Day 5: Aruba

A few years ago, I removed all sleep tracking apps from my Apple Watch. I couldn’t handle the pressure of receiving a low sleep score, and then having that score averaged in to my longer term score. It was akin to the pressure of having to ace a final exam to pass a course. Then Apple inserted their own sleep tracking capability into a recent Apple Watch software update. 

Sneaky. 

I don’t like it. Here’s why.

Just to be clear, that’s not a score of 2 out of 10. It’s 2 out of 100. 😳 But I appreciated the reassuring tone. 😉

I got lucky, though. There were some dark clouds and showers this morning when we first got up, so we didn’t feel compelled to rush off the ship to go to a beach. Well, that plus the fact that we’ve been to Aruba about eleventy-dozen times. We planned to have breakfast, wait a couple of hours and go to Eagle Beach.

I had my first avo toast of the cruise today for breakfast (delish) and we then had a seat on the Wake View Terrace before heading up to the area in front of The Dome (the SeaView Terrace) because we were certain it would finally be open today since the ship was in port. And, to be clear, it’s called The Dome, not the Dome or the dome. I’m learning.  

Really good avo toast. Would be $15 at Toastique. At least.

I have missed those 100 shades of blue colors!

Shockingly comfortable seating on the Wake View Terrace

Not quite so comfy seating on the Wake View Terrace

The SeaView Terrace is an expansive area with several levels and its own bar and two hot tubs and the forward portion of that indoor/outdoor pool that extends into The Dome. 

The SeaView bar ooking back at The Dome

Plenty of loungers. Ample. Too bad it’s mostly open only on port days.

These all looked yummy!

We were docked at what is usually a freight dock

We were looking off the back of our ship earlier in the morning and G asked if this wasn’t where the Scientology Fair Winds ship used to be docked. No, we were at the freight dock. Fair Winds is still there, in the same place (in front of the Star). 

Several levels of seating

The inside of The Dome pool was covered for tonight’s aerial show

You can see the wires hanging from the ceiling

We ended up spending most of the day up there. It was just so beautiful that we couldn’t convince ourselves to over-sun on Eagle Beach. Eventually we went back to the Eatery and got some food to take out to the Promenade Dining area to enjoy (I finally learned what that outside area on Deck 9 is called). 

We had a short recharge in the cabin before heading to the Elite Lounge before dinner. I was able to have a nice long catch up with cruise friend Andy, who I hadn’t seen since. Regal TA in October 2024. 

We love our Sanctuary Restaurant dinners, but that venue opens at 5:30pm and tonight’s Princess Arena (I’ve learned it’s the Princess Arena, not the Arena not the arena) show was the first production show of the cruise.  I ate and literally ran to the Princess Arena where, at 6:15pm, the only two remaining non-reserved seats together were on the far right side. A huge number of seats were reserved for Premier package guests. And it wasn’t like on the other ships, where those aren’t even the best seats. These WERE the best seats. We ended up right next to the pyrotechniques, so close that my iPhone camera app kept telling me to clean its lens. 

I was hopeful that this show, Viva La Musica, would rival the Latin show we saw on the Carnival Jubilee, which was my favorite show of that cruise by far. Well, it’s really good, but not quite that good. No dancing horn section here, but it is certainly edgy by Princess standards. It’s definitely not What a Swell Party (remember that one?) The majority of the lyrics were in Spanish, but it was thankfully Spain and Argentinian Spanish  and not that Central American Spanish…whew! (I just forced myself to not listen to that Puerto Rican Spanish.) 😉 

The cast had a definite Latin-urban edge, except for the one Ralph Lauren male model-type with a blond wedge cut, but even he wore a diamond earring to compensate. It was a great show, and I was happy to finally see a production show on that round stage (it actually goes up and down). 

We next ran up to The Dome to get seats for the 9pm performance of the aerial/gymnastic duo Movement Act. This is the show where, a few months ago, the female performer fell to the stage and was badly injured. As luck wouldn’t have it, I was seated next to someone who had witnessed that and heard all the deets. When tonight’s show was stopped once due to a technical difficulty and actually had to end early for the same reason, and a stage hand came flying across the stage to place an air-filled cushion under the performers while they were suspended high in the air, I was about to hyperventilate. It all ended early, but safely. Scary stuff. 

After that it was safe to return to our cabin, as the second performance of Viva Las Musica had finished. 😆 Tomorrow will be another beautiful sea day, with an enrichment lecture on the Panama Canal and a Motown show in the Princess Arena at night. 

