10-9 Sea Day

First full sea day – with the normal activities.  Trivia of course, then some sun (great weather) then more trivia and more food and well – that’s about it. 

Ship review:  Really nice ship – as I said before, similar to the Diamond and Sapphire. The major differences are in the number of passengers (a whole extra deck level or about 500+ more people) and the entertainment venues.

Likes:  Deck 16 which has Adagio – a great quiet bar that has good ocean views, a cool deck outback with grass carpet and fountains (designated smoking area – but at night we use it like our balcony – and get served drinks!)  plus great “savories” – parmesan baked bread sticks and stuffed olives. Can’t beat it!

International cafe/Vines in the Piazza – Great pastries in the morning; sandwiches, quiche and chix salad at Intl and sushi and tapas in Vines in the afternoon.  Sushi is real sushi – as opposed to the all cooked stuff they normally have on the buffet.  Plus Gelato for $1.50 – great big portions and really, really good!

Piazza – otherwise known as the atrium – they have great little mini-shows there.  The aerialists do shows there most days, production staff sings, piano, jugglers, all sorts of stuff.  It’s a nice place to hang out.

Dining rooms – anytime dining rooms are bigger, but we managed to score our window table every night – so no problems there

Other venues – the same, Explorers, Club Fusion (our basement), Crooners, Wheelhouse, Skywalkers – all basically the same.

Dislikes:

Promenade deck – much narrower than on the other ships. Very hard to walk – can’t even fit loungers on the deck it’s that narrow. could be the new safety rules for construction – or just trying to eek out as much space for revenue generation as they can.

Skywalkers, Fusion, Crooners – all seem much tighter than normal – chairs smashed together. In Skywalkers there are a couple of sections where you can’t get out of your chair if other people sit near you.

Princess Theater – no surprise here – it’s still WAY too small. It always has been, and they’ve added 500+ more people to the ship – so it’s even worse.

Pretty minor when you think about it!  Hasn’t seemed too crowded yet but time will tell!

Ok – enough boring ship talk – back to the port talk….see next blog entry!