Day 43: At Sea

We had a mostly uneventful day, and I just wasted 45 minutes mindlessly scrolling the internet instead of preparing a blog post (because I’m selfish that way 😉) so this will be quick. 

We started the day with another room delivery but today added orange slices and a chocolate croissant for G. That was enough to get me to brave a chilly Terrace Pool which luckily today wasn’t too sloshy. By the time I showered and warmed up, it was 11:30am and lunch in the Botticelli Dining Room had begun and I was hungry!

Luckily, there was a delicious kale salad on the menu, so good that I ordered a second one after I’d enjoyed the first. And G is really enjoying the multiple flavors of ice cream on the lunch dessert menu. We didn’t have that on the Grand, just vanilla and chocolate and a frozen yogurt flavor. 

G went to the veterans get together this afternoon, but I returned to the cabin to catch up on some of the destination and Māori cultural lectures I’ve missed. There is also a business lecturer on board, but, honestly, it runs a little too close to the hundred plus Harvard Business School case studies I had to analyze in my MBA program forty years ago, so I’m passing on those. 

I also completed our online New Zealand declaration forms, which required downloading an app, scanning our passports and answering several questions about what we were (or weren’t) bringing into the country. It had to be done less than 24 hours before our first arrival into New Zealand. Between that and the ETAs we had to buy and the tourist environmental tax we had to pay, New Zealand requires a lot of hoops to be jumped through. 

After G returned from veterans, he decamped to a hot tub but I didn’t want to have to shower again, so I just sat in a nearby lounger enjoying the sunshine. Dinner was healthy tonight, and then we went to the Princess Theater for vocalist Che Orton, back with an Elvis tribute show. He was named one of the five best Elvis impersonators in the world (yes, apparently there is a contest held at Graceland).  It was an excellent show that received a well-deserved standing ovation at the end. 

We were on the Terrace Deck at 8pm for sunset. I love that it happens later this far south. 

A sunny but chilly day

And, finally, CD Nathan, who ran into G at the veterans get together, stopped by our dinner table tonight. I had been trying to see him but hadn’t yet, and G told him where to find me. He gives the best bear hugs!  He wasn’t supposed to be on the ship right now, but the scheduled CD suffered a broken leg, so he was asked to stand in for three cruises.  Aren’t we so lucky that he did! He’s one of our favorites. 

Day 42: At Sea

Another fantastic day, from start to finish, but the highlight was definitely lunch. Wait until you see what I enjoyed!!!

We broke from tradition this morning and hung a breakfast room service tag on the door, requesting only a decaf coffee delivery (to keep it simple, G didn’t get caffeinated). When we’re home, I would give anything for coffee while I’m still in bed, but, no, with an upstairs master bedroom, I have to go downstairs to make it, and to save time, before I go downstairs I get dressed and put in contacts and make the bed and…well, by then my day is pretty much underway and I’ve kind of lost that whole “coffee in bed” concept. So it was definitely nice this morning to pour a cup of coffee and crawl back under the covers to enjoy it…

…watch the sunrise off the bow of the ship on the bridge cam at the same time

And then I looked at the Botticelli Dining Room breakfast menu on the app and saw that it offered something I really enjoy, so I ended up getting dressed anyway and going down to Deck 6 to have breakfast. Which kind of defeats at least part of that “coffee in bed” thing. 

That item that got me out of bed? Tropical fruit and cottage cheese.

G never did join me, so I plugged in ear buds while I ate and generally grooved on life. When I was finished, I literally ran into him leaving our cabin and followed him up to the Horizon Court to watch him eat. We sat with a couple from England who was going to be flying to Detroit after this cruise for a wedding (it must be a really good friend whose daughter is getting married to go to Detroit in December!) and we warned them not to expect to see the sun the entire five days they’re going to be there…but perhaps coming from the UK that won’t be much of a shock. But the temperatures likely will be!

We next did a morning walkabout so I could test pool water temperatures, and, dang, they are chilly (and the somewhat protected Lotus Pool was netted off). Then I remembered that small, round Oasis pool on the back of the ship on Deck 17 and dipped a hand in it and it seemed a smidge warmer. I was initially really excited about that. No one even knows it’s back there and I could swim without without an audience (except for the people reading in Skywalkers, and if I can’t see them I won’t worry about them), so I planned to return after lunch when I guessed that pool would be in full sun. 

And that’s when we discovered the line of empty loungers on Deck 17 along the starboard side of the ship in the sun, protected from the wind. And we sat there and enjoyed the sun and the sea for quite a while until some exhaust from one of those big vents back there and smelling of rotten food forced us to flee.

