The final two days of our 2018 Asian cruise aboard Diamond Princess were spent at sea. On the one hand it’s a great, relaxing way to finish off a cruise but on the other it means you’re finishing off a cruise. And we don’t like to finish off a cruise. But that still didn’t stop us enjoying a range of relaxing activities so if you’re interested in a sea day diary, reading about and seeing some of the things we got up to during the first of two full days at sea heading towards Japan on a Princess Cruises ship then this post should be just what you’re after.
Princess Patter
Every evening you’ll have delivered to your stateroom the Princess Patter, the programme of events for the following day. On the front on port days you’ll find very useful information relating to emergency phone numbers, shuttle buses, tender boat operations, etc. On sea days it’s typically more general with a few spotlights of events you can enjoy aboard ship. You can see the Princess Patter information for our penultimate cruise sea day below. We like to have a good nose at what’s going on around the ship in the printed version in the evening and morning then tend to rely on the digital version during the day that’s available on your phone for free when connected to the ship’s wi-fi in airplane mode. You can see the information on how to do that in the Princess@Sea box on the front page.
Morning Activities
It was great to wake up to yet another blue sky (despite the weather forecast in the Patter) and Diamond Princess was passing the Amami Islands when we emerged from our night’s slumber. There was a pretty strong northerly breeze with a bite to it but it otherwise looked to be another glorious day at sea. They’re all glorious, really.
After breakfast we would normally take part in the morning trivia but we decided to skip it in favour of the Culinary Show taking place at 10:15 in the theatre. We’d been to one of these before on Sapphire Princess (see: Sapphire Princess Food And Drink) and wanted to see how different it would be on a ship catering to the Japanese market in the way that Diamond did. The answer: not very, and probably a side-effect of having a vast number of Italian chefs on the Princess Cruises fleet who then favour the same sort of food specialities to demonstrate. Nevertheless, it was fun, with a very amiable executive chef again in the form of Fabrizio Fazzini. All of his preparation explanations were translated by one of the Japanese staff with the exception of a remark about how extra virgin olive oil doesn’t stay that way long around Italians. “Yeah, I’m not translating that,” she said to loud laughter.
I took video of the culinary demonstration and of the walk through the galley that takes place afterwards and will upload the unedited versions at some point on our YouTube channel but for now you can see short clips in the sea day activities highlights video at the bottom of this post. You’ll also be able to see some footage of the outlet sale area in the dining room through which you exit after the galley tour and clips of the Bollywood dance class that was taking place in the piazza just afterwards too.
Afternoon Activities
Sea days are swimming days for us. Diamond Princess hadn’t been particularly kind to the avid swimmer by not heating any of its pools but we’d found that south of Japan the shallow depth of the Sanctuary Pool under the sunshine was just about acceptable temperature-wise. We decided we wanted a swim, changed into the appropriate gear, made our way to our favourite pool and discovered it had been netted off. The sea wasn’t rough so there didn’t seem to be a good reason for it and nobody could give me an answer as to when it might be made available so we took the plunge and tried the main outdoor pool for the first time since the first day aboard. It was cold but tolerable so long as you kept moving and kept your shoulders below the water’s surface where the wind was whipping across it occasionally and kept repeating to yourself that the additional blubber that had formed over the preceding fortnight was protecting you like a manatee.
We ended up swimming for about 75 minutes which was about three times as long as we’d initially planned. In the first instance this was because I got talking to a Canadian man as we swam lengths and we swapped cruise experiences as you do with everyone you meet on one of these trips at sea. After he gave in to the need to warm up, my wife and I found ourselves in a quandary. The ice carving demonstration had just started beside the pool. In itself not a problem but it was right beside where we’d put down our clothes and bags. This meant we’d need to walk in front of a gathered crowd and – worse – the ship’s videographers recording the event in order to dry ourselves, grab our clothes, and go. Our sense of propriety forbade the possibility that our near-naked masses might make the final cut of the highlights DVD so we extended our swim until the coast was clear. We grabbed burgers and fries as we tried to get feeling back into our extremities.
We wouldn’t have been allowed to stay in the water much longer anyway as the next activity on this sea day was due to start and it involved the pool we’d been swimming in. This was Scrapheap Challenge “The Boat Float”. Earlier in the cruise there had been the opportunity for passengers to sign up to the challenge of constructing a vessel that could float and be towed around the perimeter of the swimming pool, carrying cans of drink. As with all the group activities on Diamond Princess this was something that the Japanese passengers signed up for in their droves. When it comes to participation we’ve never met a group with a more go-for-it attitude than the people of Japan.
