Monday, March 25, 2019. At Sea En Route to Hawaii

Monday, March 25, 2019.  At Sea

The weather was overcast with a temperature in the lower 60’s when we woke up.  There continues to be a gentle rocking and rolling due to a long period swell despite what appears to be calm seas with minimal wind.  These swells travel thousands of miles across the Pacific, so I guess they should be expected.  

We had breakfast in the restaurant and met a nice couple from Ontario who are on their second Princess cruise.  Their preferred cruise line has been Celebrity, and they have sailed primarily in the Caribbean.  They said they preferred Celebrity’s version of anytime dining because they could sit at the same table with the same people every night with the same waitstaff, and they complained that there was no wine steward in the dining room, which is odd because there are several wine stewards who are more than happy to walk you through their recommended wines each night, if you let them know you are interested, and their dining preference sounds more like fixed dining than “anytime dining”.  They did admit that last night’s Magic To Do show blew them away as being significantly better than the usual showtime fare on Celebrity.  

We teamed up with the two couples from Kansas City Missouri for the morning trivia, and put in a decent showing, but fell short of winning by just one point.  

Janet and I explored the ship a bit and tried to find a photographer that was supposedly taking people’s portraits with the ship’s wake on the stern, but we never found them.

We had lunch in the dining room with a couple from Sacramento, who were doing this California to Hawaii cruise for the third time.  The last time they did it, they started in San Francisco, and said that sailing under the Golden Gate Bridge during the sail-away was a real highlight.  

After lunch, we had free time to relax. Janet got some reading done while Ben hit the fitness center for an hour.  The equipment on the Ruby Princess is a bit older than the Regal’s Princess, but still in good working condition.  The fitness center is situated over the bridge with a great view, but it is also subject to a lot of the ship’s pitching and rolling since it is all the way forward and near the top of the ship.  The movement adds a new dimension to cardio.  There were very few people in the fitness center after lunch when most people were probably having their siestas.

We teamed up with a couple from Las Vegas for the afternoon trivia and were 3 points short of winning, but we did have fun. We could only come up with one of the 3 Tenors and thought a baby jaguar should be called a cub, rather than a kitten. We also didn’t know John Wesley founded the Methodist religion.  

We had a specialty dining voucher courtesy of AAA that we used to dine at a new venue called Share, by Curtis Stone.  It features modern cuisine by Curtis Stone with a six course meal with 2 or 3 choices for each course.  It did end up being a nice dinner.  The Share part came with the main meat course, which was a large plate loaded with a huge pork chop with ribs that is shared.  The food is well prepared and very fresh, but made with very little added salt- a nod to healthier cuisine, but we did end up asking for some salt, which we thought really improved the food’s taste.  They also had excellent artisan mini loaves for rolls.  

Our regular partners from Kansas City turned up for Movie Poster Trivia, which we won in a 2 way tie.  We let the other team have the bottle of champagne, while we preferred to walk out with Ruby Princess silicone coasters.  

We finished the evening with the Princess Theater’s musician Craig Richard, who had toured with Kenny G playing alto and soprano saxophones, piano and singing.  Oddly enough, his resume also includes appearances on American Ninja warriors and “I Should Have Died”- a TV show that highlights stories of survival.  He is an avid rock climber, and had a serious fall in which he shattered his right leg, and then had to crawl 18 hours with his shattered leg to get to help.  He is an excellent musician and entertainer, although we find it hard to resist resting our eyes, especially after a big dinner, during some of these evening instrumental shows. 

Tomorrow is our first Formal night. Our tour package includes one 6x9 print, so we’ll actually have them shoot some poses for us to choose from.