neptunes Pool) are warm and comfortable. If this lasts, this ship will be perfect in the heat of Southeast Asia. 

Then it was time for formal night #2 of the season.  I’m very happy we managed to fit G’s tuxedo in his suitcase. It’s obvious to me that he would not have been happy with any less on formal nights. My guy likes to dress up!  I had veggies in rice paper wraps and lobster with steamed veggies for dinner. And have I mentioned the different lactose-free dessert that is available every night? Tonight’s dessert was a blueberry crumble.  It’s wonderful to have a choice beyond sorbet or a fruit plate. 

We attended the second Captains Circle party scheduled at 7pm tonight, as both the first and second Most Traveled Guests were at the first party, and it’s nice to have at least one of the top three couples at each party. We were shocked to be the third most traveled on this cruise (these long cruises attract avid cruisers), and invited new friends JoJo and Tony to be our guests at the party. (Princess days for the top three were from about 1150 to 1031).  From there we went to the Explorers Lounge to listen to party band Atomic do an ABBA set (they are really, really good!), and then stayed for a game show called something like the Differences between how Men and Women Think, only because it was led by CD Paul and he is always amusing. It turned out to be more thought provoking than funny but was still a good time. 

With still more energy left, we went to the 10:15pm production show Do You Wanna Dance in the Princess Theater. It was actually 50 minutes long and contained some songs we’d not previously seen in the same show on other ships. We swung by the Wheelhouse Bar to listen to the duo there for a short time, and then decided we were more tired than hungry and skipped the International Cafe tonight. At midnight, we’re finally back in the cabin for the first time in almost seven hours. 

We’ve decided Barcelona on a Sunday is a “no alarm clock” port. We will sleep until we wake up naturally, enjoy a leisurely breakfast and see what the weather is. We have one plan for a dry day and another for a soggy day, but both are very flexible and undemanding. This season is a marathon, and we’re pacing ourselves. 

Day 8: Gibraltar

If I had a nickel for each email I received this morning, commenting on what a hot mess last night’s post was when I originally published it…well, I’d have 45 cents. ;-) Add 25 cents for each joking suggestion that perhaps I had taken up drinking again and I’d have $1.25. It’s absolutely true. I kept falling sleep, mid-paragraph, mid-sentence and, finally, mid-word last night. I don’t think I’ve ever had to spend as much time straightening out errant autocorrections as I did this morning. 

It is just minutes before midnight now, and G and I are still sitting in the International Café having a cappuccino. If I tried to write a post tonight, I fear I’d have much the same outcome. So I will post this as a placeholder and write about our day in Gibraltar, tonight’s folkloric show and the Backbeat Beatles party on deck…tomorrow morning.

More later!

Ok, it is just after 9am now, and we have just started to stir (and, in fact, we moved clocks an hour back last night, so I had a wonderful night’s rest). The sun is shining brightly and, for the first time this cruise, we have the balcony door open for a few minutes to let in some fresh air.  It’s finally warm enough to do that; what a beautiful morning!

The weather yesterday in Gibraltar was just as nice. Though it started out chilly, it warmed to around 80F by the afternoon. We didn’t arrive in Gibraltar until noon yesterday, and, though the ship was in port until 10pm, we knew we wanted to be on board for last night’s dinner (surf and turf for G and pad Thai for me). so we spent part of the morning trying to figure out what to do with only a few hours in port. You might remember that we were just in Gibraltar less than two years ago, and we really saw the city that day, doing all the typical first time things (click on the Gibraltar label on my blog, or search on Gibraltar to find that post). Although G would have been happy to see the monkeys on top of the Rock again, we didn’t think it was worth about $25pp to do so. 

Instead, we walked to the bus terminal just outside of Casemates Square and caught a #5 bus to the Gibraltar airport which is right on the border with Spain. The airport runway is one which is crossed by a road connecting Gibraltar and a small border town in Spain, and it’s rather unique to just drive right across an active runway. Barriers similar to those at a railroad crossing are lowered when an aircraft takes off or lands.  Once on the other side of the runway, we disembarked the bus and walked through immigration into Spain. Actually, I should say we walked through a small immigration building in Gibraltar, then another in Spain and we were there. These were not manned, and no one checked our passports. It was definitely an open border!