The Botticelli Dining Room opened for lunch earlier than we’re used to, at 11:30am. I wasn’t particularly hungry but G had eaten lightly in the buffet and was. And here we were presented with perhaps the best surprise of the cruise. The menu was not the lunch menu shown in the app, but was instead our favorite lunch menu of all time, featuring chicken korma!!!!!! With condiments!!!!! And G’s favorite veggie burrito and Phillie steak sandwich and four flavors of ice cream.  We settled in and enjoyed it all. And while I was eating the two small chicken thighs in the korma I knew that dinner would, of necessity, be pasta. I’d already consumed all my protein (68 grams) for the entire day. But it was so worth it. 

A gift from the gods

I just wish they’d save the leftovers for me

Fully sated, I returned to the cabin to do some hand laundry and discovered that steward Santhosh (from India, we call him Santy) had returned the laundry I turned in embarkation day evening, which is a good turnaround time. I was particularly happy because it contained the leggings and heavy hoodie I had worn to watch the Grand Princess arrive in Sydney Harbour Wednesday morning when it was not warm, and I have been sorely missing those items during our chilly days (60s) on the Tasman Sea. 

I allowed lunch to settle and then went up to the Oasis Pool to do my workout. What I hadn’t realized is that pool is shallow, or, at least wasn’t highly filled, just slightly above waist deep, which requires yet a different workout, harder on the knees but also freezing in the wind. I lasted only 35 minutes, then squeezed myself into the crowded adjacent hot tub (definitely not hot) to warm up. At least it was brightly sunny today, which helped, but I really do miss a covered pool on this ship!

Another long, hot shower followed, then dinner in the DaVinci Dining Room where, as planned, I had just the pasta (and am, frankly, hungry tonight as a result).

Tonight’s Princess Theater entertainment was Australian vocalist Nina Ferro. She had an incredible voice and it was an enjoyable show. She also had a broken right arm, and, having had one myself a corner of years ago, I felt for her (trying putting on a bra with one hand). But she was still out there giving it her all. 

While we were waiting for the show to start, that man who I had seen working out in the pools on the Grand Princess came in and sat a couple of seats away. I leaned over and asked him which pool he was using on this ship. It turns out he is from northern Italy, but spoke perfect English. He said he has been struggling because of the water temps and the wind, and had used crew chat to ask the front desk to put in a request to warm them up and open the Lotus Pool. I sat right there and did the same. Maybe there is power in numbers.  And I felt somewhat vindicated knowing it’s not just me.

We move clocks ahead another hour overnight for New Zealand (but then back an hour after that for Fiji- go figure- these countries do crazy things to lay claim to being the first to welcome a new year)  so we made it an early evening. Our mattresses on this ship are primo, and the best part of every good  day is crawling into bed at the end of it.

Day 41: At Sea

A 2:45am, I was fully awakened by a loud crash, followed by another and another. I thought something horrible was happening in Cafe Caribe, right above our cabin. When I lifted my sleep mask, our cabin was lighting up from the lightning on the bridge cam, which we always have on overnight in our cabin. The fiercest lightning storm I’ve even seen was keeping the TV screen brightly lit almost constantly, and the sound I was hearing was the thunder coming from the door to the Terrace Deck. I can’t imagine what it would have been like to be on the bridge during a storm of that intensity. It went on for quite a while, but eventually slowed and I was able to fall back asleep. 

The bad news is that we are not entitled to Sabatini’s breakfast during this cruise. The good news is that we have no reason to set an alarm to be certain we get there. Especially as we get further into that “clocks ahead” thing, there is a strong possibility we won’t get up until lunch. 

But not today. Despite moving ahead an hour overnight, and being kept awake by the storm, we were at breakfast in the Botticelli Dining Room shortly after it opened at 7:30am. Frankly, I was hungry. The available yogurt isn’t Greek- it’s regular, so I’ve switched up the routine to now include smoked salmon and double orange segments, but I can get papaya now, too, in the regular dining room more easily than it was for them to get it for me in Sabatini’s on the Grand. 

I went to an enrichment lecture on Māori culture at 10am.  It started with a traditional haka, and so was kind of a mini-cultural show, too. When I was telling G about it at lunch, the Kiwi lady at the next table corrected my pronunciation of Māori, which I’d been saying as Maui with an “r” in the middle. She’s said it’s pronounced to rhyme with car with a “y” at the end, or more commonly said as “moldy”. I thought she was pulling my leg until tonight’s Princess Theater show (more later). 

After lunch it was time to get in a pool. As much as I was looking forward to resuming my workouts, I knew the pools- all of them- would be sloshy, and it was only 68° and overcast with intermittent showers. But, without a covered pool on this ship, and since it wasn’t currently lightning, I had to bite the bullet. The really low water level in the Terrace Pool required me to totally change up my workout, and it became more of a water jog with soft knees, because I never knew where the pool bottom would be when I landed, but I got it done. Onward!

