Day 128: At Sea

I must start today with a cautionary rant. Leave me to it, and then I'll move on. 

Since I had done laundry mid-cruise last cruise, and not since, I was running out of clean T-shirts. As I've said, we get several wearings of things we wear solely on the ship, thanks to Fabreeze, before washing them. I had a T-shirt I'd just purchased on the Nieuw Amsterdam in November that needed to be washed. It was a high quality shirt, dressier than a normal T, and I really wanted to wear it for our day at sea today. So I sent it to the ship's laundry two days ago.  I knew I was courting trouble, but it was such a heavyweight knit I thought it might be safe. 

Cue ominous Jaws music here, all the more fitting because the shirt appears to have been the victim of a shark attack.  When I was putting it on this morning, I noticed what had happened to the back of the shirt. (G thinks he sees a map of the Eastern Caribbean in the 9" arch of holes). 

One washing of a heavy, nearly new T-shirt. Sigh. This one I reported to the Passenger Services Desk. And I'm reporting it to you. On Cruise Critic, every time there's a thread about laundry damage, ten people say they've never had an issue to every one of us who say we have.  Our personal luck may be among the worst, but then it's put to the test a bit more than usual.  But these issues are not our imagination. With the exception of G's formal shirt, we're now officially done sending anything to the ship's laundry, and will send dry cleaning as little as possible, no matter how desperate we become. This Elite perk...is not. 

So, I'm done ranting now, but discovering that even before breakfast was a heck of a way to start the day. In fact, I skipped breakfast altogether in favor of a vanilla blended latte from the International Cafe. G was set on going to Pub Lunch in the Wheelhouse Bar as soon as it opened at 11:30pm, so I would be eating early anyway. Pub Lunch was, as it's been every time we've gone this winter, sooooo good. I paired my fish and chips with a Strongbow cider for a really British flair, and we enjoyed dining across from a couple who are the first people we've met who have purchased the new, unlimited drink package. We saw that it is designated by a sticker on their ship cards, similar to our soda stickers. But we were surprised to learn that they still had to sign for every drink, just so Princess could track consumption. That seemed a bit strange...couldn't consumption be tracked without having to sign for everything? I would have thought that one big advantage of getting the unlimited drinks packages would be NOT having to sign for everything. Their feelings about it were that the husband loved it, and was getting the value out of it. The wife, who got the package only because she had to, is clearly not. 

During our lunch, Captain Stenzel made the noon update from the navigational bridge. He always shares a bit of nautical history with us when he's done with location, direction and current and forecasted weather conditions. Today's lesson was about the origin of the phrase "three sheets to the wind". Captain Stenzel explained that a sheet is not a sail, as one might expect, but the ropes or chains that secure the four corners of sails. One sheet "to the wind" (meaning one rope loose and blowing in the wind) meant that one corner of the sail was blowing freely, and the sailing vessel (and, in the case of drunkeness, the sailor) was tipsy.  Two sheets to the wind meant two corners of the sail were blowing freely, and indicated a more severe drunken state. Three sheets to the wind meant the sail was blowing wildly and the sailing vessel was bobbing out of control, as a drunken sailor who was three sheets to the wind would be staggering.

I love his updates!

The highlight of the afternoon was the Grapevine wine tasting, and I squeezed in a quick walk on the Promenade Deck (it was too HOT and sunny on Deck 19). 

Dinner with Darko featured a surprise:  Komang is back!  He was welcomed back by all his guests like he was a much loved member of the family, which, he kind of is. It was the Chefs Menu tonight, and Darko has gotten me away from the twice baked goat cheese soufflé I love so much and onto the wild mushroom soup as a starter. It is even better. 

Sunset through our dining room window:

We attended the first performance of the production show What a Swell Party with the new cast, then caught Team Rootberry doing a busker bit in the Piazza immediately afterwards. I knew last night that Rootberry had gotten on board in St. Thomas; first we saw Bill Berry running on the Promenade Deck about dinner time, then, while I was getting my late night fuzzy water, Jon Root walked by and greeted me with a hug. It's not just the crew we've gotten to know; some of the performers have noticed that we seem to never to home. ;-)

Early to bed tonight in preparation for a big day on Princess Cays, so I'll end this now, except to say that the US Public Health department came on board yesterday in St. Thomas for their 6 month inspection. The Emerald Princess did excellently, and we're seeing lots of smiles around today.

Between you and  I, all US Public Health needed to do was ask us. We could've told them Emerald Princess is all good, all the time. This ship has always been a special one. 