We walked down the road a bit until we came to a restaurant with outdoor seating and had a light lunch. Then we backtracked and walked through Spain immigration on the other side of the road (unmanned) and through Gibraltar immigration where we finally saw an immigration officer and were asked to show our passports. We still didn’t receive a passport stamp, though. We’ve used these (relatively) new passports to visit 10 countries so far and have yet to receive the first stamp (though they do have two visas for countries we’ll visit this trip). I miss passport stamps!

The Rock of Gibraltar 

Moorish Castle

We crossed the runway on foot this time, and, as it was around 4pm by then, we saw a line of construction workers who live in Spain but who are working on the many building projects in Gibraltar walking across the runway on their way home. Only about 30,000 people actually live in Gibraltar, and it’s obvious that many of its workers come across that border twice a day for their jobs. Once on the other side, we boarded a public bus that traveled south down to Europa Point, home to Harding’s Battery, where we had spent some time on our last visit.  Gibraltar is only 2.5 square miles; none of these sites is very far apart from any other. And then we returned to the port, stopping in a small drug store to pick up an item we needed along the way. 

So the day wasn’t very taxing, which is good, because, as I mentioned at the start of this post yesterday, we had a late night planned. We had just enough time to do a quick clean up for dinner and went to the International Dining Room, which was half empty because of our late stay in port. And, with a few minutes to spare, we sat in loungers on the Promenade Deck watching the beautiful lights of Gibraltar reflected in the water. At 8pm, there was a special folkloric show in the Princess Theater performed by a local Flamenco dance group called Contre Amigos (among friends) and they were just spectacular.  Three women, a man, a singer/percussionist and a guitarist...their staccato precision steps kept us mesmerized for nearly an hour. I am so glad Princess brings that kind of cultural entertainment on board during our late night stays, and it led me to wonder if we’ll see the great show we saw two years ago when we overnight in Venice. I hope so!

Gibraltar after dark

Flamenco dancer 

The band Backbeat Beatles was performing around the Neptune (outdoor, mid-ship) pool for sail away at 10pm, and, though it was a bit nippy by then, it wasn’t too cold if one was covered with a blanket or up dancing, so we chose to dance, and they performed for over an hour. It was basically a huge sing along, as they performed one after another of the Beatles best songs. The ship’s horn sounded and the Sapphire Princess slowly left Gibraltar behind and sailed into the Mediterranean Sea. 

Once that party was over, G was convinced he was still hungry, so we went to the International Cafe and enjoyed coffees (decaf, of course!). And G ate a piece of pineapple upside down cake (one of his favorites) and a ham and cheese croissant and we chatted with a fellow guest who lives in London until after midnight. It had been a wonderful day, and a relaxing one, too.

Today is our last day at sea until we are on the Norwegian Spirit, next Friday. And that will be our last day at sea for ten more days. The pace is picking up; we’re up for the challenge, though my blog posts might get shorter and more delayed as we go along. 

Day 7: Lisbon, Portugal

It is after 10pm as I type these first words, and we move clocks ahead an hour overnight, so this kind of day always presents a quandary:  so much to write about, so little time to write it. So I’ll start with a summary and fill in the details until I fall asleep and my iPad slips and hits me in the nose. 

The summary is...we had the BEST day!!

It didn’t start out very ambitiously, and I was initially afraid that the day would be a bust. I was up by 6pm, awakened by an alarm clock that didn’t cause my husband to even stir. I slipped out of the cabin and went to the Horizon Court Buffet for a breakfast of oatmeal and fresh melon (which, by the way, has been exceptionally tasty). I kept my phone on (the local system was Vodafone, and the data speed was awful but texting worked fine) in case G was looking for me, but my phone was quiet. I returned to the cabin to find him still sleeping, so naturally I laid down again and slept for another hour. Eventually I awoke and took care of some paperwork (disembarkation form, if you can believe that, and Captains Circle Party RSVP) and walked around the ship a bit, which is fun to do when everyone is off in a port, and eventually I picked up two danishes and a vanilla latte for G and took it to him in the cabin, and finally he came alive. 

I think last night’s Most Traveled Guest cocktail party did him in.  He partied a bit too much!