Life is good. :-)

Day 4: At Sea

I’m starting this post while sitting in the Princess Arena awaiting the start of tonight’s performance.  G is in the Piazza watching the Captains Celestial Champagne Soirée (or some such something), formally known as the Captains Welcome Aboard Champagne Waterfall. We know that if we wait until that is over to get to the Arena, available seating will be in question. So we divide and conquer.  

We had a slower day today, thankfully, more relaxation and less exploration since we now pretty much know where the major venues are on this ship. We continue to be very impressed, and, frankly, can’t figure out where all the other guests are. This ship disperses the crowds very well. In fact, today we experienced our  first wait for an elevator, meaning we couldn’t fit on the first one that arrived because it filled up. On other ships, that’s normal 10am-on-a-Monday stuff, but here it took being in the en masse exit from Dr. Don Engman’s second lecture of the day. He has become very popular, very quickly. 

So, today…

We made it to breakfast in the Sanctuary Restaurant about 8:30am (no menu pics, it was the same as yesterday) wanting to get to Dr. Engman’s first lecture of the day (the natural history of the Caribbean islands) at 10am. That gave us two hours until his second lecture at 1pm (the natural history of Panama), and we spent some time in a sadly-not-hot tub at the Wake View Pool on the back of Deck 8. Fantastic view though!

After the second enrichment lecture, we really weren’t hungry enough for lunch but we sat on the outside deck of the starboard side of the Eatery while G had a piece of a Detroit-style pizza. Both outside decks (port and starboard) feature a bar and a food venue, burgers and such on port side and pizza on the starboard side and there’s tacos too, but I forget which side they are on. There is also a soda dispenser just inside the Eatery where you can scan your medallion and help yourself. Have I told you that G got the Classic Soda Package for this cruise? It also includes mocktails and that part has brought the usual confusion and erroneous charges but he successfully battles Guest Services when required. 

We were back in the cabin for a clean up before tonight’s formal night and were entertained by the bass drum in the rehearsal for tonight’s show. Our cabin is directly above the Princess Arena, and we knew to expect some periodic noise, but we are generally not back in the cabin until after the second show end and really only hear the rehearsal for shows that are accompanied by the Star Princess show band. 

G wore his tux tonight, and we saw several men in tuxes, dark suits and military uniforms.  Quite surprising, but very nice.  They all looked sharp!

So, naturally, G didn’t stay in his tux long enough to get a pic, but this is for readers who claimed I never posted pics of me. I’m trying to address your concerns. 😉

We ate just a quick dinner in the Sanctuary Restaurant and G went directly to the Celestial Champagne…whatever, and I went to the Princess Arena to get our seats. It was a full house early on. 

The Celestial Champagne Soirée

Something tells me that this is super glued together, but I’m not certain

Tonight’s Princess Arena entertainer was Don Ellis Gatlin, a cousin to the Gatlin Brothers. Absolutely fantastic, and we are loving this theater in the round. We ran up to the Done for a Candlelight concert by Cola Sounds, and then returned to the Princess Arena for Don Ellis Gatlin’s second show, because, as G rightfully pointed out, we were going to hear a portion of it if we were in the cabin anyway. We might as well enjoy it all again. 

Well, he went so off script in his second show that it lasted over 15 minutes longer than the first and was one of the very best guest entertainer shows we’ve seen on Princess. You know, the entertainment on the Emerald Princess in January and February was excellent, too. Is Princess stepping up their game?

Coma Sounds the Dome

Tonight’s movie on MUTS

And, with that, we called an end to another fun day on the Star Princess. Tomorrow:  Aruba for the first time in five years!

Oh, BTW, our European outlet at the vanity was replaced today. Hair dryer worked great in its intended outlet!  

I know this is a lousy scam. I’m having all sorts of issues trying to get these in the cabin because the lighting is so plentiful and bright that my phone casts shadows everywhere. I’m even tried sitting on the toilet and putting the Patter on the bathroom floor to avoid them. I’m not used to this cabin’s lighting, but I’ll keep trying.

Day 3: At Sea

Whew, this was a full day at sea. It is 11pm as I start this post after beginning the day with breakfast at 8, and we slowed down only long enough to charge our phones and take the first showers of the cruise. 

