Day 21: 20231013 Friday,October 13, 2023- At Sea Pago Pago to Auckland
After breakfast at the Horizon Court buffet, we were pleasantly surprised to have won the morning Trivia with Sharon because it was an easy quiz that was a repeat from the start of the cruise. We were certain there would be several other teams with perfect scores and a tie breaker, but we walked away with a few more prize tickets. The Music through the Decades trivia that followed was all new to us, but we managed to not embarrass ourselves despite our overall poor performance in 90’s and 00’s categories. We did pretty good on the earlier decades.
The sun is back out with blue skies. It feels cooler and more comfortable than it was on American Samoa. The stateroom was up to 77˚F last night, but fortunately, we still have a fan in our stateroom. As the day progressed, the outside temperature actually dropped into the lower 70’s˚F, but the humidity is still nearly 80%.
There was a lecture by the ship's crew detailing some of the operations of the ship, like a virtual tour. Olivia, the 3rd Officer that Ben had spotted supervising mooring lines, gave the talk regarding navigation and officer training. She is on her first contract with Princess and is about a year out of her training. It can take 10 years to make first mate, and 15+ to make captain.
There continue to be some bad questions in the progressive Trivia. A whole lot of groans came up when she asked what BMW stands for in English, and the only answer she would accept was “Bavarian Engine Works”, instead of Bavarian Motor Works. She also asked for the 8 “Original Disney Princesses”, but had a list that excluded one real princess (Merida from Brave, the chieftain’s daughter) and included one commoner with no royal ties (Belle). But after the bad questions from last time, especially the male seahorses laying eggs, the respect for the game is ebbing since teams with wrong answers are getting rewarded.
Tonight was another formal night. In our dining room section, we have 3 tables at the 5:00 seating, and a couple of ladies who come in at 6:30pm who sit at our table, whom our other couples have seen when we chose to dine late when coming back from shore excursions. We arranged to have all 4 couples seated together tonight around the one big table for this formal night. We had thought Princess had done away with free lobster on formal nights, but they did offer it tonight, so everyone ordered a lobster tail. A second tail would be $10 extra, but we ordered beef tenderloin on the side to make ours surf and turf without surcharge.
The Princess Theatre showtime featured the singers and dancers in “Sweet Soul Music” which featured a lot of Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, The Temptations and Tina Turner, along with other songs from the 60’s. It was very energetic and entertaining. This show also featured the Grand Princess band instead of the usual canned sound track.