It was nearly noon when we finally walked off the ship.  This was our first time ever in Lisbon, and all on board time was 3:30pm, so we had some serious sightseeing to do, and quickly. In this situation, there is only one thing to do: we hired taxi driver Sousa for three hours for €100 and got a wonderful tour of old town Lisbon (the Alfama), Downtown Lisbon (the Baixa) and Belem, the launching point for early Portuguese explorers. Sousa spoke perfect English, had a nice car and was patient with us at photo stops (because we like to take a lot!) and by the time we parted company, we knew all about Lisbon and Belem AND his three sons, ages 27, 24 and 17 and his 14-month old grandson Francesco (and we saw photos of all of them, too!). 

Our first impression of Lisbon is that it felt a lot like Naples, but much cleaner. We didn’t see a single piece of trash anywhere today. But it’s hilly like Naples, with very narrow cobblestone streets in the Alfama area, and lots of red-roofed buildings. The Alfama area had a devastating 8.5 to 9.0 earthquake in 1755 and the city quickly rebuilt in the Baroque style, so there is some homogeneity among the buildings. Our first stop was Miradouro de Nossa Senhora Del Monte (Lookout of our Lady of the Mountain) with its expansive views of the Castle of St. George, Lisbon and the port.

We loved this table and chairs set on an sloping sidewalk!

We next visited the 17th century church of Santa Engrácia which, in the 20th century, was turned into the National Pantheon, where several Portuguese dignitaries are interred.  Finally we visited the Se Cathedral, and with its barrel ceiling, many naves and large stained glass windows, it was stunning. 

Se Cathedral of Lisbon 

We left Alfama and drove to Baixa, home to the central business district with its wide, orderly streets, green spaces and large squares.

Praça Don Pedro II

On the outskirts of this area was a long 2000 year old Roman aqueduct that just floored me.  It is currently used as a trail for walkers and runners and I can’t imagine doing that. If we ever return to Lisbon, that’s #1 on my list of to do’s. 

The Belem area featured the UNESCO World Heritage sight of the Jeronimos Monastery. The naves and stained glass windows in this one were more stunning even than what was in the Se Cathedral. 

Inside the Jeronimos Monstery

From there it was a fairly close distance to Belem Tower. It was built on the bank of the Tagus River in the early 16th century to defend the city from attacks by water. The Monument of the Discoveries is shaped like the prow of a sailing ship; it commemorates Portugal’s great explorers including Vasco de Gama who “discovered” Brazil.

Belém Tower

Monument of the Discoveries

We returned to the ship, driving by the large commercial square, one of the largest in Europe. 

Sousa also stopped with us at an ATM for me to get more Euros. We’re now all set for awhile. I always prefer to go to an ATM when I’m in a taxi and not simply walking back to the ship. 

Scenes from sail away:

The Pathenon

Praça de Commércio


25 de Abril Bridge, the longest suspension bridge in Europe


Belém Tower

We walked back onto the ship at 3:32pm, late only because we where held up by others also returning at the last minute. Go us!  We were famished but more dirty, so we showered first and then went for a hot tub soak.  We have a hot tub clache thing going on there.  We cut it short just to get cleaned up for our other discussion group ;-) located in Skywalkers during the PES Lounge. G ate lots of fresh veggies with dressing (he calls it his dinner salad) and started on a beer. But we arrived in the International Dining Room still hungry for dinner, and I ordered four courses without stressing about it; they were mostly seafood with a spinach salad and everything was yummy. 

We were quite excited to see a new (to us) show called the BackBeat Beatles, and we were dancing in the aisles by the end of their show. They’ll play again tomorrow night for the outdoor pool party; that the next day is a sea day means we might get to go. 

We then went down to  Club Fusion for Princess’ Oktoberfest. Cruise Director Paul Chandler is a harious comedian and he kept the party going so well with his never faltering fake German accent and his quick wit. We danced and sang and it was a great good time. (Mom, Gramma would have won the award for best polka dancer, for sure!)

And that is how it came to be 1:20am the new time and I am still finishing this up. I will end it now, and correct its many errors tomorrow. 

Day 6: At Sea

I promised I would talk about the Sapphire Princess today, and I’m going to do it early, so that time doesn’t get away from me again. It’s only 9:30am, but I’ll back up just a bit and then move right into that discussion and work on this post throughout the day.  If it ends up feeling a little time warped, that’s the reason.

Despite our late night, I was up fairly early.  Although I didn’t hear room service knock on the door at 6:30am, I did hear G answer it and bring in our coffees.  He fell back asleep and I didn’t.  Instead I put on my swimsuit and soaked in a hot tub in the covered Calypso pool area, and then alternated between that and the pool for over an hour. The sun was shining brightly, but the air temp was quite chilly, just 51F this morning.  We have had extremely calm seas the whole way so far, and, frankly, if it wasn’t for the constant low hum of the ship’s engines, I would think we were on land.  

