We had stopped back to our cabin before the show last night, lay down on the bed "for just a minute"...and woke up at 5:30 this morning. Although it was light outside, we could tell by the low-hanging clouds that today was not going to be a sunny one. And that's fine by me. I am past the age where I want to bake in a lounge chair all day while at sea, and it's inevitable that we will be getting ample sun while we are in French Polynesia. I'm more than willing to trade sunny sea days for sunny port days, but hope that we do get plenty of latter. Yesterday's weather was perfect- in fact, maybe a little too perfect. I saw lots of red faces around the ship today, and I have my own red, painful reminders in a small spot on the back of each thigh that I missed while spraying on sunblock. Thank goodness I wore my long-sleeved rash guard while snorkeling!
As Rangiroa in the Tuamotu Archipelago is a bit removed from the Society Islands, the two sea days on this itinerary will immediately preceed and follow it. From here on out to turnaround day on October 29th, we have one island day after another. I had thought that, perhaps, tonight might be our second formal night, but that is not the case (I guess they figure that two dress-up nights out of three is a bit much for this laid-back ship). Instead, we'll be dressing up again the evening of our second day in Bora Bora, or, as we've already learned to call it, Bora Bora Two.
So we had a relaxing sea day today with no formal obligations at the end, and several fun activities to choose from (or not) throughout the day.
We got brewed coffee from the coffee bar in the Panorama Buffet and sat on the open deck behind the buffet overlooking the wake. Though we thought we might see land in the distance occasionally, we are not close enough to know for certain if something on the horizon is land or just low hanging clouds. Either these islands are so small or they are widely spaced enough (or both) that it isn't as if we have land right off the side of the ship. At 7:30am we went to the Club Restaurant for breakfast and were joined by Dave and Brenda and enjoyed swapping travel horror stories over lots of fresh pineapple and cottage cheese (for me). That's the thing about about travel's inevitable hiccups; while "And that day we went to a beach and the sun was shining and the sand was perfect" might be wonderful to experience, it really does not make for an interesting story at all (and I should know because it's one I tell quite frequently on this blog). Talking about cruise ship fires and breaking a tooth boarding a plane for LAX en route to Beijing is infinitely more fun to tell and hear.
That concept has led to my only theory on life: If I won't remember it in 10 years, or if it will make a good story, then don't waste time stressing over it today.
Life theories aside (I'm feeling GPS-y today, in case you hadn't noticed), after breakfast G and I went out on the Promenade Deck and sat in side by side cushioned teak loungers looking at the sea. That was a wonderful thing, but too soon it was time to get down to business. We had booked a "sunset cruise" through Princess on the evening the Pacific Princess stays late in Raiatea (Rye-ah-TAY-a). As I've mentioned, ships don't often stay late in ports, and one of our few previous times doing that was in Barbados off the Sea Princess many years ago. We had taken a sunset sail that night on a catamaran, and, though I don't recall much about it (G said there was lots of rum and I led my fellow passengers in singing Happy Birthday for one of them and then might have also started the dancing, so perhaps my amnesia is for the best), I know it was a very good time. We thought the Raiatea sunset cruise might be the same, but have since found out it is not. It's on the same kind of small motorized boat we took snorkeling yesterday with only beer and wine and not even a dance floor, so what good is that?
G went to the Shore Excursion desk to return those tickets for a refund, and, in lieu of doing that sunset cruise, we decided to make reservations to dine in the ship's specialty steak house the night we stay late in Raiatea. We had not realized until last night, that, among the stack of papers waiting for us in our cabin the evening we first boarded in Papeete was a letter congratulating us for being among this cruise's MTPs (Most Traveled Passengers with Princess Cruises), and, in lieu of an MTP luncheon or an MTP Cocktail Party, the Pacific Princess on this itinerary allows us to dine one time at a speciality restaurant free of charge. Someone at the Elite lounge asked us last night if we had made our reservation for that yet and we were clueless about the whole thing.
Do you see why we have to do cruises over and over? We are simply slow learners. ;-)
Following that bit of administrative work, G wanted to attend the Ammolite seminar for this cruise. Surely our odds of winning an Ammolite pendant in the raffle at the end had to be good on this small ship? Apparently not good enough. Despite us both being there, someone who walked in at the very end just before the drawing won the pendant (the injustice of that was crushing). I told the presenter, Igor, that I was going to just have to book the next cruise and try again.
We already knew Igor because one of us (the shopper...not me) discovered he needed a new watch battery the first day on the ship. Remembering full well the issues we had simply purchasing hand soap and laundry detergent in Papeete, he knew that trying to find battery ABC123 was an endeavor bordering on the insane and figured his best bet was the Facets jewelry store on board. Well, Facets didn't have watch batteries but Igor, the store manager, was very pleased (quelle surprise!) to show G a Citizen Ecodrive watch that will never let him down like his old watch, as it is solar powered. G was intrigued, plus he could get 20% off the already low! low! low! tax and duty price on the second day of the cruise and that is how I came to know Igor too, as I was asked to come to the store while a final choice was made. Now G is walking around like a newly-engaged girl, with his left wrist permanently extended out in front of him as he admires his new watch.
