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!

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. It 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!

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 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 ask me if I was happy and could they do anything for me and I really just wanted 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 

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). 

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. #spoiled They made a delicious late night snack!

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

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 way to enjoy a pre-dinner…mojito flavored water than a wake view and mellow music!

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. 

Look at that beautiful dusky sky!

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 production 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.