Yellow Fish cruises: Day 46: At Sea

By now, if you’ve been reading since the beginning of the season, you could probably write this sea day post better than I can. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, show, weather...They really don’t vary much at all. So today, I’ll get the usual out of the way up front, and then talk about a couple of other things that I want to tell you.

For just this 14-night cruise, I’ll be posting the daily breakfast menu. One side of it, the left side, doesn’t change from day to day, so I’ll just post that today. The right side changes daily. I’ve never paid much attention to how many variations of these menus there are; maybe I’ll learn something here.

Standard breakfast menu, left side

Day 2 breakfast menu, right side

Something else that doesn’t change: smoked salmon for breakfast

It’s so expensive that when I get home I will have prints made of all the smoked salmon photos

I took on our cruise...and then eat them!🤣

I spent nearly an hour and a half this morning listening to Destination Expert Hutch’s (yes he’s still on board) talks on Lifou, New Caledonia and Port Vila, Vanuatu. Lifou is a new port for us, one of two new ports we will be visiting this season. Blog reader Chez from Australia, who sent me such great information on what to do in the ports when we were down here two years ago, did the same with Lifou and our other new port, Isle of Pines, so we already had some thoughts on how we’d spend our day there, but it was nice to see Hutch’s map and photos.

But 90 minutes is a loooonnnggg time to sit and listen. How did we ever do it for all those years in school?

I called Mom again this morning (yesterday evening her time) but the ship was just bouncy enough that we didn’t have the best connection. In fact, the latency was at least 3 seconds, which makes a conversation pretty difficult. Still, to have the ability to do that for free using WiFi calling is an amazing thing. She continues to improve and is getting stronger every day. Just no more simple surgeries!!

G and I met up for lunch in the DaVinci Dining Room. We had to; it was Floret Family day. I will not miss that.

Day 2 lunch menu, page 1

Day 2 lunch menu, page 2

After lunch, I decided to update my iPhone to iOS 13. I had already updated my iPad but never got around to doing the same with my iPhone. It had to be done today. The reason? The WiFi plan that I’ve had since we boarded on September 24 expired today at 4pm, and, frankly, I wasn’t certain I’d purchase another unlimited plan. It depended on how it was priced. So just in case today marked the end of my unlimited WiFi (and blog posts laden with photos), I wanted to backup my iDevices and update my iOS.

I had already stopped by the Internet Cafe a few days ago and spoke with the manager about my options. He wasn’t able to tell me for what length of time I’d be able to purchase unlimited WiFi. He said it depended on how Princess was handling these cruises. To complicate matters further, my ship’s card was expiring yesterday in Sydney, and I could not be provided a new one ahead of time. I was told to use the old card, the one I’ve had since September 24, to get back on the ship yesterday afternoon in Sydney and that, if I had a problem, to have Security contact Guest Services.

You have no idea how much I was hoping that I wouldn’t have an issue, as tired and hungry and hot as I was when we returned from our long walk yesterday. Luckily, I didn’t. For some reason, G’s card isn’t expiring until the end of this cruise, 14 days after mine. Some things are a mystery.

My first stop today then, in the pursuit of a new unlimited WiFi plan, was at Guest Services. I was quite lucky and worked directly with the manager, and told him I wanted a card good until we disembark. He said that his ability to print that card was dependent on how Princess was handling these cruises. That sounded familiar, but I still have no idea what that even means. Each of our cruises was booked separately, but they seem to be grouped randomly. Well, the Guest Services Manager went into that back room where it seems all decisions are made, and came back with a new card for me ending the day we disembark. Yay!

Armed with that, I went to see the Internet Manager five minutes before my plan was expiring. He had to wait until the minute it expired to see on his computer that I could now buy a plan good until we disembark. The price per day in US $ works out to about $2 per day. What a bargain. So the moral of this story is that if you are doing extended cruising on a MedallionNet-equipped Princess ship, you shouldn’t have to pay for unlimited internet one cruise at a time. On the other hand, maybe the moral is that I just got lucky for a change. After all, last year on the Sapphire Princess, we weren’t allowed to carry over any minutes from one cruise to the next. We knew that wasn’t being handled correctly and were helpless to do anything about it.

