The alarm went off, as usually does, at 6am, though I’ll admit I’ve been either skipping it or turning it off immediately more often than not lately. Sabatini’s opened at 6:30am for breakfast today, and, as I headed that direction, I spotted loyalty host Andre standing at the entrance to the Elite disembarkation lounge in the Vista Lounge talking on a radio. I said hi and kept on moving but he caught up with me to tell me that we are this cruise’s most travelled guests once again.
I. Was. Gobsmacked. This cannot possibly be right. I didn’t even know how to respond, I was so shook. I kept thinking it was some big joke, but when I entered Sabatini’s, restaurant manager Priscilla welcomed us back and congratulated us on that same honor. I’m still thinking it is a huge mistake and until the Captains Circle party will have nightmares that someone will come running up disputing our right to that claim.
But until we’re found out, I’ll sure enjoy breakfast in Sabatini’s. All those upcoming lazy sea days. Bliss.
After breakfast I figure I could squeeze in a Terrace Pool workout before we had to report for immigration. It was a very hot, sunny, beautiful day with an obviously calm pool all to myself. More bliss!
Actually, I could have squeezed in two workouts, but they announced last and final call for disembarking guests, I took a quick shower and reported to the Vista Lounge. G had already disembarked to check out two nearby hotels and wouldn’t be able to re-board until the ship was cleared. Per usual, the in transit guests waited for an hour as 40 errant guests who needed to get off the ship were rounded up. Once that was accomplished, it was a quick process using facial recognition just inside the terminal. I was walking back on the ship at 10:45am and G was right behind me.
Last year, my face was never once recognized during our many turnarounds in LA and I always required in person screening, which G found rather harious in its predictability, but we had to renew our passports this year and that did the trick. No issues with facial recognition, though I remember saying ten years ago that the passport photo I was horrified by then would likely seem a lot less egregious when it came time for renewal. I was right.
Embarkation Day lunch was the usual excellent menu and afterward we donned swimsuits (luckily I brought plenty so I could put on a dry one) and headed for a hot tub and then the Terrace Pool to cool off. We tried to sit on the Terrace Deck (as many guests were) but, darn, the sun was scalding. The wooden deck was too hot to walk on and the railing too hot to hold. The SoCal heat wave was in full force today.
There was just enough time for yet another shower (I’m going to need to do a re-stocking in Hawaii because I wasn’t planning to take multiple showers each day) and a quick visit to the Elite Lounge where we ran into cruise friend Mona. I forgot to mention that last cruise we saw friends from the Emerald Princess Craig and Cheryl. But, honestly, fewer familiar faces than I’d anticipated and no old friends among the crew. That’s okay, we’re making many new crew friends. They’re all great.
Mona travels solo and I was telling her about some solo travel I have planned and mentioned that I thought I’d do fine because I’m not at all social, and we looked at each other and burst out laughing, we two anti-social ladies who picked right up on where we left each other last January and never missed a beat. Okay, maybe a-social is more accurate than anti-social. Definitely.
It was so nice to return to the same table with waiters Libres and Sulton, though I almost got taken down for trying to walk directly in to our table (as we had been instructed to do tonight) and not wait in the long line to be seated. Chill people!
I did not adequately plan ahead for tonight’s dinner. Each day I try to check out the lunch and dinner menu before I order breakfast to ensure I don’t get too much protein. I didn’t do that today, and had to miss out on my favorite cioppino (we’re no longer in Mexico, so they left out the cilantro and red pepper 😉), but I had the excellent bucatini caponata and steamed broccoli and- yum- I could eat that every single day and never tire of it.
The timing of each evening’s Princess Theater shows has been changed beginning today. They are now at 7pm and 9pm. Tonight’s performance was vocalist Mark Kopitzke doing swing and I shouldn’t have been surprised that three Frank Sinatra hits were sung. It helped a great deal that Mark was a heckuva showman and a very polished performer. Given that we now have five sea days to Hawaii, I hope we’ll see him back performing another style of music. But his show tonight did give me the opportunity to dust off this meme.
We were surprised, after the show, to see that we had not yet sailed. Captain Ravera had told us that the ship was undergoing special hull cleaning to comply with New Zealand regulations and that they wanted to finish that up before we left. He thought we would sail at 5pm but it turned out to be around 9pm. We walked out onto the Terrace Deck to see the lights of the Los Angeles freight port off the back of the ship. It was so pleasant back there that we stayed and chatted with fellow guests (even a-social me) until we had sailed past the breakwater and were on our way.
I did some math-ing today. This is the fourth transpacific cruise (3 westbound, one eastbound) I’ve done, plus three crossings to/from Tahiti and countless Hawaii trips. I really never tire of this part of the world, and love the anticipatory excitement I feel at the start of every trip.
Life is good. :-)
