Saturday March 22
A Sea Day
This morning we slept in until 7:00. Those of you who know me, know this is quite exciting for me. I have determined that it isn’t getting old that makes me get up at 4:00 in the morning and fall asleep at 7:00 PM… it is, in fact, that my body wants to live on Caribbean time! Mystery solved!
We decided to go for a hot tub before the masses woke up, and managed to enjoy a lovely early morning hot tub all to ourselves looking out on the Caribbean Sea. It doesn’t get much better than that!
After this we headed to the gym. Yes… we. Steve likes when I go with him because the gym is the only place I let him boss me around 😉
When we arrived back from the gym we had a birthday message written out on our mirror by our room steward. (It should be noted that this isn't my actual birthday, but the day Princess decided to celebrate it!)
She really is lovely. I am finding on Princess that the sort of service we are seeing onboard is quite like it was in the old days. Other cruise lines are cutting back on the traditional things… but not Princess. One example is that the last few cruises we’ve been on they only service your room once a day (not a big deal… we’re not that messy) BUT on Princess they still service your room twice a day and that is quite nice. The only thing that would make it perfect is if they still left chocolates on your pillow each night… I miss those days/chocolates 😃
After this we had a delicious and surprisingly nutritious lunch up in the buffet. They had a Greek section which had the most delicious shaved chicken off the rotisserie, tzatziki and a variety of vegetables and OLIVES that all tasted delicious. Don’t get me wrong, there were also desserts… which we of course sampled!
After lunch we enjoyed some time sitting out on the sun deck in the… you guessed it… warm Caribbean sun. Steve read his book and I may or may not have taken a nap listening to the live music being played on the pool deck.
Why weren’t you reading you ask? Well I can not find the library on this ship. I only brought one book (which I finished in the first two days in Florida!) because previous cruise ships have always had sufficient libraries to borrow from and the amount of books I read takes up a lot of space in my suitcase. This crisis was averted later in the day when I finally discovered two short selves with books to leave and take in the internet cafe. imagine the little libraries you see in neighbourhoods around your town or city, about that many books, and about that quality. I did find one to hold me over, so hopefully when that one is done, some new ones will have been traded back in.
For the rest of the afternoon we relaxed… reading, watching a movie, taking a nap. All of the glorious holiday things you don’t usually get to do in the middle of the afternoon when you are working.
Tonight was formal night, so we got ourselves all dressed up and headed out for the evening. I noticed that about half the people decided to partake in the formal night. We saw lots of sparkly outfits, and even some tuxedos. We also saw shorts, t-shirts and ball caps. Whatever suits your fancy I guess 😁 We like to have an opportunity to get dressed up, so enjoy these formal nights.
I was quite enchanted by the idea of the champagne waterfall they were having before dinner in the main piazza. Unfortunately the vision in my head was much more exciting (and fancy) than the actual event. We found a spot right in front and I got ready for the spectacular show I anticipated. Steve… a little more practical than me in this case… was not surprised by how it turned out because of, you know, math and science. The captain brought up a couple celebrating their 50th anniversary and together they poured champagne on the top of the glasses. That was very cute and interesting until the champagne poured down 2 maybe three of the 13 levels of glasses. Then people lined up to have their chance to pour champagne on the fountain and get their picture taken. (We did not do this). After watching about 50 people take a turn… yes I was persistent with my dream… the champagne had made it down to about level 8… and they started handing out champagne… but not from the tower. Lesson learned, sometimes my imagination is better than the reality!
At this time the cruise director introduced all of the officers (about 16?) and said which country they were from. Most were from Italia… but my favourite part was when the Canadian officer was introduced to thunderous and lengthy applause. There are over 1000 Canadians on this ship who are politely and quietly enjoying their trip… but chose this event to share their love of Canada and Canadians. I thought that was lovely. This is the way you do it Canadians… we don’t boo other people… we just cheer on our own.
Interesting Fact: You know I love to find out stuff! Tonight we learned from our waiter that he is in a six month contract. That means you work for six months straight… yes every single day… and then you get two months of unpaid vacation. Then he told us the really interesting part, depending on which country you come from you can work different lengths of contracts. His country, Mauritius, allows him to work a six month contract. Others allow different amounts like nine months.
After another yummy dinner and we headed to the production show in the main theatre. This is another thing Princess is keeping traditional. The shows are definitely reminiscent of the past days of cruising.
This is a show that includes singers and dancers from the entertainment staff performing for you. It was quite enjoyable and we were glad we went (even though I was tired… all this lounging is so tiring! Side-note: I stayed up until 11:30 two nights in a row!!!)
Afterwards we headed down to the Vista Lounge for another comedy show by the same comedian as last night. She was quite good, but I remembered that she interacted with the audience quite a bit the previous evening. Steve originally chose seats right in the front (which he loves and I hate) but acquiesced when he saw my look of horror at possibly being singled out by the comedian. We then managed to get a nice spot sufficiently out of the limelight. They kept announcing that it was an 18+ show so children should leave… but some people decided they didn’t care to follow that rule. One particular couple was in the front with their 9 year old son. The comedian warned them it wasn’t for children, to which they responded in what I would consider a rude way, so she carried on. Not my kid, not my choice is how I look at it. We did happen to be in the same elevator as this mother and her son after the show, and there was also an older lady in a wheelchair who told her exactly what she thought… which was that this lady made a bad choice and was a horrible mother. You can imagine that didn’t end up well… we just tried to hide in the corner of the elevator and be invisible.
But then… we arrived back to our room to a pleasant surprise! Our room steward, whose name is “Irish” (who is not Irish, but actually Filipino) had made me a birthday cake out of towels. This was a terrific way to end the 7th day in a row of celebrating my birthday. HMMM… I just turned 56 so maybe I should celebrate for 56 days? Yes! I do believe this is another one of my great ideas!
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