Sunrise pic by G
We awoke early, which is not a surprise. I was asleep before 7pm last night. G went off to do his morning walk/run, and I left the cabin shortly thereafter, but went directly to Guest Services to get my Medallion taken care of. Sure enough, the battery was dead.
At breakfast in the Allegro Dining Room, I was so excited to see, on this morning’s menu, blueberry pancakes. Yum! I don’t usually allow myself to have a sweet breakfast (because I’m hungry two hours later if I do) but today was a sea day so food availability would never be an issue. A mimosa, a cappuccino, orange segments and blueberry pancakes…life really doesn’t get much better than that.
Somehow, I forgot to take a photo of the mimosa or the cappuccino or the blueberry pancakes. 😆
I had two blog posts to get caught up on and giving myself some grace on writing these has made all the difference in choosing to continue to blog. When I think of all those nights when I would force myself to finish the post du jour before I fell asleep, because the next day was also going to be busy with sightseeing…well, I’m not quite that intense any longer.
Thank you to those who have emailed me, and some of you are suggesting stories for me to tell (because you know me so well). Sheila, I even heard from Steph and Peter, 20 years after that magical Sapphire Princess transpacific cruise to Sydney during its inaugural season. That was one of the best, wasn’t it?
Not to belabor this point, but it is a huge topic of conversation onboard: it is HOT and muggy, both outside and on most of this ship. There are occasional pockets on the ship where we can feel the AC, but the elevator shafts and lobby areas are crazy. We are leaving our room thermostat set to almost as cold as it goes, so we have at least one place where we can count on being comfortable. Last night when we came back to the cabin, G walked out into the balcony and within 5 seconds the mirrors and countertops were all fogged up. G says he doesn’t remember the ship feeling warm at all last year, and said that the Princess Theater was, instead, always freezing. I’m sure things will cool down as the weeks go by.
Also, because I forgot to mention it last night, Yacht Haven Grande was empty except for one yacht yesterday. My guess is that all the mega yachts are hanging out further south until hurricane season passes, but it would be interesting to see if it fills up like it used to later in the season.
I’ve eaten all the collard greens on board. They served me cabbage and I was just as happy.
Fish street tacos and a margarita. Again. It’s just that good.
Back to today…I had not gotten to The Enclave for a couple of days, not wanting to spread any germs, so I made up for lost time this afternoon. There were only two of us there, quite a change from earlier in the cruise, and it was wonderful. When the bubbles in the thallasotherapy pool turned off, I was able to just leave them off and hang out a little while longer. I usually use the showers in the locker room when I am done, because they are huge and have a rain shower head in the ceiling, and I can also blow my hair dry right there in the locker room, freeing up our cabin bathroom with the bathtub shower for G.
I skipped Crooners tonight and we went right to dinner at 5pm. It was a formal night menu without being a formal night, and, gosh isn’t that a wonderful thing? Tonight’s Princess Theater performance was production show Born to Dance, and that is one of my very favorites, and, seriously, if you’re fussy about seats you need to be there for that one an hour before show time. And that just reminded me of a story I can relate later in the post.
Salmon starter
Escargot
I love the NYC video they show for 90 minutes or so before Born to Dance starts. G has obviously seen this more often and more recently than I have, and he would predict who was going to next appear on the video. “Watch for Yellow Pants”, “Here comes White Face”. The video loop repeats every so often and it’s fun to watch for characters to reappear. It’s a brilliant way to keep an audience occupied while they wait for an hour and even longer for a show to begin.
Yellow Pants
Do people really walk around NYC dressed like this?
And this yawn. Harious!
Born to Dance is just as wonderful as I remember it, and we sit in the front row where we can really see how hard these dancers are working and how much they appear to love what they’re doing. Huge standing O at the end. Loved it!
The Wheelhouse for Derek Dishington’s first set was next, then back to the Piazza for G’s ice cream. There was music and dancing in the Piazza, but we didn’t linger. By 10:30pm, we were back in the deliciously cool cabin.
And finally, a quick story. On that Sapphire transpacific cruise, things were getting kind of heated on all those days at sea. It seemed like every port day, people were being put off the ship for fighting, and we’d see some senior guy looking sheepish hauling his luggage off the ship while his wife looked absolutely pi$$ed as she followed him. Elevators were a huge source of contention; fights also broke out at the gaming tables, but saving Princess Theater seats was the largest source of altercations. One night, after a particularly nasty fight had erupted, CD Alastair Greener (what a gem he was) came out on stage to introduce the show wearing a combat helmet and we all roared. People tend to think of young cruisers on Carnival as being the issue, but old men and too many sea days just don’t mix. We’ve been very lucky this cruise.
I think G should get his hair and beard cut like this.
Cristian is getting his law degree! He’s a wonder.
