Friday, March 8, 2019. At Sea En Route to Fort Lauderdale

Friday, March 8, 2019.  At Sea En Route to Fort Lauderdale

Even though this was a sea day, we had to set an alarm to get up for an 8:30AM meeting involving all passengers who are going to be staying on the Regal Princess for the next cruise segment once the ship gets back to Fort Lauderdale.  They call this being “In Transit”.  There are supposedly about 500 passengers who will be staying aboard like us.  There are some who have been aboard for several weeks.  Apparently the ship does slightly different ports of call as it alternates Eastern and Western Caribbean routes.  Everyone has to get off the ship to clear US Customs and Immigrations, but for those who wish to stay aboard, they have an expedited procedure, but it requires 100% of passengers to be accounted for.  Apparently during a recent transition, one couple failed to report to the theater, and were apparently found by the ship’s crew in one of the pools.  All the other several hundred transit passengers had to wait in the theatre for over 2 hours while the ship’s crew searched for the 2 missing passengers.  They were dragged through customs and immigrations in their swim suits.  You don’t want to be THOSE passengers. 

We had lunch in the dining room and met a nice couple from Michigan who had a nice Princess tote bag- much nicer than the one we received when we boarded. We found out that there was a shopping seminar at the beginning of the cruise, and that all participants received the fancy zippered and lined tote, as well as a big coupon book.  We also learned that many free prizes like t-Shirts and other trinkets were tossed into the audience, so for the next segment of the cruise, we will have to plan on attending that seminar and take a seat in the center of the theater about 4 rows back to try to catch some freebies.

Morning trivia was well attended.  We teamed up with the young lawyers, and a couple from St. Louis that we had previously teamed up with.  There were a couple of trick questions like “According to the Bible, how many of each animal did Moses put on the Ark?  Then answer is zero because it was Noah, not Moses.  And which US President is on the US $100 dollar bill?  Answer: None because Ben Franklin was never a US President. A bizarre question was what animal has fingerprints that are indistinguishable from humans? The answer was Koala.  There were two bonus questions worth 5 points each:  1) What baby girl was born in Feb. 26, 10,000 BC?  Answer=Pebbles Flintstone.  2) What seat was always reserved for the Phantom of the Opera?  Box 5.  We only managed 16 out of 30 possible points with the bonus questions.

We watched “First Man”, a biographical movie about Neil Armstrong, on the on-demand video.  The ship has been going through scattered rain showers and moderate cloud cover, so it seemed like a good day to see some of the movies that were featured in this years’ Academy awards.  While historically interesting, it was no where near as captivating as Ron Howard’s Apollo 13 was.  But now all the people in denial of the moon landing can point to this movie as proof that Hollywood faked the whole thing since Spielberg just faked it all over again.

Afternoon trivia was also well attended. We did OK, but were just one point out of the lead, mostly because Ben thought the host was pitching a trick question of What is the last sense to go as people get older.  Ben thought it was the “Sense of Humor”, but the correct answer was taste.  The other question that tripped him up was how many US Presidents were involved in the construction of the Panama Canal.  Ben thought it was just one- Theodore Roosevelt, because he was the only US President to actually visit the canal and physically take part in construction when he took a swipe at the canal in a giant steam shovel, as famously captured in photos.  However, there were 3 US Presidents who resided in office between when the canal was bought from the French to its completion, even though none of the other presidents actually visited the site during construction.  There was a 3 way tie for first place with just 1 point more than our score.  Their tie breaker questions were “Who was the only man to knock out Mohammad Ali? (Larry Holmes) and What is the name of the newest Princess Cruise ship to be launched?  Sky Princess.  

There was a Captain’s Circle reception, which actually had to be broken up into two sessions because so many people on the ship have platinum and elite status.  There are over 800 Platinum and 400 Elite passengers, although we have noticed a lot of first time Princess passengers on board (you can tell by looking at the door tags, which indicate Captain’s Circle status), and by the color of the Ocean Medallions that are used as room keys.  The most experienced cruisers on this particular sailing have 1300 days at sea under their belts.  We have a long ways to catch up to them.  We got free cocktails of our choice for this reception.  Ben had a Manhattan, while Janet had a Moscow mule (not in a copper mug though).  

This was the cruises’ second and last formal night for this segment.  Dinner featured broiled lobster.  There was also oysters Rockefeller instead of escargot on the appetizers, which were actual whole oysters on the half shell.  In the past, we had been served chopped up oysters in a tiny scalloped edged dish.  This was much nicer, and better tasting- just like what we recently had at home with our own fresh oyster harvest.  It was unusual for us to be able to enjoy New England broiled lobster tails more than once during a cruise, and both times it was excellent.  And we had a wonderful Chocolate Journey pistachio mousse dessert.  

The Princess Theater featured their “Bravo” production show, which is an excellent show with popular theatrical and operatic songs. They had a guest soprano, although one of the lead female singers in this production team is an especially talented soprano, who was probably at least as talented, if not a little better than the guest soprano.  The talent of the singers and dancers on the Regal Princess are really top notch.

The ship has a water fountain designed by the same company that does the water show at the Bellagio in Las Vegas, and we finally caught one of its shows tonight.  It is set up between the main pools, and features jumping and climbing colored water jets synchronized to music and animations on the Movies Under The Stars Jumbotron.  While it was entertaining, it was ten minutes long and underwhelming, and not something you would need to plan your evening around, but we were glad to have seen it finally.