I guess that is a good enough segue to offer some impressions about the Sapphire Princess. I mentioned that I was on the ship in its inaugural season, and remembered it was beautiful, but most ships are beautiful in those early years. It’s obvious now, 14 years later, that the ship has been meticulously maintained. Everything still looks like new in the public acreas, and our cabin is in very respectable condition. The carpeting throughout the ship is gorgeous, large, flat panel screens with deck plans and advertising are on walls in the public areas around the ship, and, as we anticipated based on information on Cruise Critic, the cabins have all been fitted with very large (42”?) flat panel TVs with extensive on demand programming. How nice is that?  I’ve been hearing about the new on demand TV system for a few years, but only experienced it for 5 days on our one Royal Princess cruise. I think it has spoiled us for any other kind of TVs at sea. . 

The ship has the new Princess mattresses and bedding. I’ve made my peace with the mattresses; they’re softer than I would prefer, but, as long as they’re not broken in too much, I can tolerate them.  What we’ve tried (and tried, and...) to tolerate, but can’t, are the linens.  We’ve slept soundly so far on this cruise, with minimum tossing and turning, and despite that, we awaken every morning with our top sheet one direction, and our duvet pulled out of that ridiculous topper with a pocket at the top.  This means we’re touching a comforter that does not get laundered between passengers, not a pleasant thing to think about. Like last year, beginning tonight, we are going to sleep on top of the whole mess and loosely cover up with a freshly washed blanket. 

Naturally, having Generoso as Maitre d’ and Godwin as Assistant Maitre d’ (we caught up with him in the Horizon Court Buffet after we returned from Paris), aka The Dream Team, means that the on board dining service is impeccable.  Crissy Reid from South Africa is the Captains Circle host, and she has long been a favorite. And, as I’ve previously mentioned, it’s always wonderful to see some familiar faces among the crew. All in all, we’re extremely happy on board, and are especially happy that we’ll be returning to the ship on November 28 (and, G would add, not doing the repositioning cruise with all the sea days). 

We have booked a cabin on Lido Deck for the Southeast Asia cruises.  Actually, we had booked that cabin for the repositioning cruise, too, but it was unavailable for this first cruise, and our favorite cabins on the back of Aloha Deck were not available for all the cruises either.  So we had resigned ourselves to moving one time, after this current cruise, and marked this cruise’s booking as receptive to an upgrade. Quite a few months ago Princess called offering us a balcony cabin on Aloha Deck “because we know how much you like that area of the ship”. That was rather unusual, but, yes, please, we’ll take it. And it’s been nice, although we have not really had balcony weather until this evening. We’ve only really been out there for sailaway from Southampton (we arrived in Le Havre and left in total darkness) and tonight’s sunset. And our opinion is unchanged...the space in a balcony cabin is not as well utilized as in an inside cabin made up with two twin beds. This layout is much more cumbersome. I feel like I have about 18” of space on my side of the bed in which to dress and put on shoes; two of us in the space by the vanity, with that superfluous barrel chair and round table, is just too crowded. When we were on the balcony at sailaway, it was noisy and echoing and we heard our neighbors on each side and below too well.  I would always book a balcony in Alaska, but for most other cruises, a well located inside or ocean view cabin is still our favorite. 

We spent some time after lunch today (International Dining Room, Greek salad without feta cheese) walking the upper decks of the ship from forward to aft. This ship, in my opinion, is the best of the quasi-Grand Class ships.  It fixed the errors of the three original Grand Class ships (especially Skywalkers as a shopping cart handle), but kept what worked well (such as the covered Calypso Pool area). And it doesn’t contain the extra 500 passengers of the Caribbean, Emerald, Ruby and Crown. There is an abundance of deck chairs and pools and all the hot tubs are open and are actually hot. I think it’s accurate to say that this ship may be our favorite larger Princess ship. 

I spent the rest of the afternoon watching the pre-recorded destination lectures for Lisbon and Gibralter on TV and reviewing some information for those ports I had downloaded on my iPad before we left home.  G went to the Grapevine Wine Tasting and held down a hot tub (to date, I’d spent more time in one than he had, which is a real shocker). I also packed a day bag for tomorrow in Lisbon, as we had a busy evening planned and we arrive in that city at 7am tomorrow. 