I think the least Igor can do for me having to put up with that is to make sure my ticket number is drawn from the ice bucket for a free Ammolite pendant on one of these cruises.
G made a hot tub stop to check the water temp after the unsuccessful raffle. He wants me to tell you that his only disappointment about this ship is that the two hot tubs are SO not hot (in his mind, he is truly roughing it). In fact, it is a common complaint among the "tubbies". This morning it was actually chilly and windy on deck with a few passing showers, so the water felt a smidge warmer but is still falling far short of expectations. Also not hot, in fact, downright cold are most of the public areas on board, especially (!!!!) the Cabaret Lounge. Today I pulled out the newly laundered fleece pullover I wore on our travel day and wore it the entire day. And shoes and socks. In French Polynesia.
By 11:30am I was thinking that the pineapple and cottage cheese I'd had at breakfast didn't have much staying power; we were at lunch in the Club Restaurant shortly after it opened at noon. I was more hungry than I had any right to be on a sea day. Lucky for us, we enjoyed our favorite lunch menu with spaghetti aglio, olio and pepperocino for me and mozzarella cheese sticks for G. We lingered over lunch, cozy and well fed as rain poured down the dining room windows. In fact, we missed magician Greg Moreland's card trick lessons at 1pm (our list of things to do next cruise is growing!) but made it to Ye Olde Pub Night at 2pm in the Cabaret Lounge (or, as we immediately renamed it, Ye Olde Pub Afternoon). Fun stuff!
This is a good time to talk about how the production show performers work on this small ship. There is one male singer and one female singer for the production shows, and that is all they are tasked to do. The dancers, however (four male and three female) form the bulk of the Cruise Director's Entertainment staff. The CD, David, has a Deputy Cruise Director, Michael, and then the dancers form the rest of the team. So dancers Warren and Natalie were handling tender ticket duty yesterday and Xavier's was the first smiling face we met when we boarded Sunday night. Another dancer conducts trivia classes, there are multiple ballroom dance classes every sea day, and still others host the games scheduled throughout the day. We have already met all of the dancers around the ship, and every featured entertainer too, and it's really quite a friendly thing and much more personal than on the larger ships.
It was a perfect day for a wine tasting, and that was held at 3pm. And that's the interesting thing about this ship: there are a lot of things that feel familiar, such as the pub night and the wine tasting, but, at the same time, it feels very different than a larger Princess ship.
All afternoon, it continued to pour rain outside, so that, with the frigid temps in the public areas of this ship, I could have been easily convinced that we were sailing around Patagonia, not French Polynesia.
We returned to our cabin after wine tasting and turned the TV on for the first time since we boarded. What an abundance of riches; Thursday Night Football on one channel and Downton Abbey on another!! It's Thursday? It's night? And Downton Abbey? I really must pull out the TV programming guide to see what other goodies exist on our cabin TV.
It was Breeza Marina night in the Elite lounge, and I have been waiting for that. Herbed goat cheese on yummy special crackers and a drink...it probably isn't a huge surprise that when we went to dinner in the Club Restaurant, I was really not hungry at all. Eating all day on a sea day has that effect. I had just salmon and called it dinner.
Things are looking up jet lag-wise. We managed to stay awake long enough to listen to live music in two different venues after dinner AND went to the performance of vocalist Claude-Eric in the Cabaret Lounge. He sings in the style of Michael Bublé and was quite good. The funny thing is that I had talked with him yesterday on the tender to Rangiroa and he is so soft-spoken in "real life". I did a double take when that VOICE came out of him tonight.
We continued to be impressed by the quality and quantity of entertainment on this small ship. Shows are still 45-50 minutes long (yay!) and the Cabaret Lounge always has more than ample seating. It makes cruising on this ship a very relaxing experience.
We arrive tomorrow in Bora Bora for a two day stay. As a highlight of this cruise, we hope the weather is better than today. The skies did show signs of clearing tonight, so fingers crossed on that count.
And, finally, a fact of life on this itinerary is that the Internet is difficult at best. Without a "free internet" day in Fort Lauderdale and St. Thomas to look forward to, I am going to have to really budget my 250 minutes per 10-night cruise. Effectively three days into the cruise I had already used 100 minutes. Clearly this cannot continue. Perhaps it will improve when we reach the more touristy Society Islands. Hopefully we will be able to purchase some high speed wifi when we arrive back in Papeete. Unless this resolves, I will not be posting photos of the ship...I think it's more valuable to use time to post at least a few island photos. While uploading a text-only post takes only a minute or so, uploading last night's post with multiple photos took over 25 minutes. At least I think it did. I nearly fell sleep waiting for it to finish. :-o