Day 13: At Sea

What a fun day this was!  We continue to explore new places or at least do new things in familiar places on this ship. And we continue to always, always enjoy it immensely.  It helps that our weather remains stellar. Not too hot, not humid; it’s much nicer than I’d imagined it would be when we booked this cruise.  I’d pictured a steam room at this time of year.

Somehow we also squeezed in three meals in the Sanctuary Restaurant today. We don’t eat a lot at any one of them, but still…the  transition back to intermittent fasting and two meals a day is going to be a rough one.  To atone, I actually found the fitness center today and biked for 45 minutes. And while I was looking for it (I knew it was on Deck 18, but had to figure out which set of elevators I needed to take to get there - midship), I found the entrance to the Sanctuary Club (Deck 18 aft elevators). 

While wondering around lost, I stepped into the Love by Britto restaurant on Deck 17 aft, and that is one beautiful space. It has expansive views off the back of the ship. I love Britto’s art, have for years, long before Princess had an association with him, so I especially appreciate this decor. 

These charger plates were really pretty!

It took me 12 days to find the fitness center 😉

Not one bit hungry but at least feeling virtuous from my time in the fitness center, I met up with G in the Sanctuary Restaurant where I had some delicious tomato soup, also poured from a pitcher. 

We spent some time around the Lido pools for the first time, listening to the sax music from the SaxWaves Duo. Getting there about 1pm we found several available loungers around the pool, in the sun and shade. That’s largely been true this entire cruise wherever we go, though we do sometimes have to share a lounger for a short while. 

We had a short lie down in the cabin before getting cleaned up for the evening. SaxWaves Duo was playing again on the Wake View Terrace before dinner, and we have really come to love that setting. As for sax music, it’s G’s favorite (his father was a professional saxophonist). That’s why we’re groupies!

We then snuck in the back of the Sanctuary Restaurant and ate a very quick dinner that allowed us to get to the Princess Arena in time to get seats for tonight’s comedy show. We walked in at 6:10pm, 50 minutes early and got the last two seats together in the center section of seats. 

Always a dish of well cooked broccoli with whatever we get for dinner

The audience participation improv section of Doug Funk’s show was harious!!

It was a “2 show night” as guest entertainer Willis White was performing in the Piazza. We settled on a sofa on Deck 9, got a treat from the International Cafe, and waited for his show. I remembered that he had two shows on the Royal…or was it the Emerald…whichever ship we saw him on a few months ago and I was hoping he’d do the same on the Star Princess. We got lucky!

And, finally, I need to mention that Staff Captain Chris told us at the MTG luncheon that this cruise had 500 fewer passengers than normal capacity, which is definitely making the ship seem roomier than it might otherwise be. Add a further 800 kids and it becomes a whole other experience. I would add that putting it in a cold or inclement weather itinerary might snug it up even more.  When I say that there are plenty of empty chairs and loungers…YMMV. 

A few questions/comments I’ve received about our cabin. Yes, it’s small but our inside cabin on the Carnival Jubilee was even smaller and didn’t live nearly as well. Our Star Princess cabin is extremely comfortable.  It even has a third berth which hasn’t been any kind of an issue, except during the first night when the ladder that was stowed up there slid down the wall onto G’s bed. That about gave us a heart attack. Luckily, it didn’t actually hit him, only because the hook end was caught on the side of the frame. But in the middle of the night we were rigging a fix out of a heavy duty twist tie that came off of my curling iron cord. No issues since. 

There is plenty of storage we’re not using, but the hanging clothes space in the closet is rather limited. I’m just using drawers to store most of my clothes and G is using hangers and shelves for his. The live vests are stored in their own narrow closet right next to the cabin door, which keeps them nicely out of the way. 

There is a small bench which serves mostly to accumulate superfluous decorative pillows.

The bathroom, especially the shower and the lighting, is the cabin’s best feature. The shower is large enough to actually dry off before stepping out. It’s going to be tough to go back to a Grand Class shower after this!

Separate shampoo and conditioner products

Tomorrow, we finally reach Mazatlan. I’m happy about that, but am even happier we still have eight days left on this cruise. 

Day 12: At Sea

Today marked the start of the second half of our cruise. Can you believe it?  All the enjoyment we’ve experienced on the Star Princess to date…and we get to do it all again!  What a fantastic cruise this has been!! And we owe it all to that fellow passenger on the Emerald Princess who mentioned it to me passing, and who I never would have encountered if there hadn’t been a family of whales swimming alongside the ship at sunset. Ain’t life funny?!?

