Day 11: At Sea

I never realized just how far a ship has to travel to go from the Panama Canal to Mazatlan. Five days at sea; that’s like an Atlantic crossing, or cruising to Hawaii from California. Fortunately, our weather has been perfection, and were it not for occasional dolphin and sea turtle sightings, we wouldn’t even know we were at sea. 

So today was the third of those five sea days in a row, and we have fallen into a relaxing rhythm where we try to get sleep, food and sun in the right, and moderate quantities. To that end, we skipped breakfast altogether, and I attended Dr. Engman’s morning lecture on bioluminescence (but not his afternoon lecture on caves, because I’m definitely not a fan of caves). 

G and I met up in the Sanctuary Restaurant for lunch, and then changed into swimwear and spent the afternoon on the Sea View Terrace until it was time to get cleaned up for the evening. It was formal night, but we just weren’t feeling it. Looking around as I sit in the Piazza awaiting a 7pm show, it appears most people weren’t feeling it tonight, though I see a handful of formals and tuxes. You do you!

We were excited to be on the Wake View Terrace at 4pm to listen to the show band’s saxophonist, but he was a no show (as was a musician yesterday at the same place and time) which irritated me enough to fire off a crew chat. However, guitarist Kali J did show up at 5pm as scheduled and played some mellow, bluesy tunes, and that was just heaven. 

Can’t imagine a better to enjoy a pre-dinner…mojito flavored water!

At 5:30pm we snuck in the back of the Sanctuary Restaurant where G ate fast and I dawdled over dinner. He left to go to the 6:15pm Captains Circle party in The Dome, but if I’m not in the top three and thereby contractually obligated to attend…I don’t. 

Broth based soups are served with the solids already in the bowl and the broth poured on at the table. This has led G to believe we need to do this at home, too. Oh yeah, let me get that old Tupperware kool-aid pitcher we’ve repurposed for deck plant watering and fertilizing and use that to serve our Progresso minestrone. 

Instead I went to the Piazza for the 7pm performance by Italian vocalist Marco Romano, back with a different show. The beauty of being a solo is that you can slip in just before the show starts and get a great seat. And I did! And it was a fantastic show, even better than his first performance in the Princess Arena two days ago. 

As soon as that show ended, I headed toward the Princess Arena where I was joined by G and we sat holding our seats for nearly an hour for the second theatrical show of the cruise, called Meridian. This is not a protection show in the Bravo, Magic To Do, Rock Opera style. This stage in the round provides the opportunity for a different type of show. And this sure was. Reviews were generally mixed but I have to give huge props for set and costume design. 

These curly bangs had me in stitches

The stage goes round and round and up and down…a lot!
If you’ve got it, flaunt it, I guess. 

And that was the end of our day. I picked up a meringue cookie from the International Cafe (my first time getting food there) since I skipped an entree and dessert at dinner and am wrapping this post up by 10:30pm, which will be 9:30pm after we move clocks back an hour tonight. That’s a record. Go me!

Finally, I took a few cabin photos without socks and underwear on our clothesline today. I’ll get some tomorrow of the bathroom. 

Not sure if I posted these drawer pics yet. They are very roomy.

But the nightstand drawers are tiny, one quart sized ziploc wide.

Day 10: At Sea

I need to start tonight’s post with a couple of corrections, and sorry for my shoddy reporting. I’ll try harder going forward. 😆

Gail emailed me pointing out that what I reported as being aft suites on the ship (photo posted on Panama Canal day) are actually the aft stairwells. There are no aft suites on this ship. We finally realized this yesterday when we were investigating the inside cabins on the back of the ship on Decks 17 and 15, but I neglected make the correction. Thank you Gail!

We were considering the merits of booking one of those few aft inside cabins vs the inside cabins that are forward of the mid ship elevators. We’ve spent so much time on the Dining Promenade on Deck 9 that we thought those aft cabins would be convenient. They would be…but Deck 9 is really convenient to everything too. 

The second correction is that the Sea View Terrace at the front of the ship not necessarily closed off just because the sliding doors between there and The Dome are roped off. They were roped off today but we were able to go around the outside from Deck 17 and that area and the Sea View Bar were wide open. In fact, we watched the sunset from up there. 

We’re continuing to learn new things every day!

I appreciate all your emails!  Half of you are shocked that we’re even on this ship (same) and the other half are shocked that we like it so much (same again!). I did take a gander at the current blog stats. 10K+ views daily!  Good grief, I really should proofread before hitting PUBLISH each night, shouldn’t I? Thanks for being here!  Thanks for being tolerant!

So, today…

It was MTG luncheon day, and that pretty much ruins me for anything productive either before or after. I didn’t want to eat anything this morning, and the way to do that is to just sleep in, so that is what I did. I was truly hungry (a nice feeling) when we went to The Catch by Rudi at noon. 

