Saturday, November 23, 2019. At Sea Aqaba to Abu Dhabi Day 5. Sailing in the Arabian Sea off Oman
We appear to have made it through the most dangerous waters with respect to the risk of piracy for the purpose of ransom as we have made it into the more open Arabian Sea off Oman. We can only hope the Iranians are done causing trouble with shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. The weather has remained hazy and warm. The winds are not as strong out on the Arabian Sea as they had been off Eritrea and Somalia.
Our clocks sprung forward another hour this morning so we are now on Dubai time.
Our sea day routine continues to keep us busy. Our trivia team missed winning the morning trivia by one point. Some of the questions were just bad like “What kind of weapon is a Falcon”. Most people answered “Jet fighter” because the F-16 is called a Falcon, but the host would only accept the answer of “sword”. We also did not know how many eye lids a cat has on each eye. Look it up. It’s not what you would think. And they asked “What percentage of an egg’s weight is its shell?” You had to get the answer exact percentage with no +/- margin.
Ben hit the fitness center while Janet watched an enrichment lecture on the TV. The ship has actually been posting the lectures on the on-demand video so we can watch them from the comfort of our bed. It’s more comfortable to sleep through a lecture if you’re already in bed.
Today, we are half-way through our Rome to Singapore leg of this cruise (14 days). Janet has burned through a little more than half her internet minute allowance while Ben is a little less than half-way. We may have to cut back on how often we check e-mail and post updates to avoid having to buy more internet time than what we get free as Elite Princess passengers. We have already stopped uploading photos, which take much too long over the ship’s limited bandwidth. If we find decent free Wifi in Abu Dhabi or Dubai, we might be able to update our photostream, but it may ultimately have to wait until we check into our hotel in Singapore at the end of our second cruise segment (round trip out of Singapore), and just before heading back home.
Ben has also burned through his coffee card good for 15 espresso drinks at this point, but that will get refilled in Dubai. Janet has barely used her card, so we will swap cards to burn up the espresso drinks on Janet’s card before they expire in Dubai.
Our progressive trivia performance yesterday pushed us well up in the rankings to tie for 4th place behind 3 higher scoring teams without a point for our carbon vs graphite answer. The host said he was unable to get on the internet to verify our contention that carbon was a correct answer but if we could provide evidence, he’d allow it. We were able to print out a Google search of “Does cutting a diamond with a laser produce carbon?” which definitively stated “at the point of focus, the diamond’s structure is converted to carbon vapor...”. If we get that point, we will be pushed up into a 3way tie for 2nd place and just 2 points off the lead. Our performance today was more average- not great, but good enough to probably maintain our standing.
Out afternoon trivia proved to be a low scoring event with some pretty off the wall questions including “By 40 years of age, what does 1 in three British men thought to have?”- yes the question makes no grammatical sense. The answer was “A criminal record”. That’s hard to believe. Oh, and by the way, for what children’s cartoon was Barron Greenbacks a villain? Good luck finding an answer to that.
Another benefit of our Elite status is something they call a Grapevine Wine Tasting, something they charge non Elite passengers $10 to attend. We got to sample a sparkling wine from Italy, a dry white wine from Austria (made with Gruner Veltliner grapes grown in the Wachau Valley that we had just cruised through on our Danube River cruise), a sweeter Sauvignon Blanc from France, a Merlot blend from Chile, and Malbec from Argentina. These were all between $30-40 per bottle aboard. There were some crackers, fruit and cheeses to help us clear our palettes between the samples, and each pour was about 3 oz so we were plenty ‘happy’ by the time we got through the last wine. We liked the Malbec best- we seem to have developed an affinity for it since our 60 day South America cruise when we were introduced to it in Iguazu and Buenos Aires.
Dinner was prime rib night, and they served a cut as nice as the ones served in the specialty steakhouse. There was also a new Chocolate Journey dessert made with a raspberry creme brûlée and chocolate mousse that was quite decadent.
Our after dinner entertainment started with a Sapphire Princess Production team show called “Let Me Entertain You”. This was a high energy show with great costumes, singing, dancing and sets with live music by the Sapphire Princess Band well worth showing up early to get a good seat for.
We then raced out to participate in the James Bond Trivia. We got Jackie and Michael from Calgary to substitute for Bob and Mary. Roo, who hosted the trivia, insisted on having everyone bring their papers down to the front to grade each question as it was asked, so it took a really long time to get through the 25 questions, but we scored 24/25 and won a bottle of champagne.
While we drank the champagne, the comedian David Copperfield did another show in the Explorer’s lounge where the trivia was, so we just stay put. He did a lot of the same sort of material as he did in the big theater, but did more singing in this show.
Tomorrow is probably the last progressive trivia game, and a formal night. There should be lobster in the dining room. There are also a lot of wrap up activities (pop choir, drum circle, ukulele concert, Princess Pop star) because many people are ending their cruise in Dubai, including our trivia partners Linda and Paul. It will be bittersweet to see them off at Dubai.
