I am starting this while sitting at dinner. We are, thankfully, not at all rushed tonight (going to the 9pm show tonight with nothing firm on our schedule until Silent Disco at 8pm. G noticed in the Medallion app that “shipmate friend” Pratad who he’s met on prior cruises is dining alone just one deck down in the Celestial Dining Room so he ran down to say hi while we are waiting for our food. He simply can’t sit still very well, but, thankfully, I do it well enough for both of us.
Today was a brunch day in the Sanctuary Restaurant, and, now that we know the routine, we didn’t go until after 9am. I had my usual watermelon and feta and a delicious salmon frittata, but I am definitely scaling back in the eating department and only made it through half of it. Delicious! I think this is the same menu as two days ago, but, just in case, here it is again.
Dr. Engman’s 10am enrichment lecture topic was about corals, one of my favorite things in the world, then he (and we) had a one hour break before he spoke at noon on ocean mammals.
The schedule for the rest of the afternoon opened up then, and we sat on the Wake View Terrace discussing this ship and plans for cruising on it again. As a result, we ended up booking six cruises going out through November 2027. Think we like it? We’ve been on the ship for a week now, and have spent a lot of time analyzing how we “live” and where we spend our time, and after all that, we decided to again book on Deck 9…just not so far forward as to be directly above the speakers on the ceiling of the Princess Arena!
We are now actually double booked for next fall, with cruises we have had booked for well over a year that I was really looking forward to, and now the Star Princess. Which way we go really depends on how we’re feeling at final payment time. They’re entirely different types of ships and itineraries.
As a collective group, we passengers are getting more colorful by the day. The sun is bright. And hot. And burning. I’m pretty careful and even I’m getting pink. What I would have given for this weather on our last Hawaii cruise!
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| I keep discovering new places on this ship. There is a seawalk in the Piazza sphere. Who knew? |
Today’s Princess Arena rehearsal sounded good (😉) and we were looking forward to tonight’s show. It’s working better to go the 9pm show for several reasons, but I especially love not being rushed at dinner. We spent on time on the Wake View Terrace at 5pm listening to the SaxWave Duo perform (really nice event) and then walked right into the Sanctuary Restaurant for dinner just before 6pm. It was Italian night, and the minestrone soup was superb but I also had a taste for (believe it or not) the smoked beef brisket. It was quite good.
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| This pic was taken with permission, but this optical illusion in the Wake View pool is so weird! |
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| Our three main guys in the Sanctuary Restaurant. Junior waiter Man from Nepal, waiter Somphot from Thailand and Restaurant Manager Ray from the Philippines are the best!! |
Next up was the Silent Disco in the Piazza (so.much.fun!) before heading to the Princess Arena for tonight’s show by Italian vocalist Marco Romano.
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| yet another Frank Sinatra song bomb on a cruise |
I was kind of iffy on his show, especially when he squeezed in a Frank Sinatra number, but he finished strongly with Bring Him Home and Con Te Partiro and knocked it out of the park with those.
The Luminescence White Party was held in the Puazza starting at 10pm and was kicked off with another aerial act (different couple than we had seen in The Dome a few nights ago) and then the party band opened it up for dancing.
It was nice to have seats (up in Deck 9, not far from our cabin) from which to watch the aerial performance! There were several (not a lot) of guests wearing white outfits. G actually brought one, too, but that was before we knew that the Luminescence White Part would be held on Italian night in the dining rooms. White gauze and red sauce just don’t mix!
