This may devolve into a wandering post today. I’ll start the post by talking about our day, as usual, but these sea days en route to Hawaii are providing plenty of opportunity to comment on various disjointed topics. They won’t all appeal to any one person, but I hope you might be able to glean some nugget of knowledge or entertainment from the extracurricular discussion.
We didn’t sleep great last night. The first night in any new location is tough. The Ruby Princess is bouncy, though not too much, but, as we know very well, any movement is magnified in our chosen cabin’s location. We’ll get used to it.
What I will never get used to are these new Princess linens. If you’ve been a long time reader, you know I’ve abhorred them since they were first introduced. Princess got us used to sleeping under a comforter in a duvet, darn it, with no top sheet. It’s the sleep experience we enjoyed so much that we replicated it at home. I sewed a duvet cover out of two flat sheets, and it is washed every time I change linens. Going back to a “tucked-in-sheet-comforter-topper experience is something I just can’t do.
Last year we got by with just a blanket on top. It eliminated the “top sheet off the bed one direction, duvet off in the other, topper on the floor” issue we would otherwise have woken up to every morning, but it wasn’t optimal. This year I came prepared; I brought a silk sleep sack I’ve had forever and was determined to make it work…just not last night. I was too tired last night to put it on the bed.
This morning I remedied that. The top sheet and topper have been returned to our steward, Noel, the comforter is encased in the sleep sack, nothing is tucked in around “that” foot and I am a truly happy camper. Every few days I’ll hand wash it in the sink, hang in on our cabin-wide clothesline to dry, and stuff the comforter back into it. No worries, man.
We went to breakfast in the DaVinci Dining Room when it opened at 7:30am. It was blueberry pancake day, G’s favorite and mine too, in a prior life. Our headwaiter friend Mehai is working the DaVinci Dining Room for breakfast, lunch and dinner this cruise and already knows just where we like to sit. We are quickly becoming way too spoiled
After breakfast, I returned to the cabin to organize all the items I had just shoved in a drawer or on a shelf in our effort to get unpacked before we went to muster drill yesterday. We now have some semblance of order that will see us through our stay in 160 square feet with too much stuff.
The ship continued to get bouncier as the day went on. The weather wasn’t great, mostly grey and overcast and not what one expects sea days en route to Hawaii to be like, but, in reality, how quite a few of them are. The pools and hot tubs were splashing over the outside decks and they weren’t anyplace for me and my crutches to be. I happily holed up in the cabin until lunch, exploring this new Medallion Internet, and let me take a moment to talk about that.
Before we left home, I purchased unlimited, (supposedly) high speed Internet for the duration of this first cruise. The price was $129.99 for one device at a time, and we found that pretty reasonable. I didn’t know if it might be less expensive to purchase on the ship but decided to take a chance and purchase it ahead of time. I was able to log in last evening and was thrilled at the always on capability, and a little less thrilled with the speed. I realize we are spoiled at home with download speeds around 200Mbps, and I wasn’t certain if the ship’s 4Mbps was even fast enough to allow me to stream video.
Well, it is. It isn’t slick and speedy but it works. Furthermore, the price I paid is actually covering the first 45 days, which I think are our first three cruises. That’s an incredible deal. When G signed in today to claim his 500 free Elite minutes, he was offered the opportunity to purchase 45 days of unlimited WiFi for $159.99, so purchasing online ahead of time was the right thing to do. Live and learn.
It is quite exciting to use WiFi on a cruise without time constraints.. In fact, as someone who has published a blog for eight years using snail-slow and limited WiFi, it’s a wonder. I am going to take advantage of it to upload menus and Princess Patters, things I’ve never been able to even consider uploading in the past. This is a game changer.
Lunch was in the DaVinci Dining Room, and most of the afternoon was spent listening to live music in the Piazza and trying to stay warm. This ship is COLD. I felt silly when I dressed for dinner, choosing to wear a fleece jacket over a T-shirt with a scarf around my neck until I saw several others dressed the same way. And for the first time all day, I was finally warm.
Day 2 lunch menu, page 1
Day 2 lunch menu, page 2
We are thoroughly enjoying our servers at dinner in the DaVinci Dining Room, Homer and Allan, both from the Philippines. We are already spoiled by the service, and it makes dinners something we really look forward to. Tonight after dinner a cake was delivered and we were serenaded for our anniversary. We thought it would be too hard on everyone to try to celebrate it on the first night of the cruise, so we asked for it in our Cruise Personalizer for tonight. We also received a sign on our cabin door and a card signed by the captain. I love that Princess does all of these things for no charge.
Day 2 dinner menu, page 1
Day 2 dinner menu, page 2
Day 2 dessert menu
Our anniversary cake
We finished dinner in time to make it to the 6:30pm Princess Theater performance by female vocalist Sonia Selbie. She was fantastic, and sang a song from each decade from the 60s to present day. We enjoyed her so much we briefly considered returning for her 8:30pm performance, but wandered into the Wheelhouse Bar to find our on board Hawaiian ambassadors, Tui and Maile, performing Hawaiian music, and instead stayed there until they finished their first set.
We are back in the cabin with the heat turned up to bake watching a Beatles documentary on the on demand TV. What more could one ask for? Um…the chance to do it all over again three more times before we arrive in Honolulu on Sunday. ;-)
Day 2 Princess Patter, page 1
Day 2 Princess Patter, page 2
Day 2 Princess Patter, page 3
Day 2 Princess Patter, page 4