After two straight days visiting Central American countries – Costa Rica and Nicaragua – we had two straight days at sea ahead of a stop at another new country for us, Mexico. With the exertions of the volcano hike in Nicaragua a fresh memory these would be two very welcome, very relaxing days for us.
The First Sea Day
You can’t do as little as humanly possible without a firm plan of action so every day begins the night before with a peruse of the ship’s daily programme of events, the Princess Patter.
Every morning also sees us perusing the Princess Patter because we’ve forgotten what was in it by the time we’re awake. We then promptly forget it again as we get distracted by the view from the balcony. On this first sea day we could see that we were tracking along the coast of Central America as we cruised northish and with this being not too far from land we had sea birds flying alongside Star Princess doubtlessly looking to snatch up anything disturbed by the ship’s passage through the water.
Breakfast was followed by a wander along to the Vista Lounge for some early morning trivia. For some reason we never do well in the trivia when it takes place in the largest of the lounges on ships. We’ve won on numerous occasions when Explorers is used but as soon as trivia is moved to Vista or Club Fusion, as it typically is on sea day mornings, we fail abysmally. This was no different. The most entertaining aspect of the trivia in this venue came at its conclusion with the melee to stake out prime spots for the Zumba class which followed on from the quizzing. Women of all ages suddenly transformed into shuffling, barging, snarling machines rushing to the stage with bags to reserve their spots.
I suggested it might be a nice idea to head onto the top deck where one of our favourite films, Galaxy Quest, was showing on the Movies Under The Stars screen. All of the shaded loungers were taken so we managed, ooh, about ten minutes before the only visible star in the sky had boiled our brains enough to send us scurrying inside the ship.
We’d seen a few of the ship’s enrichment presenter’s talks but the one he was giving on this day in the theatre didn’t interest us so we made do with some quiet reading with the thought in mind that we might try the British-style pub lunch. That plan was ditched as we strolled up to the Crown Grill fifteen minutes before it was due to start and caught a glimpse of the queue. It’s a very popular thing on Princess ships.
We went for a swim instead then rewarded ourselves with a small bite from the grill by the pool followed by a drink in Crooners while we read.
Sitting in the bar we could see people completing laps of the Promenade Deck through the windows so I suggested that perhaps we should do the same once we’d finished our drinks. This was not a well-received suggestion until some activity taking place in the Piazza made too much noise and my wife harrumphed and said “Okay, let’s head outside.”
We did not complete a single lap but we spent the best part of an hour outside. The Pacific Ocean was living up to its name; very flat, very calm, very tranquil, very wet. The sea conditions meant that spotting sealife was ridiculously easy. Pods of dolphins could be seen, most often in the distance but every now and then coming along very close to the ship’s hull. Turtles, though, were there in their tens of dozens. We lost count of how many we saw. We would no sooner watch one float past or dive down as the ship approached than we’d look ahead and spot another one or two. I didn’t have my main camera on me or I’d have tried to snap away but it was more than enough to just gaze out at the sea and enjoy the spectacle with the warm breeze on our faces and the thud-thud-thud of walkers completing crap knows how many miles of laps behind our backs.
All that sea air must have made us a little hungrier than normal as we then decided to get some Afternoon Tea. This took place in the Portofino restaurant and we shared a table with another two couples although the sort of small talk you tend to engage in at dinner never really took place. That suited us fine. We took some of the offered light bites and had a couple of cups of tea to keep our fluid levels up. As you can tell from the photo of the scones we are cream then jam people. The correct way. Don’t even think about arguing the matter.
We did have some actual plans for the evening by this point but the rest of the afternoon was spent mostly quietly reading and sipping drinks. Popping into Vines for a glass of wine we were persuaded by Zander to once again try the tapas following a sad story about how his chef would be crestfallen if he thought nobody liked the food. This was turning into a very grazey kind of day for us.
After showering and changing for the evening we spent a little more time admiring the sea and the sunset from our balcony and the Promenade Deck. This cruise probably saw us spend more time looking out to sea than any other thanks to the abundance of wildlife we kept spotting and while we didn’t see anything as dusk approached it was still such a pleasant experience to gaze into the distance and just simply enjoy the moment.
Our early evening plan involved attending the Captain’s Circle speech. This is an event that takes place once per cruise where senior members of staff – the loyalty manager, the entertainments director, and the captain most prominently – will give a speech to people who’ve demonstrated a certain level of loyalty to Princess Cruises. Attendees have the opportunity to win a bottle of champagne and there are free nibbles and drinks handed out too. The speeches usually cover news about the fleet, information about new destinations, some statistics about what nationalities are on the ship, and which passengers have cruised the longest. On this cruise were a couple of Americans who had sailed 1,583 days on Princess ships. That’s almost four and a half years cruising. That’s the sort of announcement that gets a round of applause and lots of heads turning to one another and muttering “Utter bastards!” to one another.