For the first time this cruise, we went to the Platinum, Elite and Suite (PES) Lounge held in Skywalkers from 5pm to 7pm...except it wasn’t held in Skywalkers tonight because they were preparing that venue for the Most Traveled Guest Party.  Instead we were directed down to Club Fusion (we really need to pay more attention to the paperwork we get on the first day of each cruise, because I’m sure that change was pointed out in it). The PES Lounge doesn’t hold as much appeal for me since I no longer drink alcohol, and, with dinner at 5:30pm, we hardly need to eat at 5pm, but we have already met new friends on board and it’s a nice place to get together for a chat. 

Just one of the reasons we cruise

We ate lightly at dinner (I had just a seafood soup in a broth base), because the Most Traveled Guest cocktail party began at 7pm. We had never before met our Finnish captain, Heikki Laakkonen, nor any of the other senior officers either, for that matter, and the cocktail party is my favorite way to get to talk with several of them and our fellow guests. As always, the hors doerves that were served were out of this world, and I was glad I saved some appetite for the party. 

We had tentative plans afterward to go to comedian Jeff Stevenson’s show in the Explorers Lounge at 8:15pm, and then vocalist Peter Horwarth’s 10:15pm show in the Princess Theater, but, as always, we stayed and chatted after the party until nearly 10pm. I am in bed with contacts out and an alarm set for 5:30am. G decided at the last minute to go to the show in the Princess Theater. We’ll have a long day of sightseeing tomorrow, and, even with less sleep, he’ll outrun me ten times over. 

Life is good, but not quite fair. ;-)

Day 5: At Sea

Do you recall when I said we like sea days, but only occasionally and only when we’ve exhausted ourselves after several port or travel days?  Well, this was one of those sea days of which we can be quite fond. We started the day last night by ordering breakfast room service on the Princess@Sea intranet website. We never order room service, and we never bring food back to the cabin to eat, so this was a real break with tradition and an even bigger treat because of it. 

The alarm was turned off and, for the first time in weeks, we had nothing we had to race out of bed to do. The knowledge of this fact alone made for a good night's sleep; add to it our exhaustion after all our recent busy-ness and I slept until nearly 8am. I looked around the cabin to see if room service had been delivered (I hadn’t heard a thing), and, sure enough, it was sitting there on the vanity. G must have let them in, eaten part of a pastry and a few slices of orange and fallen back asleep. 

I’ll interject here that we do have kettles and packets of instant coffee in each cabin. Our room steward, Soupe from Thailand, told us they will be removed after this cruise, and only put back in the cabins when the Sapphire returns to Southampton next spring. I know the Brits love their kettles in the cabin and apparently Princess does too.  My point in mentioning this now is that I ordered only hot water and herbal tea from room service for breakfast, so I could easily have just used the decaf coffee that was already in the cabin or a few of the tea bags I brought from home. But since G wanted some food, too, the order was placed. 

Once awake, I lingered in bed even longer, reading Rick Steves” Mediterranean Cruise Ports book on my iPad (I had downloaded our local library’s copy  using the Overdrive app just before we left). G raced out of the cabin to sign up for the Egg Drop Challenge later in the cruise (I could tell he’d been thinking about that one since we did it on the Golden Princess in January), and I did eventually officially start my day, but I had warned G that these were going to be two days of relaxation and rebuilding for me, and stuck to my guns. I’ll be getting plenty of walking in ports (16000 steps yesterday, despite six hours sitting on a bus!); no need to be walking on the ship, and, though it wouldn’t hurt for me to do some strength training in the fitness center occasionally, it will be done on a whim, not planned into my days. In other words, sea days are going to be days of rest that allow me to get through our many port days. 

I spent most of the rest of the morning figuring out where things were in this cabin. I had unpacked in such a rush Sunday, and only managed to squeeze it in before the muster drill because that had been delayed, but nothing was logically put away. The problem was that I had liquid toiletries I’d packed and liquid toiletries in my carry on that I used in London, and the same for dry toiletries, so I had two of some things out to be used, and none of other things, and still hadn’t found the Bose noise cancelling headphones I’d used on our flight to London. Those were not cheap, and I needed to hunt them down. They were eventually found, as was everything else I was searching for, and I feel more settled as a result. 

