8:30am- Bible study (unhosted)
9:30am- Welcome to Princess! In Club Fusion
10am- Ferris Bueller's Day Off on MUTS
10am- back pain solutions with acupuncture
10am- Navigation @ Sea lecture
10am to 1pm- Holiday store at sea $10 sale
10am to 4pm- bridge, mahjong and games (unhosted)
10:15am- morning trivia
10:30am- The Art of Light and Human Connection Photography lecture (this is a sales pitch for Platinum Studio photography
11am- Scavenger hunt
11am- $60. Texas Hold'em tournament
11am- Secrets to a flatter stomach lecture
11am- lunchtime facelift
11am- Zumba fitness
11:15am- fruit and vegetable carving demonstration
11:15am- Technical @ Sea lecture
12pm- free ladies pamper hour
12:15pm and 1:15pm- poolside melodies with Sugar Cane
12:15 and 2pm- afternoon melodies with Playthoven in the Piazza
12:30 to 2:30pm- slot tournament
12:45pm- ballroom dance class foxtrot
1pm- bridge player get together (unhosted)
1pm- elevator roulette
1pm- lightning art auction
1pm- speed sudoku for fun (but we all know better, don't we???)
1pm and 4pm- musical melodies with Natka in the Piazza
1:30pm- country line dance class
1:30pm- Scattergories with the cruise director's staff
1:45pm- flower making with the cruise director's staff
2pm- James Brown live in Berlin concert on MUTS
2pm- walking in comfort with good feet lecture
2pm- pool games with cruise director's staff
2:30pm- gemstones around the world event
2:45pm- Princess pop choir rehearsal
3pm- veterans get together
3pm- Maitre d' wine club
3pm- champagne hoopla (ring toss to win champagne)
3pm- City Slickers on MUTS
3pm- Advanced facial rejuvenation lecture
3:30pm- Jacqueline Kennedy jewelry event
4pm- Dr. Bob and Bill W. meeting
4:15pm- egg drop challenge
4:15pm- singles and solos get together (unhosted)
4:30pm- afternoon trivia
5pm- LGBTQ get together
5pm- evening melodies with Playthoven in the Piazza
5pm and 7:15pm- music and dancing with Pastime Duo
5pm, 7:15pm and 9:30pm- Now You See Me on MUTS
5:15pm- Jewish Sabbath Eve service
6pm- casino no smoking night
6pm and 8pm- musical melodies with Natka in the Piazza
7pm to 8pm- live music and dancing with Sugar Cane in the Explorers Lounge
7:15pm to 8:15pm- formal night ballroom music with DJ Christopher in Club Fusion
7:15pm to 8pm- Captain's Welcome Aboard Party and Champagne Waterfall (I had to go to my settings to remind myself what I had shortcutted this to)
7:45pm- Captain's Welcome Address and Introduction of the Senior Officers
8:30pm to 9:30pm- Live Band Jukebox by New Deal in Club Fusion
8:45pm- Jeopardized trivia in Explorers Lounge
9pm to 9:45pm- Frank Sinatra hits and requests in Crooners
9pm and 10:15pm- music and dancing with Pastime Duo in the Wheelhouse Bar
9:15pm- Emerald Princess Downs horse racing
9:30pm- Princess Pop Star heat 2
9:45pm till late- piano melodies with Bobby Hamilton in Crooners
10pm to 11pm- Beach Boys with DJ Christopher in Skywalkers
10pm till late- live music and dancing with Sugar Cane in the Explorers Lounge
10:15pm till late- Live Band Jukebox with band New Deal in Club Fusion
11pm onwards- late night party with DJ Christopher in Skywalkers
Time: 10:07am. I two-finger typed it all on my iPhone in just 30 minutes! But that's why I only do this once or twice each winter ;-)
Some other general observations before I start to tell you how I spent today...