We’ve been to a lot of these Captain’s Circle talks. They’re usually okay, nothing too memorable. This one was different. Firstly, there were the drinks. You can count on getting one. You might get two. We did significantly better. The reason for this was because several of the bar staff who normally waited in Skywalkers were brought down to help hand out food and drinks and we’d gotten to know them pretty well by this point as we were regulars there. As we stepped into the Vista Lounge we got a “I’ll come find you and bring you drinks” from Hyacinth – and she did – plus a wave from Lester as he spotted us from across the room who then made sure to bring us over some drinks as well. Twice. At one point I had two drinks and my wife had four drinks sat in front of her as Hyacinth had another wine spare and left it with us. We got some looks from other people nearby. It pays to be friendly to the staff.
The second reason this speech was so memorable was because of the captain. Captain Tuvo is a bit of a character. You can read more about some of his antics during our Crossing The Line Ceremony experience. His speech pretty much started:
Welcome back everybody. This is the part where Princess want me to tell you about the ship and about the company and the destinations and blah, blah, blah. Boring. You know that speech already. I don’t want to do that speech and I’m the captain so I’m going to do magic instead. I need a volunteer from the audience…
He then proceeded to entertain us with magic and humour for the next half hour. It was unexpected and incredibly good fun. Easily the best of these speeches we’ve attended. I did record a whole chunk of this magic but, as with almost all the videos on this cruise, it was lost in the Great Backup Sync Balls-Up that I still sometimes sob about when nobody is looking.
We also had some late evening plans. After dinner we grabbed a drink from Crooners to eat up a little time until just after ten when we headed up to the aft terrace adjacent to the Horizon Court buffet. This was the meeting place for the Stargazing Get-Together. We’ve been to several of these stargazing at sea events on Princess ships and until this point had been unsuccessful in ever seeing anything; either the sky had been cloudy or the ship had not been able to switch its lights off in order to help us see anything. We had high hopes this time as there were a few stars visible despite the glare from the ship’s lights.
We stepped out onto the terrace and saw that there were around twenty other people standing around and waiting. We stood around and waited too. And waited. And waited. And… waited. And… eventually came to the conclusion that whichever member of staff was supposed to be running the event wasn’t going to turn up after all. Another failed stargazing event with Princess Cruises. One day.
The evening wasn’t a complete failure, though. One group of people waiting for the stargazing event were people we’d seen around the ship on a few occasions; four pairs of gay guys who’d met onboard at one of the first LGBT meet-ups and started doing activities together. We got talking, we got laughing, we persuaded everyone to hit Skywalkers with us. It was great to see the looks on the faces of Hyacinth and Lester again as we turned up not alone for once but in a posse of ten. There was a lot of noisy laughter. There was a lot of poor dancing. There were many drinks ordered and consumed. There was a great exchange between one of the Australian guys and my wife.
Wife: How long have you two been together?
Guy: Years. Although he wouldn’t introduce me to his parents for ages. He was worried how they’d react.
Wife: Were they fine, though?
Guy: No. I don’t get on with them. They don’t approve of me.
Wife: Perhaps they just thought he could do better.
Guy: [screaming laughter] Agh! Ya fuckin’ bitch!
We outlasted everyone and only left Skywalkers when they turned the music off and the lights on.
The Second Sea Day
Another day, another Princess Patter.
The second sea day’s general activities followed a very similar pattern to those of the one preceding it. There was trivia which was lost, there was swimming, there was lots of time for reading. We spent a long time gazing out to sea from either our balcony or the Promenade Deck again. More dolphins, more turtles, and we saw two sea snakes at one point too which was quite a shock, albeit a pleasant one. We’re all about the experiences.
We had a far more normal day food-wise with our lunch consisting of a panini with cake for me and a panini with cookies for my wife, all complimentary at the International Café. And a glass of wine from the adjacent Vines, of course. Very civilised.
There was time to enjoy the stillness of the ocean and the pastel colours of the sky in the company of a few cocktails as the afternoon turned into evening.
We didn’t any have big plans for the evening but dinner proved to be interesting. We never mind sharing with other people and this night was no exception. Our waiter led us to a table for four where an older couple were already seated. We recognised them from a previous night’s dinner when they’d been opposite us on a table for eight and so hadn’t really had a chance to speak properly. They recognised us too.
You again! You’re the English couple, right? Do you remember us?
That’s us. And yes.
Excellent. You drink champagne, right?
We’ve been known to.
Great! We won a bottle of champagne at the Captain’s Circle speech and we can’t drink a whole bottle ourselves so we asked to have it chilled so we could share it with whoever sat with us tonight. You’ll join us, I hope?
It would be rude not to.
Free champagne! That’s the best kind there is! Even better, when we started talking to the couple – they were from Oregon – we found to our joy that they were left-wing politically. Right-wingers are so much more common among Americans on cruise ships so it was great to be able to eat, drink champagne, and bemoan the idiots who voted for Trump and the idiots who voted for Brexit in full agreement with our international table partners for a change. A very enjoyable meal indeed.
That brings two relaxing sea days to a close. In the next posts in this cruise portfolio I’ll cover our day in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, the last port of call before disembarkation in Los Angeles.