You would imagine that we would be up early with that one hour back thing last night, but we didn’t even open our eyes until 8am. Our cabin, except during rehearsals and shows in the Princess Arena, is quiet as a tomb with almost no corridor traffic.  And our mattresses!  And pillows!!! It’s been a very long time since I’ve cruised on a nearly new ship.  Darn, it’s nice!

Today was a brunch day in the Sanctuary Restaurant, and I don’t recall exactly what time we finally arrived there. But I do know that, though I had planned to leave at 11am for Dr. Engman’s enrichment lecture on the Galápagos Islands, I hated rushing off on G (which I seem to do too often) and instead stayed and grazed, and stayed and grazed some more. Those waiters in there- fantastic, every one of them! I told junior waiter Chetan from India that every white haired grandma on the ship was going to fall in love with him. He is just darling. 

We left through the back door and sat out on the Wake View Terrace for quite a while afterwards. It was shaded back there, and so beautiful, although I can’t quite get over that infinity pool. It reminds me of nothing as much as an aquarium, and, now that I’ve seen that, I can’t bring myself to use it again. I am generally happiest with my head and hips underwater, but that pool puts the worst part of me on full, magnified display and ain’t nobody deserves that!

We returned to the cabin just in time to receive a phone call from the ship’s music manager (aka the bass player) who wanted to follow up on my crew chat from yesterday. He acknowledged that the sax player didn’t make it to the Wake View Terrace for his 4pm gig because the rehearsal for Marc Romano’s show ran long, and that the day before that the musician didn’t make it because of concerns about weather, but acknowledged that many of us really enjoy the live music back there and count on events taking place as scheduled. I appreciated his follow up and told him we were looking forward to next time it appears in the Patter. A+ for effort. 

G spent the next hour searching the cabin for socks he swears he brought with him. No luck, so the daily laundry will continue.  In case you’re wondering, the washing machine is a gallon ziploc bag with water and a smidge of laundry detergent we brought from home. It works great!

We were happy to see that Round 1 of the NFL Draft was being shown on MUTS tonight. G started out there at 5:30pm but I knew that tonight’s Sanctuary Restaurant menu featured key lime pie for dessert, and, as much as I love football, I really, really love key lime pie. So I went and had a cobb salad starter followed by key lime pie and then ran up to the MUTS screen to watch the draft. This was my first time watching MUTS on the Star Princess and I was astounded at the quality of the picture, especially after what we watched on the Emerald Princess where we couldn’t even make out the play clock on the screen. 

That sky tonight!

The colors just popped on that screen

G left to go to The Dome for one of tonight’s Captains Circle parties to see a friend we knew would be there, but I stayed to watch the draft. I had dressed very casually, in a skort and a tropical fish T-shirt that has been on almost as many cruises as I have, because I had no intention of going beyond a quick dinner and watching MUTS. Then G texted me a photo that had me abandoning the draft altogether and getting in line for the late Captains Circle party. 

Everyone in line to get into the party was dressed nicely and holding their invitations and then there was me, wind blown and make up-less and Captain Arma must have recognized me after yesterday’s MTG event and took a minute to chat and ask me if I was happy and could they do anything for me and I really just wanted the floor to open up and me to disappear because I knew how disheveled I looked and how inappropriately dressed I was. 

And finally I made it past the line of officers and into The Dome and found G and he pointed behind me and there was Rex!  Rex! Rex from Shorex!  We’ve known Rex for more than 20 years but hadn’t seen him since the Ruby Princess in Australia just prior to COVID shutting down the world. He gave me a huge bear hug and then another and it was like seeing family again after years apart. 

Thank goodness G went to that party tonight!

Oh, and because y’all always want to know:

1. 3203 days (Joyce, of course)
2. 2242 days
3. 1941 days 
4. 1828 days (us)

I would say we need to cruise harder, but, really, I am at the limit of my tolerance as it is. You’re heard of the purpose-driven life?  Lazy days on a ship are not that!

We followed up the party with the 9pm Princess Arena show by cruise director Dan Looney and it was just fantastic. He is such an entertainer, even in his role as CD, but he also spent years in musical theater and in West End shows and is a real talent. His opening was great…he was in the center of the lowered round stage and it was supposed to rise up as the show started but it didn’t work and a stage hand brought out a ladder for him to climb out of the pit and he commented about it being a brand new ship and technology failing. It was harious. (BTW, hard to believe that Mr. Harious is just a month away from being a 2nd Lieutenant). 

Dan snuck in one Frank song, but, what can I say?  He’s so self-deprecatingly darling he made it tolerable. 

 

another Frank Sinatra song bomb on a cruise

We returned to the cabin after the show to find room Service had delivered two more slices of key lime pie which never made it into the fridge tonight. They made a delicious late night snack!

#spoiled

One more sea day until we arrived in Mazatlan. I really wish this could last forever.