What a huge difference a turnaround day makes. This cruise feels entirely different than the holiday cruises, and it actually feels more crowded. These first two cruises in January are the first ones of these 10-night Caribbean itineraries of the entire winter to sell out. These cruises draw lots of Canadians and Americans who spend their winters in Florida, lots of older working people with enough vacation time to cruise for 20 days, and several "professional cruisers"- people who come on board for 30-70 nights. In fact, these are the people from whom we first got the idea of staying on the ship for awhile (I'll never forget the first time we heard of something called a "back to back" cruise...imagine staying on the ship for TWO cruises! We didn't even know you could do that!) ;-)
So, anyway, back to this cruise...the DaVinci Dining Room has been socked during breakfast and lunch, and all the dining rooms are packed for dinner. Unlike the holiday cruises, when many people ate in the Horizon Court Buffet, these cruisers "want to be served" (as told to me by a waiter this morning). These are "sit down" diners, and there is a long line waiting to be seated when we walk out of the Michelangelo Dining Room each evening between 7pm and 7:30pm. It's funny...on Cruise Critic, some people will swear that they were on a particular ship and they never waited for a table for dinner, whereas others will claim they did. By staying on the ship for several cruises, we see how things change, sometimes dramatically, from one cruise to the next.
A second point...I didn't make enough about this, I think, when it happened, and I want to go back and revisit this. Remember when we missed Princess Cays last cruise? Well, imagine what was happening behind the scenes with the food and beverage department. First, they had all the food thawed out and prepared for a BBQ on the beach (all the food served on Princess Cays is tendered over from the ship). Brats and hot dogs and chicken breasts and chicken legs and burgers and ribs. All ready to go. And waitstaff scheduled to serve both on the island and in the Horizon Court Buffet for those people staying on the ship. Then, it's determined that we can't safely tender in. Suddenly, there's no BBQ. Instead, the DaVinci Dining Room was opened for lunch, with a full lunch menu they'd not planned for. Different food was thawed out and prepared with just a few hours notice. Waitstaff was rescheduled from the island to the buffet, and from the buffet to the DaVinci Dining Room. Ditto the bar staff. This cannot be a simple process and somewhere, behind the scenes, a team of people was tap dancing as fast as they could to make this seamless to the passengers. And the cruise staff was putting together a revised Patter to offer more activities. It's all really quite amazing, and I just wanted to point that out.
A final point, and this one just occurred to me. My reading glasses just broke, because a screw had fallen out while I was sitting on the sofa in Crooners. Over time I've been noticing that any small item dropped on this ship- a screw, a pill, a tiny scrap of paper, you name it- disappears forever in the sea of wildly patterned carpet and printed furniture fabric. Forever. You could lose small pets in the patterns. It's perfect for hiding dirt and wear; not so good for finding things. Case in point: the screw from my reading glasses. I'm heading back to the cabin now to get another pair as these won't stay on my nose any longer, and thus ends this portion of today's post, another GPS-worthy one.
Back to the events and occurrences of today...
We had another lie-in today, sleeping until about 8am. It was a mad dash to get ready for breakfast and then to get down to breakfast in the DaVinci Dining Room. Apparently, everyone else had the same idea, and we had a bit of a wait for a table for 2, but we did finally get one against the back wall of the dining room and with a waiter from Hungary we'd not yet met (and right now, for the life of me, I can't remember his name. Czhaba? Something like that. I'll have to check tomorrow.) but who was wonderful. We sat there planning our day over breakfast. G had in mind to go to the navigational bridge lecture, but I wanted to get the Patter activities typed, so we parted ways, planning to meet again at 11am for the scavenger hunt.
