We didn’t move clocks back an hour past night, and so it was easy to sleep in a little. We had never seen so many guests in Sabatini’s for breakfast as this morning, but we still enjoyed the same attentive service we always receive. Even less food, though, just salmon and fruit for me, because I really wanted to go to lunch in the Allegro Dining Room.
The view from my table at lunch. Captain Traverso said in his noon announcement that there is a low pressure system north of us causing wind gusts of 20+ miles per hour and larger sea swells than we’ve experienced to date. Lunch was the salmon poke bowl for me.
My first salmon poke bowl of the cruise was even better than I remembered from last year.
G went to use a hot tub while I continued to try to figure out where we might be cruising in January and February. We’ve had something booked for months but are suddenly rethinking
Production show Bravo was performed again in the Princess Theater at 2:30pm this afternoon. Sure, we’d seen it already this cruise, but since we haven’t been to a Princess Theater show for three consecutive nights (and wouldn’t be going tonight) we spent a most enjoyable hour there. Since we missed Fiera (Ponta Delgado night), I hope they perform that one again too.
I spent an hour before the PES Lounge working an alternative plan about how to spend our January and February. We have a final payment due in two days, so we have a decision to make quickly. What we had in place is suddenly looking less appealing than another option, but it took being on this ship with these sea days to realize that. Thankfully, our original cruises were booked with refundable deposits. I continue to believe that non-refundable deposits will serve only to encourage us to refrain from booking what we consider to be “normal” cruises until the last minute.
While I was working on that, I was also watching the Michigan v Washington game online. Small yay for that one; we’ll take whatever victories we can get this year. Since Streameast was finally shut down for good, I’m using https://tvpass.org/. It’s rather hit and miss as to whether a specific game will be offered, but I was lucky today.
It was nice to return to dinner tonight in the Symphony Dining Room with Berenice and Sebastian. Like our breakfast waiters in Sabatini’s, they simply could not be any sweeter to us. Tonight’s menus (including the vegan menu) had some of my very favorite items, and I had to work hard to choose, and then still ordered four things.
The ship had been a bit bouncier today, and that continued into the evening. In fact, it had been almost impossible to stand up straight around the Retreat Pool today, so strong was the headwind. I can’t imagine what the Sanctuary was like. Captain Traverso said there was a tropical storm north of us causing the trouble, with wind gusts over 20mph.
With the stellar entertainment choices of a juggler in the Princess Theater and a hypnotist in the Vista-less Lounge, we chose to listen to Argentinian band Neptune’s Groove in the Wheelhouse. All of the live music on the ship has been so enjoyable, which is good, because the entertainment has become a little weak during these many days at sea.
Finally, thought I’d take some time today to discuss a myriad of items, totally unrelated but simply observations from over a week on board.
The ship had remained, at least from aural observation, a “well” ship, but we could sense that beginning to change today. The number, frequency and productiveness of coughs seem to be increasing, and it’s getting a bit scary to sit in a crowded Princess Theater. So far, we both seem to be unscathed. Please, may it continue!
I have spent this entire year trying to boost my immunity through nutrition, exercise, supplements and even aromatherapy oils that support a healthy immune system. I’ve brought one with me and place a small amount of it on a used dryer sheet in my pillowcase every night. I was quite proud of my efforts until my rheumatologist pointed out that, with autoimmune issues, my immune system has already set its sights on things I’d rather it didn’t, and there is no way of selectively boosting just the good immunity. Yeah, talk about a bubble buster. Still, I’ll see if this all helps. I’m tired of returning home from every. single. cruise with a bug.
We are experiencing a variant of washcloth-gate on this cruise that we are having fun unraveling (haha). When we first entered our cabin, we had two bath towels, two hand towels and two washcloths and I thought we were set. Then we used one washcloth to prop open the cabinet door where our refrigerator is located and pointed out to our cabin steward that is where it was. That evening we got just one washcloth. Connecting the dots, we switched out the refrigerator washcloth for a hand towel. The next morning we received just one hand towel. This went on for a couple of days…it was becoming obvious that our cabin had an allotment, and how we chose to use it was up to us. Amused by this, we tried using G’s beanie to prop open the door, and returned to a full compliment of towels in the bathroom. We had cracked the code.
Then I decided I’d like tissues on the nightstand, and used the extra box in the bathroom for that. When the bathroom box was empty, we received no more. So I took a few tissues out of the box on the nightstand and returned the remainder of the box to the bathroom. The box was then placed back in the bathroom dispenser by the steward . It’s obvious our cabin steward is doing his part to help Princess meet its cash flow goals, one towel and tissue at a time!
