Day 35: 20231028 Saturday, October 28, 2023- At Sea- Coral Sea Brisbane to Willis Island
This was a pretty relaxed day at sea despite having moderate winds and a following sea. We had breakfast in the buffet and then joined our trivia partners for the morning trivia session. We got outscored by 3 points on that one, but that got us warmed up for the afternoon progressive trivia. Ben walked the promenade deck but noticed the fitness center is usually nearly vacant on this leg of the cruise after 9am. He is still having congestion and occasional fits of coughing so avoiding the gym for now. Janet got in a swim and some pool time though. It has been overcast and warmer as we head north, but still comfortable.
We recruited a sixth player at the progressive trivia first session. The Universe Lounge was pretty full, so participation in the progressive trivia is quite high. The cruise staffer running the progressive trivia is Hungarian and has promised us one Hungarian trivia question in each quiz. Today’s was What is the National Food of Hungary, and a bonus point if you know the Hungarian spelling. The food was goulash, of course, but we didn’t know the Magyars spell it Gulyás. We missed a couple, but also got a few lucky guesses in, and in the end we won the first progressive session and collected the little blue Princess notebooks as prizes. Sharon had really been wanting those.
This was the first Formal night of this cruise, but they didn’t have lobster on the menu for free today. We had roasted tenderloin and prosciutto wrapped orange rough for entrees and the turtle cheesecake and hazelnut chocolate bar desserts.
We then headed to the Princess theater for the first production show of this cruise. It is called Encore, and although we have seen this production on prior cruises, they change the program slightly by swapping out some numbers for new numbers with similar vibe and choreography. This show features a guest soprano, who did a good job of hitting all the high notes and pulling off the Diva act on stage. The production show vocalists are not quite as good as the cast on the Grand Princess. One of the female leads doesn’t enunciate well, and both male leads were a hint of tone at times, although both were powerful enough singers. The dancers didn’t have much to show off on this show, but look good and did their thing without a hitch. The show pulls from broadway, popular opera and movies, so the music connects with a lot of the audience and is good entertainment.
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Ben made a soup run to check out the chocolate fountain at the dessert bar. They had various items you could dip into the chocolate fountain, which was milk chocolate like what they used to dip Costco ice cream bars into when they used to do that. There were various small squares of cakes and pieces of bananas, melons and pineapple on a stick for dipping into the chocolate. It’s novel, but it’s a good thing there wasn’t a crowd to deal with because it wouldn’t have been worth the experience if you had to fight with a crowd to do it. As it was, when Ben was up there, there was nobody around the Chocolate fountain.
Tomorrow we do scenic cruising around Willis Island in the afternoon. Otherwise, it will be like another day at sea. The temperature and humidity are increasing as we head back towards the tropical latitudes. We’re hoping the ship’s air conditioning will be better able to cope with it than the Grand Princess.