And speaking of carrying over minutes, G has not purchased an unlimited plan, and on each cruise’s embarkation day, his Elite Internet minutes have automatically carried over and his new minutes are automatically added to his balance.

Are you still with me? If you’re a Princess cruiser, you were probably riveted by that story. If you don’t cruise, you are shocked we don’t have ubiquitous free WiFi on cruise ships.

I had just enough time to get dressed formally for the 78th time this season and join G who was already in the Elite Lounge in Club Fusion. It’s definitely more convenient to hold the Elite Lounge in there. There is plenty of room for two separate serving lines for the hors doerves so there’s never a wait...but I do miss those Skywalkers views.

Then it was time for dinner and once again I couldn’t believe that an entire sea day was almost over and I really hadn’t done anything but still somehow stayed busy every minute of the day.

Day 2 dinner menu, page 1

Day 2 dinner menu, page 2

Day 2 dessert menu

Grapefruit and kiwi salad

Sauce-less sautéed prawns

Friends Michael and Leone from Sydney told us during the Elite Lounge not to miss tonight’s Princess Theater show, and that entertainer Patrick McMahon was fabulous. We actually skipped the Captain’s Welcome Aboard Champagne Waterfall tonight to get good seats for the show, not knowing what to expect other than it would be fabulous. Holy cow, what a fun show. Patrick is a musician, singer and guitarist from WA (that’s the state of Western Australia for those of us who didn’t even know Australia had states) who came out on stage in jeans and a T-shirt (on a formal night! I liked him already!) and played Kenny Rogers and John Denver and Neil Diamond and- get this- Jim Morrison and The Cars and not a single Frank Sinatra song (seriously, I may gag if I ever hear another one). He was high energy and completely irreverent and the Ruby Princess Orchestra seemed to love accompanying him as much as we enjoyed hearing them. Michael and Leone were absolutely right about this one.

And then it was bedtime. Even G missed a nap today (he was kept busy with Cruise Critic and military get togethers and the Quest game again (I really must accompany him next time because it sounds like a hoot)).

And, now, about those other couple of things I want to talk about...

G was beside himself last cruise to learn that he can trade his minibar liquor for far more than the Dos Equis and Budweiser beers that he can get on most cruises. Instead, he has a plethora of beer and cider options:

Carlton Cold

Victoria Bitter

Pure Blond Ultra Low Carb

Crown Lager

Corona Extra

Heineken

Matilda Bay Fat Yak

Stella Artois

Cascade Premium Light

Strongbow Cider

Angry Orchard Cider

He’s having a fine time trying them all. Frankly, I am green with envy, but can’t very well claim that every day is a Very Special Day so I can imbibe in adult beverages. Can I? Can I?

And, finally, let’s talk On Board Credits (OBCs) on Australia-based cruises. First, just know that with most OBCs, cruising on an Australia-based Princess ship means you’ll be getting less than you would in any other part of the world. It’s just one of those unfortunate facts of life. Promotional OBCs, FCD OBCs, Military OBCs...these are all given in the same number of Australian dollars as they would in US $ anywhere else in the world, effectively decreasing their value by 30%. However, two years ago, the Loyalty OBC was given in the equivalent value of US dollars, and so it was on the first 10-day cruise out of Sydney (AU $145.90 for a US $100 credit). Then, for some reason, last cruise it was given in Australian dollars, AU $100. That seemed unusual, so I questioned it and was told several days later that a mistake had been made on the first cruise and we were allowed to keep the extra credit, but that all future credits would be in AU $.

Then, on our final statement from last cruise, we received an additional AU $45.90 in OBC. And less than 24 hours later we received just AU $100 in Loyalty OBC for this cruise. I’m flummoxed. Does anyone really understand how this should be handled? If so, please email me to let me know.

Oh, and our weather today? Partly sunny, mid 70s and windy; ergo, the bouncy seas.

And that’s a wrap on our eleventy-seventh sea day of the season. ;-)