Simply stated:  we were not crazy to take this cruise. In fact, we were very, very wise. If we hadn’t taken a chance and stepped outside our comfort zone, we would never have realized how much we love this ship. Yep, this small ship fan loves this ship. And I am confident of this because I spent the entire day exploring and walking and enjoying and exploring and walking and enjoying. I *think* we’ve covered all of the decks except for the spa area in Deck 6 and Deck 5 (all cabins). I’m pooped tonight!

G slept in a bit, but I went to breakfast in the Sanctuary Restaurant, and, though he did finally join me, it was close to the closing time of 9:30am and we went to the Eatery for him to get an omelet. 

To get to the restaurant, I walked aft on Deck 9 and
entered the upper level of Piazza, with this view.
Nice way to start the day!

We walked up to the Eatery (buffet) and right into Restaurant Manager Mihai from Romania who we hadn’t seen since we spent three months with him on the Ruby Princess in Australia just before COVID. What a pleasant surprise!! We sat out on the outside deck along the starboard side of Deck 9 while G had his breakfast, then explored the Wakeview Pool area on the back of Deck 8. 

We spent the remainder of the morning exploring the upper levels of the ship, including the Dome which had been closed for an event when we tried to see it yesterday. It was the only place that had no loungers available about 11am; the remainder of the pool areas had plenty of empty loungers. 

The outside area at the very front of the ship was closed due to wind, which meant the outside portion of the indoor-outdoor pool was closed off, too. I wonder if it’s ever open while the ship is at sea. 

We went to lunch at 11:30am so I could get to an enrichment lecture at 1pm, but I’m not sure we’ll make a big effort to get to the Sanctuary Restaurant for lunch most days. It was the standard dining room menu with no special items (though I’ve heard they’ll make just about anything you want). 

I swing into Princess Live on the way to the Arena for my lecture, because we’d learned that MTG Joyce, who I’ve hadn’t seen in person in ten years though we stay in touch on Facebook, and also new cruise friends Michael and Zennie who we met on the Emerald Princess were on board and they always do trivias. It was nice to see them all again!  They are first and third most traveled guests (we are fourth this cruise). 

The enrichment lecture on Life in the Tropical Seas was right up my alley. Naturalist James Engman (a retired marine biology professor) is excellent. But the best part was the quality of his slides and the visual quality of the screen in the Arena. It is shockingly good. I have a lifelong vision issue where I don’t see a lot of depth, and this screen was like looking through an old tine Viewmaster (remember those?) that I used for the fun part of my vision therapy when I was a child. It was shockingly good; the fish seemed to swim off the screen. 

More exploring followed, but our phone batteries were exhausted (we’re having to use them constantly to navigate the ship) so we eventually returned to the cabin about 3pm and got cleaned up for the evening. 

I think my very favorite part of the ship has to be the cabin bathrooms. The shower is the best one I’ve ever used on any ship. The storage space, the lighting…it’s all good. The only issue I had was the Drybar hair dryer wouldn’t stay plugged into the European outlet at the desk,  G offered to stand there holding it in the outlet  (really…so sweet) but, while he was doing that, he discovered another one above the refrigerator and that one did work. 

Just two of the several drawers in the cabin hold nearly all my clothes with lots of room to spare. 

We stopped in the Elite Lounge in Princess Live on our way to dinner at 5:30pm. Dinner has already become the highlight of our days.  Waiter Somphot from Thailand and Junior waiter Man from Nepal are so sweet to us, and both nights so far we’ve ordered from the special items, which, if they’re even available in the main dining rooms, would cost extra. I’m betting that G is going to have a filet mignon every single night of this cruise. I opted for the salmon tonight, and it was brought around in a carving station. I added the broccoli I have every night and it was a delicious dinner. 

Restaurant Manager Ray carved me the first piece of salmon coulibiac tonight

We left without dessert and coffee to get to tonight’s Arena performance by Janet Martin, and is there anything that lady can’t do?  She played violin and sang while doing aerial stunts and played guitar and piano. It was an excellent show. 

From there we went back to the Sanctuary Restaurant for cappuccino and G had ice cream, then to Princess Live for comedian Tom Simmons. He was pretty good, really funny at times. 

We went up to the Dome to see what it looked like lit up at night but couldn’t stay awake long enough to attend the after party with the DJ up there. 

This water feature is two stories tall

The loungers in the Dome are heavily padded

It is now midnight, and I’m going to wrap this up. I’ll fix its many, many typos tomorrow morning; right now I can barely keep my eyes open. Fun days wear me out!