At Sea - First of Four Days at Sea

I will start by saying what a wonderful dinner we had last night.  We were fortunate enough to have Antonio and Ajay as our waiters again in Portifino.  Marcin the Head Waiter is taking good care of us in Douw’s absence.  We had the usual Sail Away Dinner, and we chose the spring rolls and then the mushroom soup but the new item we really enjoyed was the Basa Fillet served with a mango and papaya salsa with potato pancake.  Very good.   We also chose to take the same table every night at 7:45, something we rarely do but we are enjoying the table for two and the service.  Our friend Jeannie and Greg dine together often and now we understand why, it is romantic.

The welcome aboard show is happening tonight but since we saw it the first night of the last sailing we are going to skip knowing it is pretty much exactly the same.  We sit in on the last few question of a trivia game hosted by Kelly then wander around a bit and chat with some of the crew.  Many are shocked to see that we have stayed on for another sailing.

We are in bed early and the clocks are going back an hour (will go back an hour each sea day till we get to Hawaii).  We sleep soundly and wake early too, in fact I am up at 6 am (really 7) and head out to watch the sunrise and do some reading.  It is a little cool but I use the extra housecoat to cover my legs and I manage fine.  Nothing like sailing across the ocean and watching the sunrise.

Today is the first of four days in a row at sea.  This is a record for us, the longest we had been at sea is 3.5 days in a row.  But somehow we are not daunted we love sea days. 

We head down to Portifino for breakfast (breakfast and lunch will be in Portifino this voyage which is much easier to get to than Amafi) but we are sad Douw is not there but sure he is enjoying his mini break in Sonoma.  However Maitre D’hotel Rui is at the door and we are sat and served by a wonderful waiter Vasko.  I choose the Heuvos Ranchero and of course my Cappuccino. 

At 9:45 is the Sudoku challenge, first one of the voyage and I am four for four!  I win a pen and feel proud that I am good at something cause I suck at trivia. 

Our Cruise Critic gathering is at 11 in Skywalkers and it is again nice to put a face to a name of the people we have been chatting with.  Some of the officers attend, including the Captain who explains that the reason we went to the Starboard side of Alcatraz yesterday was because of the water ways being closed to traffic so we were directed to the north side of the island, something we have never done.  Someone asked about showing of the football games and Martyn the cruise director explained that the feed that Princess purchases doesn’t always get us all the games.  And even the satellite feed can be intermittent as there are not a lot of homes on the pacific that would pick up a cable channel.  He is funny!

Bernie heads back to the cabin and I head up to grab a slice of pizza (which was darn good) I was going to get some salad to go with it but the Horizon Court is a zoo and I don’t feel like waiting so I head back to the cabin and have some fruit. 

At one pm I head to the lecture Volcanoes of Hawaii – Are we Safe?  By naturalist Mark Harris.  I found the lecture very informative but for some reason this guy thinks everyone on board is from the States!  He made a few comments stating when we head home to the states, or when we vote next month – but that was my only complaint.

On the tv (channel 21) they are showing a great documentary called Hawaii Paradise Found that I really enjoyed and in fact watched it twice as it is on a loop and learned quite a bit.  I will state that I don’t know much about Hawaii, I have always thought about travelling there sometime but it was never on my radar for something to do so soon.  And since we booked this trip rather last minute I relied on a few friends to assist me with information, thanks Jeannie. 

Bernie comes back from a workout and that tempts me to hit the gym too so up I go.  It is the normal first day busy… by this I mean quite a few people get on the machines who maybe have not been in a gym for a while, use the machine for five minutes then get off.  As the cruise progresses it gets less and less busy.  I had a giggle as I was on the treadmill running the older gentleman next to me was walk on an incline and every time he tried to change the channel on the tv screen attached to the treadmill he shut the machine off by hitting the off button instead.  I finally had to stop and help him because I was giggling so hard.  According the scale in the gym I am actually down in weight – that must be wrong I am thinking, even though I am working out and watching what we eat the liquid calories I am consuming are something I almost never do so I am sure my calorie intake is higher than normal.

Today’s funny is as I was coming down the stairs I saw this couple (I would guess in their 50s) standing by the right bank of elevators (for those that don’t know there are two elevators on each side) but they are close to each making four elevators in total.  The elevator on the far left binged and opened but they did not go to it.  The light for the elevator went out and I overhead them say “well isn’t that the stupidest thing the light goes out but no elevator shows up” guess they didn’t realize there are four elevators there.

Other events happening today, Ukulele Workshop Registration, Spotlight Shopping Show, Bridge, Team Cruise Long Speed Trivia, Line Dance Class, Tour of the Star Princess, Movie is The Iron Lady in the Princess Theater, GLBT Get Together, Ballroom Blitz Dance Class Merengue, Paniolo O Hawaii:  Cowboys of the Far West, No Smoking night in the Casino, Comedy with Tom McTigue, Maxman Duo in Wheelhouse, Opus in Vista Lounge, Indigo Light String Quartet in the Piazza, MUTS is showing The Artist, Multimedia Trivia.

We are dining tonight in the Crown Grill with friends can’t wait for the chocolate molten cake again.