As fourth most travelled (that’s the “sister in law of the groom” bridesmaid position, or the “cousin handing at out programs at the back of the church” position) we were seated with Staff Captain Chris from the UK and he was a delight, as were our table mates. Once again, we were the last to leave. But the real thrill was when we saw waiter Romeo who we’ve known for 20 years and who was on the Emerald Princess and Pacific Princess with us for entire winter seasons. We hadn’t seen him for ten years at least and what a reunion that was. These wonderful people are simply unforgettable. 

I didn’t want to have to shower again before dinner, so I read and watched videos this afternoon and we were on the Sea View Terrace for a beautiful sunset tonight just after 6pm. 

We weren’t yet hungry, and decided to go to the 7pm Princess Arena show by vocalist Willis White performing Lionel Ritchie and Commodores songs. We had seen him at least once previously during our winter cruises. He is fantastic!

By then, it was 8pm and we were starting to feel a tad peckish. We went to the Sanctuary Restaurant where I had just oysters Rockefeller and a coffee, and G had an entree. It had been a big food day; moderation is called for tomorrow!

The 9pm Princess Arena show is underway, but the bass sound is currently being drowned out by an unhappy toddler two cabins down. I think she’s the only young child on the ship, but she’s making herself known tonight. ATWEP!!

Before I close this, I should mention that laundry is now taking 60 hours to be returned. I’ve received requests for cabin pics, but it looks a bit like a laundry in here as we hand launder at least a couple of items every day. If we can hide the unmentionables, I get some pics. 

Day 9: At Sea

I am starting this while sitting at dinner. We are, thankfully, not at all rushed tonight (going to the 9pm show tonight with nothing firm on our schedule until Silent Disco at 8pm). G noticed in the Medallion app that “shipmate friend” Pratad who he’s met on prior cruises is dining alone just one deck down in the Celestial Dining Room so he ran down to say hi while we are waiting for our food. He simply can’t sit still very well, but, thankfully,  I do it well enough for both of us. 

Today was a brunch day in the Sanctuary Restaurant, and, now that we know the routine, we didn’t go until after 9am. I had my usual watermelon and feta and a delicious salmon frittata, but I am definitely scaling back in the eating department and only made it through half of it. Delicious!  I think this is the same menu as two days ago, but, just in case, here it is again. 

Dr. Engman’s 10am enrichment lecture topic was about corals, one of my favorite things in the world, then he (and we) had a one hour break before he spoke at noon on ocean mammals. 

The schedule for the rest of the afternoon opened up then, and we sat on the Wake View Terrace discussing this ship and plans for cruising on it again. As a result, we ended up booking six cruises going out through November 2027. Think we like it? We’ve been on the ship for a week now, and have spent a lot of time analyzing how we “live” and where we spend our time, and after all that, we decided to again book on Deck 9…just not so far forward as to be directly above the speakers on the ceiling of the Princess Arena!

We are now actually double booked for next fall, with cruises we have had booked for well over a year that I was really looking forward to, and now the Star Princess. Which way we go really depends on how we’re feeling at final payment time. They’re entirely different types of ships and itineraries. 

As a collective group, we passengers are getting more colorful by the day. The sun is bright. And hot. And burning. I’m pretty careful and even I’m getting pink. What I would have given for this weather on our last Hawaii cruise!

I keep discovering new places on this ship. There is a seawalk in the Piazza sphere. Who knew?

Today’s Princess Arena rehearsal sounded good (😉) and we were looking forward to tonight’s show. It’s working better to go the 9pm show for several reasons, but I especially love not being rushed at dinner. We spent on time on the Wake View Terrace at 5pm listening to the SaxWave Duo perform (really nice event) and then walked right into the Sanctuary Restaurant for dinner just before 6pm. It was Italian night, and the minestrone soup was superb but I also had a taste for (believe it or not) the smoked beef brisket. It was quite good. 

This pic was taken with permission, but this optical illusion in the Wake View pool is so weird!

Our three main guys in the Sanctuary Restaurant. Junior waiter Man from Nepal, waiter Somphot from Thailand and Restaurant Manager Ray from the Philippines are the best!!

Next up was the Silent Disco in the Piazza (so.much.fun!) before heading to the Princess Arena for tonight’s show by Italian vocalist Marco Romano. 

yet another Frank Sinatra song bomb on a cruise

I was kind of iffy on his show, especially when he squeezed in a Frank Sinatra number, but he finished strongly with Bring Him Home and Con Te Partiro and knocked it out of the park with those. 

The Luminescence White Party was held in the Piazza starting at 10pm and was kicked off with another aerial act (different couple than we had seen in The Dome a few nights ago) and then the party band opened it up for dancing. 

It was nice to have seats (up in Deck 9, not far from our cabin) from which to watch the aerial performance! There were several (not a lot) of guests wearing white outfits. G actually brought one, too, but that was before we knew that the Luminescence White night Party would be held when it was Italian night in the dining rooms. White gauze and red sauce just don’t mix!