Something caught us off guard yesterday. Word went around that we needed to take our passports or a copy of our passports ashore with us in Le Havre. We never take our passports ashore, particularly not in pickpocket-prone areas. And we did have color copies of our passports...but do you think we could find them?  No, we could not. So we walked off with our actual passports, mine in a money belt around my middle. That’s why, when we were approached by those miscreants on the Pont Alexandre III, I was far more irritated than worried that they might actually steal something from us. Today I gathered up the passport copies so we’ll have them for our other ports. And also today, we did find something in writing in our cabin telling us we’d need our passports or passport copies ashore. It’s just that we had not had the chance to read that before we arrived in our first port. 

Remember what I said about a starter’s pistol?  Yeah, it’s been exactly like that until today. 

I met up with G for lunch in the International Dining Room.  Actually, I first went to the midship dining room on Deck 6, as that is where lunch is usually served on sea days, but there was  a garage sale taking place in there. So I walked down to the midship dining room on Deck 5 but that wasn’t open. (Honestly, I’m not even certain right now what the names of those dining rooms are. I know there’s the Santa Fe and Savoy and the Pacific Moon, but the fourth name eludes me and I couldn’t say which is which.)  That took me up to Guest Services to get a Patter so I could see where lunch was being served, and that was the first time since we boarded that I’d actually held a Patter in my hand. Talk about playing catch up!  It turns out that the dining room breakfasts and lunches are being served in the International Dining Room on Deck 6 aft, the same one in which we have dinner. So it was up to Deck 7, then back to the aft stairs and down to Deck 6 and the International Dining Room. I’ll get the hang of this cruising thing eventually. I think it might be easier if I had never before cruised on a Princess ship, because I would be much more attentive to the whats and wheres.  Instead I’m just going on instinct, which is letting me down. 

Lunch was chatty, with a couple from Reno and another from Western Australia. I had special ordered the grilled veggies starter but without the sliced deli meat it usually included. They breaded some calamari for me specially with no dairy and I added some gazpacho and it was a delicious meal. I returned to the cabin to start this post (I love it when I can do that on sea days!) and G went off to do...something. We met back up for the BIG!!!!!! $1000 Treasure Hunt Drawing*!!! (*must be present to win), held in Club Fusion at 3:15pm and, naturally, won NOTHING.  Oh, I bet that’s where G went, around to the various departments to get those stamps on the entry forms. Then it was hot tub time, pool time, formal night clean up and dinner at 5:30pm in the International Dining Room (give me a second to set up that keyboard shortcut, because typing that out every time is already starting to get old). 

Headwaiter Adrian from Romania is being very attentive to my dietary requirements. Since I know to avoid meat, but I will eat some fish, he told me to ask for items to be made lactose free during breakfasts and lunches when he is not with me, and that has worked a charm. Tonight I had a fruit starter, a salad and shrimp Diablo that actually had some kind of creamy sauce on it, but it was vegan friendly and delicious. Then for dessert, I was surprised with a slice of fruit pie with a vegan crust and whipped topping. I’m so glad someone knows how to make these things!

The Captain’s Welcome Aboard Party and Champagne Waterfall started at 7pm, and we stayed for a few minutes talking with junior officers from Guest Services and then we made tracks to the Princess Theater for tonight’s production show, Bravo. Well bravo for Bravo!  I think this was one of our top three favorite productions shows we’ve seen on Princess. As we were delivering a much-deserved standing ovation at the end, I was thinking, “I’ve got to see this again at 10pm”.  As soon as the curtain fell, G turned to me and said, “I’ve got to see this again at 10pm”.  And we did, and I can’t remember the last time we did that on a cruise. What a great show!

Afterward, we stopped by the International Cafe for late night decaf cappuccinos, which were made by none other than Andrea, one of our favorite bartenders on the Pacific Princess. And as we walked to the elevator afterward, we ran into Food and Beverage Manager Melldon, who we’ve known for years. We never count on seeing familiar faces on board, but somehow we always do. And we’ve seen two couples we know from prior years’ cruises, too. It’s a fun part of cruising. 

I know I said I’d have some comments about our cabin upgrade and the Sapphire Princess in general, but it is 12:19pm, and I think I need to end this here. I’ll do more catch up tomorrow, which is another sea day. 

We don’t like them until we need them. And then they’re the best. ;-)