We grabbed a decent viewing location – in the sun for still-needed warmth and good light for photographs but more exposed to the wind to keep us from burning – and took a great deal of enjoyment in seeing the Boat Float challenge proceed.
It was a well-attended event as you can see from the many photos I took. It was also a lot of fun and interesting to see those who were there just to take part and those who really wanted to win. There were two prizes up for grabs, those being for the fastest lap of the pool and for the best design.
Boats came in a variety of styles from those constructed just from inflatables that had been brought along or bought on the ship to those getting more in the spirit of the game made with balloons or cardboard or anything else really.
Mishaps did occur. String untied itself in one instance almost causing the vessel being towed to drift into the centre of the pool out of reach. In a few cases the boats either weren’t quite up to the task of carrying the cans they had been loaded with or the person towing their vessel had tugged too hard and upended it all. In either event the result was the same and the cans sank to the bottom of the pool which led to calls for a brave person – an Australian gentleman as it turned out – to dive in and retrieve the cargo. As we knew how cold the water was we can only salute him.
Winners were eventually crowned and their prizes ended up being the cans of drinks they’d been ferrying around the pool for everyone’s entertainment. Some high intensity boat float action can be seen in the highlights video at the bottom of this post.
Taking advantage of having my big camera with me out on deck and lovely weather conditions I had to have a quick stroll around to see if anything jumped out at me and wanted to be photographed. You’d be surprised how much does, over and over. My wife wouldn’t. We noticed that the pool we’d wanted to swim in was still netted off.
A very casual activity for a sea day for us is wildlife-spotting. We’re not experts by any stretch of the imagination and we certainly don’t go out of our way to look for creatures of any sort when we’re travelling but it’s sometimes hard not to be captivated by what you see crossing your path so if there are reports of pods of dolphins then you look even if you’ve seen them a dozen times before. Similarly, when we spot birds we try to pay attention to them especially when we’re cruising far from home because it’s likely we’ll have never seen them before and life is about experiences and gaining knowledge and a continual quest for one-upmanship. Thus, when we spotted some black and white birds keeping pace with Diamond Princess, sometimes circling around it, more often gently flying alongside, we made our way to the promenade deck for a closer look. We probably watched the birds for a good fifteen minutes and a little research once we got back says they were probably Brown Boobies of the subspecies Sula leucogaster plotus. Knowledge!
Of course, there’s a sea day activity that we always engage in and that’s drinking. After all our outdoors entertainment we grabbed our reading materials (I like physical books, my wife has her Kindle) and a set of playing cards (in case the desire to challenge one another at ten-card brag overwhelmed us) and hit our favourite place to drink on a Princess Cruises ship, Crooners.
Situated at the top of the piazza it’s easy to tell when there’s some activity taking place in it that might be of interest. A typical day will often see some music being played but you might find group dances taking place too (as there had been earlier in the day) and some traditional ship games such as the bean bag toss that started not long after we’d grabbed our seats. Yet again, as with every participation activity on Diamond Princess this was something attended by the Japanese passengers aboard in large numbers again and although the photos don’t show it the number of people waiting to play was probably several dozen. The video at the end of this post contains a little bit of footage of this activity and a rather unusual throwing technique deployed by a frustrated competitor.
Evening Activities
As you can see from the Princess Patter at the top of the page this penultimate cruise day aboard Diamond Princess was a formal night. We don’t mind formal nights, we most often dress up for them, but on this particular day we just weren’t feeling it, even though the last formal night on a cruise is the big one: the one where the champagne fountain at the farewell cocktail party in the piazza takes place, the one where lobster tends to be on the menu. We’d already decided that we were going to do things completely different for a change and order room service, drink the two bottles of champagne we’d won in a couple of trivia games during the cruise, and watch a few movies from the very large selection available.
But this didn’t mean we couldn’t head up to the Elite Lounge in Skywalkers and take advantage of one of the cheaper drinks there and enjoy what was sure to be another spectacularly beautiful sunset at sea. As our drinks arrived we were pleased to see people already there in formal wear and because Diamond Princess caters about 50/50 for Japanese and Western passengers it was especially pleasing to see some people in formal Japanese clothing.
The two films we ended up watching were Table 19 and The Shape of Water, the former (which was okay) because it had been recommended by the Canadian swimmer earlier in the day and the latter (which was fantastic) because it had been a film we’d meant to watch when it came out at the cinema.
That concludes our sea day activities aboard Diamond Princess. We would have one more day on the ocean before this utterly fantastic cruise would come to an end. The video below contains edited highlights of some of this day’s activities as explained during this post.