Day 6: At Sea

I’m starting this post at 9:30am, before anything really even happened. I love sea days!!  Actually, we have already had our breakfast in the Sanctuary Restaurant with Somphot and Man (that’s his real name. It’s pronounced Mon and is unrelated to the English word “man” in his native Nepali.). Man sees us coming and runs for our coffees in the morning. (We have to find an ATM  in LA!!)

On another note, before I forget, we received our first laundry submission back after 36 hours, although we had been told it could 72 hours. It’s a good thing, because we are well into “sweaty” weather. There’ll be no re-wearing of T-shirts until we get past Cabo San Lucas!

Second, thank you to Dean for your email providing a link to turn off that darn sleep tracker on my Apple Watch. I don’t need that nonsense in my life!! It’s all fun and games until I have a particularly bad night’s sleep. 

Dr. Engman had warned us during his lecture the day before Aruba that those of us who’ve been attending his lectures (he called us “his people”) needed to know that his lecture today on the history of the Panama Canal was going to be packed and we needed to get to the Princess Arena early to get a seat. It was scheduled for 11am today, and just before it, also in the Princess Arena, was a lecture on the navigational bridge. We always enjoy those, so we went directly from breakfast to get seats for both presentations. 

Third officer Cristian from Romania (no, not cabin steward turned Rooms Division Manager Cristian from Romania) gave an excellent, humorous presentation that we thoroughly enjoyed. I tried to remember a few nuggets of knowledge that he shared with us but all that stuck with me was the existence of four bow theaters and the two rear azipods. 

As predicted, it was SRO for the Panama Canal lecture, and, I suspect  all of Dr. Engman’s subsequent lectures will be popular now that more guests have discovered how good he is. Professorial, yet fun. It’s obvious he has a lifetime of experience keeping hungover frat boys engaged and educated. 

We sat on the Dining Promenade in the sun until the heat forced us to get under cover. Oh baby, it’s going to be toasty tomorrow!  While there, we had a further discussion about the navigational bridge with First Officer Marco from (shocker) Italy. Marco from Italy…could he have grown up to be anything but a Princess Bridge Officer?  He was most generous with his time and filled us in on the 2:30pm briefing that the entire bridge would be attending to plan tomorrow’s canal transit. There will be two pilots coming on board, as well as 16 mooring handlers (8 each front and back), videographers, canal officials and others, since this is the Star’s first Panama Canal transit. 

We had been told by the Future Cruise person on the Emerald Princess that the Star would be the largest cruise ship to ever transit the canal, but I’m not yet convinced that’s right. I’ll try to find out and let you know. It would be nice if it is; when we went through the canal the first time on the Radiance of the Seas in 2002, that was the largest ship at that time to ever transit the original canal locks and we have a great pic of me somewhere in our archives standing on the Promenade Deck and touching the side of the lock. 

The Eatery featured a large seafood buffet today that I don’t believe was advertised anywhere. I just happened upon it, and filled a plate so full that I finally made use of a special feature in the Cronometer food logging app that I’ve used for (checking here) 443 straight days. 

They’ve recently rolled out photo logging so I decided to put it to the test, because, while it’s easy to log my food at home, it gets time consuming on the ship. It did a remarkably good job! I’ll definitely be using this going forward while on the ship. 

What I ate

What it was analyzed as

The heat was finally starting to take its toll, so we spent an hour in the cabin before getting cleaned up for the evening. Our medallions both started acting up today, which was remarkable considering that both of our medallions lasted 52 days straight on the Emerald Princess last winter. Both of them needed to be replaced. G’s actually showed him as being in the cabin when we were in Princess Live. 

The Elite Lounge now has a musician (today a guitarist) for a short while each evening which has certainly improved the experience, but the food seems totally repetitive. I remain unimpressed but G enjoys it. 

I had so much protein at lunch today that I had just a salad tonight (but we did return to the Sanctuary Restaurant for dessert and coffee after the show). 

Tonight’s Princess Arena performance was a trio of male vocalists singling Motown, Soul and even Bruno Mars (no surprise given their name). It was a party from start to finish. I loved it, but tomorrow is a long day and so after our dessert and coffee we did not return for the second show. We’re instead in the cabin listening to it 😉 while I finish this post. 

Thankfully, we move clocks back an hour overnight. I’m not certain how we’ll approach spectating tomorrow. This is my (I think) 7th time through the Panama Canal; G is well over ten. A lot will depend on the heat, humidity and how people-y the public decks feel. Thankfully, we know that in the midday heat, we’ll be in Gatun Lake and will have a bit of a reprieve. 

I can tell by the bass drum that they’re into their last number, Uptown Funk, below us in the Princess Arena. The show will finish up about the same time this post does. Life is good. :-)

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 the 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 American 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 and rotates, too). 

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 later 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. We’re loving this. 

Life is good. :-)

Still trying to resolve the shadow issue, not successfully, obviously. Please be patient.

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.