Sea Days

Instead of boring you all to tears with each individual sea day – figured it would be best to just combine them all into one post – so here goes…..

What’s our typical day onboard? 

Mornings:  We keep gaining hours as we make our way westward, so we are getting tons of sleep – but at odd hours.  We’re up early every day – regardless.  It’s off to the gym at 7 to fight for a machine, then shower, down to the International cafe for real coffee (thank heavens for the coffee card that gets you discounted cappuccino and no charge regular brewed coffee!), then breakfast at either the cafe (excellent egg and bacon muffins) or the buffet.

Trivia:  There isn’t a lot to do on this ship – there are 4 or 5 trivia quizzes every sea day.  A little  much for us. We’ve decided to only do the morning and late afternoon trivia.  So, we meet Murray and Ro every day at the appointed locations and proceed to lose.  Well, not everyday.  We did actually win once with a perfect score! We were thrilled. Woo hoo! Lanyards for prizes. What a deal!

However, that has put us in a little bit of a bind. You see, there’s a couple on this ship who has sailed 1850 days (I’m not kidding – it was in the Princess Patter today) and they are serious Trivia fiends.  They win virtually every quiz (well, yeah, duh, they've heard all the questions probably a million times).  So, when we won with 20, they really didn’t take too kindly to it.  They’ve sailed with Murray and Ro in the past and so we were sort of prepared for a reaction, but whatever, it’s just lanyards!  We moved on.

The next morning in Trivia the emcee admonished us all not to cheat and that he’d throw us overboard…hmmm..wonder why that came up all of a sudden.  Then, that afternoon, this “well sailed couple” won the evening trivia with a perfect score and they gave them a bottle of champagne too.  When asked why we didn’t get one the day before we were told these questions were harder. Uh huh.  The next day, the couple was in a tie breaker to win and the question asked was what was the capital city of the Canadian province in which they lived.  Uh huh.  Then, and this is the best, one day, they sent spies over to join our team for the evening quiz. Kid you not!  A couple came over (who we knew were friendly with the “well sailed couple”) and asked to join us.  Sure, the more the merrier.  We lost – no biggie – but this couple got up from the table and made a bee line to the “well sailed couple” to report.  Honestly!!!  It’s a GAME for LANYARDs!  Why would anyone care – and particularly anyone who has sailed as much as they have.  It’s a sad, sad state of affairs……

Afternoons:  Lunch at the buffet or sushi and Tapas from Vines; chicken salad from International Cafe.  Once we had the pub lunch of fish and chips in the wheelhouse.  Fun going different places for different food.

Sometimes we sit out for a while before or after lunch.  It’s great on this ship – these people don’t go out much so we can always find a chair on deck. We’ve taken to sitting behind the screen in Movies under the Stars.  It’s right in the sun and never crowded.

Afternoon trivia – see trivia rant above.

Gym – then new routine – hot tub. Every night, aft deck underneath Skywalkers disco. NOBODY is there. It’s great. We just sit and watch the water, have our beer and wine and relax in the peacefulness.

Dinner – our own 2-top in anytime dining, by the window.  Got reservations for the whole cruise the first night.  Jan the head waiter is great! A computer fiend who is personable and knowledgeable about all sorts of stuff – like food, medicine, health – he’s just great to talk to.  Pachnai is our waiter –from Thailand. There are way more Thais on this ship than we’ve ever seen.  He and Rosebern (asst waiter from India) are adorable and take great care of us.

Nighttime – well here’s the rub – this is by far the oldest cruise we’ve ever been on. No one is out at night and if they are – well it’s for the ballroom music or some other inane activity.  The rock parties –well let’s just say their definition of rock and ours – not a match. They had rock-a-rokie last night where you get to sing with the band – the first song a passenger sang?  It was Frank Sinatra – for heaven’s sake!!!  The Rolling Stones?  Doubt anyone has ever sung one of their songs – not even in the shower!  (At trivia we had a question about the lead singer of Black Sabbath and half the room didn’t even know what Black Sabbath was!  Oy!)  We’ve danced once – Motown night – actually played real Motown songs.  Amazing!  One of the bar servers last night said “you picked the wrong cruise!”  We died laughing!

Shows – guess they are good. Of course we’ve not been to a production show yet, but have seen 2 really funny comedians. The event staff is really funny too – and the international talent show with staff last night was great.  A silly magician from Mexico (who dropped his levitating ball in the first show) and this cute little Thai water who sang Hotel California.  So cute – and did a great job btw!

Finally saw the production show on it’s last night – and it was very good. Excellent staging and choreography. And really different scenery – all done with video and imagery on white walls. Not explaining it well – but it was quite good.

Adagio- We’ve been using Adagio as our private balcony. Off the back of Adagio and Sabatini’s there is a little patio with nice tables and cushioned chairs. It’s reserved for smokers, but no one really goes there – so we have it all to ourselves at night.  You get a great view of the aft pool and the wake.

The last several days we have been filling the time between the gym and dinner with a visit to the hottub on deck 16, aft.  Usually no one there and the last night we were treated to a clear, horizon to horizon rainbow.  Awesome way to end the trip.