Of course, that leaves me freezing, and I enjoyed the longest, hottest shower imaginable, and got dressed for tonight’s formal evening by 3pm. That gave me a chance to get caught up on the US election results. Speaking of that, did I mention yesterday that my phone blew up when I connected it to cell service in Sydney?  I had hundreds of political texts and emails. Ugh. I’m not sorry I missed those in real time. 

We are trying a different table for dinner, now in the DaVinci Dining Room. Last night’s table was so loud that I asked a restaurant manager at breakfast this morning if there was any chance we could try a table in a different dining room. Luckily, Emmanuel from Peru is a really good guy who tries very hard, and he found us a table for two in the anytime dining room that we can now have every night. Funnily enough, there were two other couples being re-seated for the same reason. I don’t know what’s up in the Michelangelo Dining Room, but it is loud. 

CD Nathan Gorge made an announcement at 5pm that tonight’s performance of production show Magic To Do had to be re-scheduled due to technical issues and we’d be hearing New Zealand vocalist Che Orton instead. I had to laugh. We were with Nathan our entire 52 days on the Emerald Princess last winter and it became a joke how many production shows had to be re-scheduled due to technical issues. In fact, I had a running joke with him about what he was doing to sabotage the equipment. And here we go again. I haven’t seen him to talk with him yet, but can’t wait to tease him again. 

CD Nathan

Anyway, Che Orton is half Māori and he pronounced it as “moldy” so it’s true. I’ve traveled a fair bit in New Zealand and never before heard that. His show was excellent, highly enjoyable with a great song list…until that last one. 

Per usual, My Way was the final song

With new friends…it was champagne waterfall night

We’re back in the cabin and the ship is going through another lightning storm, not nearly as intense as last night’s (I don’t hear thunder in our inside cabin) but fun to watch all the same. Sadly, rain is forecasted for at least our first two days in New Zealand, not that that’s a huge surprise. I actually packed a waterproof jacket and warm clothes specifically with New Zealand in mind. I may not have known how to correctly pronounce Māori but I definitely knew what kind of weather to expect. 

Day 40: Crown Princess embarkation

Once again tonight, I’m doing battle with a quickly exhausting battery, so I’m going to be brief. After just one night without charging capability, we are so far behind in charging batteries. Well, that plus the fact that yesterday morning we were on an upper deck before 5am taking pics of our sail in to Sydney Harbour. And tonight we were on the Promenade Deck photographing our departure. We should be all caught up tomorrow, the first of three days in a row at sea. 

I need to back up for a minute to our sail in yesterday. It was definitely a grief bomb moment as I recalled that Mom never- ever- missed our sail ins on the Sydney Harbor webcam. She couldn’t watch our sail aways due to the time difference but arrivals usually fell right about the time she returned to her apartment after lunch. I was a bit sad knowing that she wasn’t watching, but sent the link to a couple of friends and, on a whim, to McGee and McGuy. I never really imagined they would be interested enough and in a position where they could watch. Well, of course they were, and did, and immediately let me know they were watching and it was quite wonderful texting them and seeing their excitement match mine. My heart 💙

So, yes, yesterday was a long day with a lot of walking, but, once we rolled our large suitcases down to Overseas Passenger Terminal this morning (just two blocks and luckily downhill today) and dropped them off, then returned to the hotel for our roll aboards, we were on the ship pretty quickly…in fact, the whole process from hotel room to the Botticelli Dining Room table for lunch took exactly one hour. We were starving, having just had the few remaining bites of our Subway sandwich for breakfast this morning. 

Siberia I missed scanning the second page of the menu

Following lunch, we went directly to our cabin, which is the same number but Riviera Deck instead of Aloha Deck, as it was on the Grand. Place your bets now about how many times I will write-and say- and push the elevator button for Aloha Deck instead of Riviera. 

By the time we were unpacked (considerably more storage, a larger closet but smaller bathroom and shower), G was snoozing and I was swapping out charging devices (no USB outlets on the nightstand lamps as on the Grand, but then those were so weak that our phone constantly gave us slow charging warnings). 

We went to dinner at 5pm. A table for two but next to a wait station and so loud that we can’t talk to each other across the table. There is nothing else available, at least until Auckland where some passengers will be getting off (and others getting on) so we will try again. Tbis ship just finished a 28-night Australia circumnavigation (we had been booked on that one, too, but G mixed the idea of the flight down to Australia) and a lot of those people stayed on for this transpacific cruise and they snagged all the best dining room seating. Hey, we don’t fault them. We’ve certainly done that a time or a hundred over the years. 

Sail away as viewed from the Promenade Deck was spectacular. That may well be the last time we do that, so I was thrilled the weather was so beautiful. We then went right into the Princess Theater for the 7pm comedian (pretty good) but that was as long we lasted. We move clocks ahead overnight for the first of many times, so I really don’t see a lot of late nights in our near future. 

Climbing the Sydney Harbour Bridge