Now, I don't usually partake in scavenger hunts, but G does, once a winter or so. On several occasions over the years, I've returned to the cabin only to find it ransacked, as if we'd been burgled, a tell tale sign that G was in the midst of a scavenger hunt. One time all my underwear was dumped on the bed...he'd needed a piece of pink women's underwear. (After 30 years, very little surprises me anymore). Well, today I must have been feeling participative, because together with another couple, we formed a scavenger hunt team. As we worked through the list of 25 items together, G and I kept saying, "We've got that one. And that one". Not on the list, but what we'd've had if they had been: chalk (1 piece); twist ties (4 different sizes and types); binder clips; eyeglass repair kit (hey...wait. I could use that); inflatable hangers...honestly, if the list had included a kitchen sink, I think we might have one of those tucked in a corner of the closet. And so we divided up the list and met back up twenty minutes later. The only item we didn't have was a G-string (which you really didn't need to know, did you?), although I had to point out for the "one strand of blonde hair" item that, according to the box, mine was dark blonde and therefore qualified. Not too surprisingly, our team won, though Kimmie thankfully had prizes for the three kids who participated. Our prize was a bottle of champagne...not good champagne, mind you, but something with bubbles none the less. And we had fun and met Betty and Mike and had a nice chat afterwards. Actually, our cabin steward Raymond had helped us with a couple of items (a balloon and a postcard with a photo of the Emerald Princess on it); we should probably give him the bottle of champagne, but we like him too much to do that to him. ;-)
We'd worked up an appetite by then, and were in the vicinity of the DaVinci Dining Room, and so went directly to lunch before the inevitable crowd hit. Our plan afterwards was to return to the cabin for G to fix my reading glasses and give me a bit if a haircut since I'd missed Great Clips on turnaround day. We got the eyeglass repair kit out of the over the door shoe rack, but immediately hit a snag. Despite having 7 different sizes and shapes of screws, all tiny, we couldn't find one that fit. With me holding my iPhone as a flashlight, G even took the screw still in the glasses out to try to match it up...and promptly dropped that one on the patterned cabin carpet. Once found, 15 minutes later, the ship was bouncing so ridiculously that he couldn't get it back in the glasses.
Given that, and the fact that G isn't a hair stylist to begin with, I thought it best to put off the hair cut until we are docked tomorrow in St. Kitts. :-o
Actually, it was almost impossible to do anything where our cabin is on the back of the ship. I don't know how the crew can do what they do when it's like this. It was much more stable on the lower decks midship, but the Horizon Court Buffet, Sabatinis and Skywalkers are all high on the back of the ship. This was bordering on craziness.
With nothing else to do, I decided to drink and eat. ;-) I had signed up yesterday for the Maitre d' Wine Club wine tasting. This is the one that is $25 and features more expensive wines than at the $9.50 wine tasting we get for free. I was quite excited about this; the first wine was the same as that bottle of champagne we'd received for our 50th cruise, and, after half a bottle of it, I already knew I loved that one. The others were equally excellent, and I was seated at a table for six, including a couple from Clyde, Ohio. They were thrilled that I knew exactly where Clyde, Ohio was, and that my washing machine had been made there, and I was interested to hear just how they got to the Detroit airport for their flight to Florida during all the horrible weather they'd been having. They are two lucky people, and I suspect we're going to see a lot of luggage on the pier tomorrow when we arrive in St. Kitts, from people who missed the ship on Wednesday and had to fly to our first port.
It was then time to get ready for formal night, no small task with the way the ship was rocking. I had one hand on the safety bar in the shower as I shaved my legs, not an easy feat, and G and I both had to sit on the bed while I put his tie on him. We started the evening in Skywalkers for the Elite Lounge first, and then down to Dinner with Darko. As much as I will sorely miss Skywalkers on the Royal Princess (and I'll miss it a LOT), I won't miss having to go first one direction for drinks and then the other for dinner. I took all of Darko's suggestions tonight for dinner- smoked duck appetizer, then cream of asparagus soup, and then the fish entree- and he was right about all of them. For dessert I opted for a cappuccino and a few of the tiny cookies that are offered on formal nights.
We left the Michelangelo Dining Room and went right into the Piazza for the Captain's Welcome Aboard Party and Champagne Waterfall (I'm lovin' that typing shortcut!). Several glasses of champagne later (it's not good, but by the fourth glass I don't mind), we went to the Explorers Lounge 25 minutes early for the 8pm comedian Phil Tag and got the last two seats and not together. This ship is feeling crowded, because all these passengers like to cruise the same way at the same time. It feels quite different than the past cruises which may have had more passengers, but with more varied interests that spread them out more on the ship. Phil Tag was hilarious, one of the best comedians I've seen on a cruise ship (and the four glasses of champagne after a mid-afternoon wine tasting didn't influence my opinion at all. Really).
We opted to skip a later performance of the production show What a Swell Party; we finally arrive on land tomorrow after what has basically been five sea days in a row, and I am ready to be up early and go ASHORE. I have no idea what we'll do tomorrow, but I know the earth won't be moving underneath me when I do it, and for that I will be grateful.