Day 43: St. Thomas

I have so shockingly little to report today that's it's one of those rare days when I think, "Oh, why did I ever start this blog thing?"  We did have plans today:  to watch the sunrise as we approached St. Thomas; to walk into Charlotte Amalie and then climb the 99 steps to Blackbeard's Castle; to watch the Broncos v. Chargers game on MUTS tonight, but...squat. Nothing. It was a "down day" because it had been an long, sleepless, "up night".

The Emerald Princess was rocking and rolling yesterday evening, so much so that, avid fans that we are, we noticed a few choreography changes in last night's production show, I Got the Music. They do that occasionally when rough seas endanger performer (and passenger) safety. By the time we went to bed, high on the back of the ship, it was definitely a "tuck in the duvet" sort of night. While that kept us from rolling out of bed, it didn't prevent us from being awakened time and time and time and time again, all night long, as the ship heaved and shook. We would fall back asleep quickly, generally within a few minutes, but I think we never did achieve that deep REM sleep that keeps us from...well, saying exactly what we think when we encounter an irritation. In other words, we were armed and a bit dangerous. At least, I was. G was smart and stayed in bed when I got up at 6:30pm, and probably got some decent sleep after the ship docked in St. Thomas. 

I snuck out of the cabin and made a beeline for the IC. Coffee doesn't need to be caffeinated for me to crave it in the morning. I was in the DaVinci Dining Room as soon as it opened, and enjoyed dining by myself while reading a book on my iPhone. After I was finished, I went up to Deck 7 and sat in Crooners to get a morning call out to Mom. I was still talking to her when another call came in; G was up and on the move. I met up with him in the DaVinci Dining Room while he ate and I succumbed and had a pastry. I'm sorry to report that Christmas stollen has not yet made an appearance, which is a bit sad.  As you know, it's a favorite of mine. Maybe now that Shoewatch is over, I should start Stollenwatch. 

I was happy, thrilled, relieved to hear that G had slept as poorly as I had (maybe that didn't come out quite right...) and was also not a bundle of energy today, because, if he had been, you know I'd've found myself climbing up those 99 steps on my hands and knees. Instead, G seemed content to sit on the Promenade Deck and Internet to his heart's content. And that is how we spent part of the morning, in silent (safer that way) companionship. Finally I changed into my swimsuit and blew up a float and sat in the Terrace Pool, listening to my latest audiobook (Sophie Kinsella's Can you Keep a Secret, which I know is 30 years too young for me, but I'm on vacation and temporarily weary of murder mysteries). Now that was a wonderful feeling, to be floating in a pool, hot in the sun but cool in the water, simply listening to a book. Oh, and answering the phone when school called asking if I'd be available to work in January ("You won't believe where you caught me!"). 

If I could have had a slice of pizza delivered to me, I might still be there in that pool, but by 2pm I started getting hungry. G, sitting just above me on the Terrace Deck, declared that he was too. I went back to the cabin a few steps away to change and then forward to the pizzeria to pick up two slices of pizza for G (pepperoni) and one for me (four cheese) from this year's Mr. Pizza, Vladimer, who also happens to be Mr. Pastry in the IC in the morning. My slice was perhaps the best pizza I'd ever had, super crispy, just the way I like it. The second piece that I just had to get was not as crispy and not as good, which is probably for the best. Pizza that good and that freely available is a dangerous thing. 

Finally G walked off the ship, convinced the iguanas were looking for him, and I returned to the Terrace Pool. But sailaway from St. Thomas is always so beautiful that I was showered and up in Skywalkers by 4:45pm and was followed not long after by G. It was Breeza Marina night, which was a perfect accompaniment to the scenery passing by.  

Honeymoon Beach on Water Island:

In spots, Water Island is just a narrow stretch of land:

We were down on the Promenade Deck on our way to dinner at sunset:

Dinner with Darko...I love the sound of that, but I love the experience even more.

And maître d' Generoso Mazzone and Executive Chef Giuseppe Pollara (Martha, remember them both from our Chefs Table last February?) stopped by to visit briefly. 

We went to the Princess Theater for the 7:15pm show by vocalist Bobby Banks Wilson whom we'd seen two cruises ago...but he's lost his voice and had to cancel as late as 5:30. In his place, and on very short notice, the singers and dancers stepped up to the plate and performed the production show Boogie Shoes, which was fine by us.

We're about to go to Club Fusion for the Broncos v. Chargers game which, surprisingly, is not being shown on MUTS tonight. It starts at 9:25pm and should finish well after midnight. But Captain Nick promised us a calmer night tonight, so while we might turn in late, sleep should be much easier tonight. 

