Day 7: 20230929 Friday September 29, 2023- At Sea LA to Hawaii
The ship should be making better time with a newly scrubbed hull. My Navionics app shows us making about 21 kts. The winds have been 20-30kts and the seas have been moderate. The ship does lurch rock and roll a bit more at these speeds, but it is nice that the bow isn’t crashing through huge seas. Our clocks got turned back an hour from Pacific time to Alaska time. Much of the branding and marketing on the ship is centered around Alaska.
We had our deluxe balcony breakfast delivered this morning. It would have been ideal to have had that during our anchorage off LA when the ship was anchored and the sun was out. However, this morning, the sky is densely cloud filled and there are gusts of wind causing our deck furniture to rattle about. We ended up moving our deck table and one chair inside so that our breakfast wouldn’t blow out of our balcony and fly down into one below. The breakfast was very nice- fancy Norwegian smoked salmon gravlax shaped like rose flowers, fancy mini-quiches and grilled tomato, ripe fancy fruit platter with lots of good strawberries and raspberries, and REAL champagne. They had a smaller bottle that was ideal for breakfast/brunch. We had ordered tomato juice, but in retrospect, we should order orange juice next time to make proper Mimosas. We could barely eat half of what they brought.
Sharon joined us for the morning trivia, which was run by our Irish Cruise Staff member Niamh, who is giving us lessons on the spelling and pronunciation of Irish names. There is no “V” in the Irish alphabet, so the “mh” is as close to a “V” as you get. So Niamh sounds like “Neeve”. Another girl’s name that gets mispronounced is Siobhan which sounds like “Shi-vawn”. Niamh’s trivias aren’t that meticulously researched so some technically correct answers aren’t what she’s asking for, but she’s also not going to give anyone a hard time for grading their own quizzes because “it’s just for fun”. For example, one question was “What animal lays eggs?”. Well technically most fish, birds, reptiles and insects are egg layers. The answer she was looking for was “duck billed platypus”. So perhaps the question should have been what mammal lays eggs, for which platypus or echidna would be two correct answers, or a better trivial question for this bit of knowledge would have been “What is the name of the family of mammals that lay eggs?” The correct answer would then unequivocally be “Monotremes”. Another example from today was “What is the world’s oldest civilization?” The answer she was looking for was Mesopotamia, but Mesopotamia is a geographical location while the Sumer people who lived on the southern end of what is known as Mesopotamia, between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, are most often attributed the honor of creating the world’s oldest known civilization, frequently called the Sumerian Civilization. It’s a good thing we didn’t win because “It’s just for fun”. Later in the evening we ran into Niamh in the hallways and had a lovely chat about Ireland. She had earlier mentioned earlier the Netflicks series Derry Girls, which she felt did a really good job of conveying what it's like growing up in Ireland since "The Troubles".
The balance of the morning was gym and art auction time. It’s been a bit of a mystery why art auctions are such a popular cruise ship activity. We find ourselves in the midst of wanting to downsize and accumulate less “Stuff” at this phase in our lives.
Our room steward didn't get our room turned over until after noon so we had lunch from the pool deck and buffet since Ben was still in his gym clothes. The buffet did have a sushi station for lunch, serving up the same variety of sushi that the Elite Lounge had featured the night before.
The outside decks were closed for most of the day due to wind so we ended up showering up after our room was turned over and taking a nap before getting ready for our first formal night of the cruise. We then did the afternoon progressive trivia and discovered that with a score of 28, we had moved up to 3rd place in the rankings, with 4 teams ahead of us. The highest score was 30 (3 teams). We felt like we did ok today, scoring 20/24. We thought the hardest question was how many dogs were on the titanic (12). But we missed a Jackson 5 and James Bond questions that we should have been able to get. Funny how the pressure of time causes the brain to go blank sometimes.
Dinner for formal nights no longer offer free lobster, as was frequently the case prior to the pandemic. You have to pay $19 for Lobster or Filet Mignon, but you can have it every night if you want. Tonight we encountered bait and switch because they advertised Alaskan crab cakes and Alaskan Halibut. But being from the Northwest where we know our crab and halibut, we were disappointed to discover surimi (fake crab) in the crab cake, and Alaskan true cod instead of halibut on our plates. Most passengers, however, wouldn’t have know the difference. The desserts were still good, featuring the Hazelnut bar that was previously on the Chocolate Journey menu, Caramel Turtles cheese cake and Peach Melba.
Ben is trying hard to get through the cocktail and martini menus while Janet has a hard time getting over not ordering drinks, even though we have a drinks package. Old habits are hard to break. A fellow passenger suggested a toasted almond martini, which surprisingly tastes like a milkshake.
The ship had its champagne waterfall reception which we now only show up for to see everyone dressed up. In the past, it was always a way to get free champagne, but since we have a drink package included with our fare, that’s no longer a lure for us. There are just a handful of people who really dress to the 9’s now with most just hitting the business casual level.
The production show was called Stardust and features songs from the 50’s and 60’s with close vocal harmonies reminiscent of the Manhattan Transfer albums. The vocalists are very talented with excellent intonation and meter. Ben just hates it when vocalists are always behind the beat like they’re doing Karaoke or American Idol. The dancers are also very talented but the dancer cast is much more diverse than in the past. They’re not all skinny Eastern Europeans as in past years. There are all races and even heights and builds. But even though some thighs may be thicker, the dance skills are still top of class. We sat next to a young woman who turned out to be the choreographer for the show. She was originally from Namibia, but her family has lived all over the world. Her parents were from Germany and Brazil and she speaks 4 languages. She has been with Princess for 19 years and was in her 50’s. Some of the dancers are on their first contracts and she admits that Princess is trying to be more inclusive in hiring talent for their ships.
The evening wound up with music trivia which reinforced our lack of knowledge on pop divas, and a late night snack run. Ben likes to sample all the soups, and have at least a taste of the exotic cuisine items that the head chef puts in one corner of the buffet from India, Indonesia and even Turkey.
When we returned to our cabin we found a notice that our evening at the Polynesian Cultural Center excursion was cancelled due to adequate lack of participation. Guess we were the only ones who wanted to see the big show after the Luau. We had to rebook the day tour which doesn’t include the show and starts earlier.
