Two Days at Sea

Day 1 – at Sea
 

Clocks went ahead one hour so we are awake at 8:30 but it is really 7:30.  Have to say first, the bed is so comfortable, certainly the best mattress we have ever had on a Princess Ship, no egg crate foamy needed.

 

Dining room is open for breakfast until 9:30 so we head down for that.  Oksana is the host at the dining room, in February she was working in the coffee bar and she remembered us.  We sat with two lovely couples, one from Florida and one from England.  Only problem with breakfast in the dining room is that it can be very long, and we are finished at 10:30. 

 

Bernie goes to pick up his watch from the stores as it needed to have a few links taken out.  Sarah from Canada (Toronto area) stood up from behind the counter and recognized Bernie right away.  So nice to see her again, and surprised to see her back on board the ship.

 

Our Cruisecritic meet and greet is at Skywalkers so we head up there.  It was nice to see the Customer Services Director, Cruise Director, Shore Excursion Manager, Housekeeping Manager and Hotel General Manager attend and chatted with the group.  The Future Cruise Sales Host called and left a message in my cabin with her apology as she was working.  It is understandable when they can not attend as they are all working, but it is appreciated when they do.

 

I did ask Peter the Hotel General Manager when the ship would be decorated and he said in Aruba.

 

This afternoon was spent relaxing, lunch in the room then watching the movie Bridesmaids in the Princess Theatre, then a workout before dinner.  The gym looks great, lots more cardio equipment but have to say if you are tall don’t even attempt the elliptical machines without hitting your head.

Sabatinis was our choice tonight as it was the first formal night and we wanted to opt out of the dining room.  Sabatinis recently changed their menu and we were looking forward to trying it out.  The old menu was just too much food.  Now you choose your appetizer and your entrée, the bring along bread and antipasto and then serve pasta before the main entrée.  We brought a bottle of wine from Argentina and order sparkling water.  We started with prosciutto and focaccia bread served with both green and black olives.  Oh my those olives were to die for.  For my appetizer I chose the artichoke cheese soufflé and Bernie had the calamari, both were amazing.  They then served pasta primavera, again wonderful.  And for our entrees we both chose the lobster three ways, lobster bisque sauce, lobster risotto, and a grilled lobster.  Yum, yum, and yum.  For dessert Bernie had the crème brule and I had a citrus tart, great way to end the meal.

We decided to head to Explorer’s lounge to listen to the band Fusion– and even danced a song!  Then comedian/musician Dan Riley came on, he was very funny and the crowd loved him. 

We wandered about the ship and stopped in to chat with some of the people we know and since we had Jasper Moose Jaw with us we had some of the crew wanting to say hi to him again.  He was quite proud to have his picture taken with Tim Donovan the Cruise Director – and Tim looked very dapper tonight for Formal Night.

Day 2 – sea day

Another great night’s sleep, nothing like being rocked to sleep.  My best night’s sleep have always been on board ships.  Woke up just before 8 am, my internal alarm I guess as we had room service coming for 8 am.  As we sat out on our balcony we enjoyed tea and juice.  We watched as a school of dolphins played in the surf at the bow of the ship, must have been around 30 of them.

I decided to head up to do the Zumba class.  It was at 9:15 at the Calypso pool, and it was very very popular.  In fact it was hard to find a spot to stand.  Mark from the cruise director staff lead us and his moves where well what can I say, nice to look at.  He was great, but I will comment I prefer it when it is in Club Fusion, not as hot and a little more room.  After the class I headed up to the gym for a workout and it was very busy in there not many cardio machines were available.  The crowd on board does appear to be younger than we have experienced before, and lots are working out.

I met up with Bernie in the International Café for a latte and then we went for lunch in the dining room.  I had calamari and then stuffed yellow pepper, both were very good.  We did check out tonight’s menu, which is Caribbean Night, not one of my favorites, we will take a look to see what the café carib is offering tonight then we will make up our mind.

We relaxed in the room for a bit, tried reading but neither of us could keep our eyes open and napped for 20 min before we headed to the Princess Theatre to watch Hangover 2.  The movie started at 2:30 and the sound person forgot to turn off the jazz music that was playing the background before the movie started. 

One issue we are having is getting tea, not a problem in dining room or horizon court but in the International Café can’t seem to get any tea.  Now we are willing to pay for it but all they have is specialty tea flavours like orange, mint, black…. All we want is English Breakfast or Earl Gray, which they normally have in the Revolution but they all seem to come up with different reasons why they don’t have it.  Yesterday we got a Early Gray Twillings tea, but for some strange reason today it seems like no one knows what we are talking about when we ask for some.  Bernie will grab a handful of Lipton tea bags in the Horizon Court today and will then just as for hot water and milk and a cup and will make his own.  Sadly the International café is missing out on a sale.

Dinner was spent in the Michelangelo Dining room in Ciska’s section and we also got to see another friend Katrina who use to work in the coffee bar.  It was nice to catch up with her and to be served by Ciska who was Audrey’s recommendation. 

For dinner I started with the scallops and shrimp cocktail, then the pear and ginger soup (love the crystallized ginger in it) then for my entrée I had the cod with corizo sausage, all was very very good.  For dessert I had the pineapple crème brule.

After dinner we wander to Club Fusion where they were having a 50’s Trivia, we joined up with an older couple and had a giggle since Bernie and I knew more of the answers than they did and I wasn’t even born until the 60s and Bernie was the late 50s.  But we had fun. 

Around 10 pm we went back to the room to get changed into bathing suits and headed up on deck for a swim and hot tub, the sky was clear and the stars were out and life couldn’t get any better.