And, finally, another laundry update. We're convinced they're washing clothes in holy water. ;-). This is G's t-shirt that had been returned last time with three small holes:

Miscellaneous musings on life at sea

Over the course of several port days, things pop into my mind and I'll think, "Oh, I really should mention that on my blog," but when I sit down to write about our days, these thoughts really don't fit in anywhere. So here's a potpourri of things that occurred to me during our first Emerald Princess cruise this winter...

Regarding laundry:  we learned our lesson last year...many items of clothing can't stand up to repeated washings in the ship's commercial laundry. And so this year I brought with me enough unmentionables to last an entire 10 days. Each cruise, generally on turnaround day morning after the Emerald Princess docks in Fort Lauderdale, I am going to use the passenger laundry room and do a load of laundry myself, on a gentle cycle, and hang those things to dry in our cabin. This serves the dual purposes of extending the life of clothing as well as putting some much needed moisture into our cabin. I got $10 in quarters at the PSD earlier this cruise, and detergent in Fort Lauderdale. We're good to go. 

We are still sending out laundry two or three times each cruise, but only shorts and T-shirts that are expendable, or items to be "dry cleaned" (we've never had an issue with the latter). Still, we've already suffered our first T-shirt injury: one of G's T's came back with two of the usual holes in it.

For this reason, he never sends his beloved race T-shirts, but this particular shirt had been purchased at one of the "garage sales" on board last year and held no sentimental value.  The T-shirt I wore during my slip and fall has been returned in good shape, and, fortunately hole-less (it's from Samoa and not so easily replaced). We know to pre-treat with Shout Gel before sending things out to be washed, so stains are less of an issue than those little holes are.

Bottom line:  free laundry and dry cleaning are wonderful perks, but don't send anything that's irreplaceable. 

There were 401 Elite Passengers on this sailing. That's way more than the typically high 300+ Elite passengers that are on the January cruises. I have no idea why, but that's the way it is. We'll see if it changes considerably on the next cruise. 

The Emerald Princess has new, larger Viewsonic flat panel TVs this year, but it also has exactly the same TV offerings it had last year after the dry dock. Exactly. It's not just that it's still offering Love Boat or Modern Family or How I Met Your Mother reruns...it's offering the exact same episodes of those shows, including a Love Boat episode in which Captain Stuebing's horny uncle comes on board and sexually harasses Julie McCoy, and the rest of the crew thinks it's funny, which, I guess, was what passed for humor in the 1970s. It's like fingernails on a chalkboard to me. Surely Princess could have found a more PC episode to air eight times every cruise for two years?

Also still available:  Fox News, MSNBC and BBC, so, to keep the peace in our tiny cabin, we're getting most of our news from BBC. However, we are being saved, entertainment-wise, by the show American Greed which is shown on CNBC, and which we both enjoy. If I had to do it all over again, I would be a forensic accountant, kind of an Angie Dickenson with a green eyeshade and calculator. 

G, who promised he wouldn't complain about the lack of TV options this year, already is a bit. That's another thing we're looking forward to next year on the Royal Princess- its fantastic TV programming. Of the four ships we've been in most recently, we'd rank TV selections in this order:  1.) Nieuw Amsterdam (because of the 1000 DVD library; 2.) Royal Princess (because of its on-demand programming); 3.) Allure OTS (which at least had TBS, TNT and TCM); and 994.) Emerald Princess. We're working on an inexpensive solution providing access to TV shows or movies, but I'm not sure we'll be successful.   

There are plenty of daytime activities on the Emerald Princess this year. I'm not certain if that's due to the cruise director, JJ Ulrich, or if it's coming from Princess. We haven't even begun to avail ourselves of most of them, but these are early days. There is certainly no entertainment drought daytimes on sea days; if we had the Royal Princess' on demand programming our evenings would also be full. 

We have now been cruising for four weeks and it still feels like we're just getting started. I don't know if it's a tolerance thing (you know, where eventually we'll feel about four months of cruising the way that most people will feel about two weeks), or a result of having moved around so much at the onset. Either way, we've just returned to the cabin for the evening, and G said, "Hasn't this been a wonderful ten days?", and he's right, it has been. We seem to have encountered another perfect- not storm. Rainbow?- this year, where the three individuals most responsible for our day to day contentment- our cabin steward, waiter and junior waiter- are all batting 1000, and it definitely has us building high expectations for the winter.  We have several cruise friends coming on board on Friday for at least ten days, and we can't wait to see them. 

Life is good.