Day 13 Saturday 21st October Pacific Ocean
This was our second day in the Pacific on our way to the Mexican port of Puerto Vallarta.
Breakfast in the Bordeaux and we shared our table with Australians and Californians. After breakfast I was back on our balcony watching the ocean and again saw no sea-life and now only the occasional bird.
In the Provence restaurant the $10 sale was in full swing. I bought an Alaskan t-shirt for $4.99 and a wildlife guide. I do wonder if when we are on an Alaskan cruise that the discount sales will be for Panama cruises?
After all the exertion of fighting our way to the tills (literally) we went for a coffee and tea in the International cafe. We sat with the retired couple from California. It had been her birthday the day before and at a special dinner in Sabatinis they had had a birthday cake delivered to their table. Unbelievably they were not ‘allowed’ to take the cake out of the restaurant as ‘food’ was not allowed in cabins (sorry staterooms). The ‘jobs worth’ in the restaurant clearly has forgotten about room service or about passengers taking food from the 14th floor buffet.
An hour or more passed while we shared stories and jokes and we learnt more about their transient life with the US State Department.
Rude lunch companions
Then it was time for lunch in the Bordeaux. We were joined by two ladies from California. This would be our first experience of ‘interesting’ behaviour by fellow passengers. First they complained about the food, the delay on taking orders, they even help up their glasses for ice teas as if it would somehow mysteriously arrive from somewhere. They lacked any social graces and the words ‘please’ and thank-you’ seemed to be missing from their vocabulary. They spent time explaining their dislike for immigrants who didn’t speak English even after being told pointedly that one of our companions was originally Greek and had had to learn English on arrival in the US. Thankfully the rest of us on the table were happy to talk amongst ourselves.
Afternoon at sea
Another hour of my ocean watch passed back on the balcony with still no sea-life or now even any birds. At 3 pm it was time for the special wine tasting event in the Provence.
Two whites, two reds and a dessert wine were on offer. There were plates of cheese, biscuits, grapes and even lumps of cheese cake – all of this for $9.95 each.
We just made it to the tail end of Happy Hour and I picked up two bottles of Grolsch, much better value than the wine tasting.
My quest to see sea-life continued on the balcony until the Princess Cruises’ Patter said it was time for sunset.
Then I went up to the 15th to hopefully get some images of the sunset. After 30 minutes of waiting the sun was finally dipping down closer to the horizon. There were a handful of stalwarts waiting for the event. I think my earlier shots of the sun behind the clouds were better. The time was help to pass by the Annie Lennox concert that was being shown on the outside screen. This was only being watched by a couple lying wrapped up on sun beds by the pool.
Apologies to any Annie Lennox fans but there were no songs that were happy or were anything but at a really slow (morbid) pace. Not a great concert and as I looked the passengers below were now fast asleep on their sun beds.
The sun finally set at 6.10 pm.
Dinner
The evening’s entertainment was to be three performances by the ship’s company of ‘On the Bayou’. These were to be in the Universe lounge at the stern. Our plan was to go to the last performance at 9.30 pm after dinner. It seemed as though the whole ship had re-arranged their evening in order to see the show. The queue for dining stretched around the Atrium. We opted out of the queue and became refugees in the Provence fixed time dining restaurant where luckily we were fitted in.
On our table again we had a mixture of Australians and Californians. All of us had come upstairs to eat. The Australian couple were well travelled and we heard about their mega-travels through both South America and the USA for trips lasting six weeks or more. Their travel agent had them booked on a flight out of San Francisco to Los Angeles at 11 am on the morning that we docked. I was curious wondering if they would make that particular flight. I started with scallops, followed by a delicious (so called) cowboy sirloin, with carrots and finishing off with sour apple pie.
One of the passengers on the table showed me his iPhone app that gave the GPS coordinates of where we were and the times of sunrise and sunset. Would have been useful for the previous day’s sunset. His partner had three starters before her main and had to be ‘persuaded’ to only have one dessert. . .
On The Bayou
We left the restaurant and went straight to the Universe Lounge. The middle show of the evening was just finishing and we stood by the doorway to watch. After the applause, the whole cast and orchestra marched past us into the open area outside the lounge and carried on singing, playing and dancing.
We made our way into the lounge despite there being nearly 40 minutes to go before the last show started. We managed to get a seat on the front row and listened to fellow passengers around us commenting on how many times they had seen the show so far in the evening! The row of seats behind us was causing a minor upset as seats were ‘reserved’ with just one handbag. This was by passengers who had already seen the show and clearly wanted to see the last performance as well.
The Universe Lounge has a large revolving stage and two smaller revolving stages on each side. This show made use of all of these theatrical elements. It was without any doubt the best show that we’d ever seen on-board a ship.
The live music was excellent and the orchestra members were involved in the scenes, as well as demonstrating their versatility by playing many different instruments. To cap it all they played on the move as a marching band too.
The show’s songs flowed from one scene to another and the cast must have had over a dozen (or more) costume changes.
During the last numbers members of the audience (including Linda) were coerced into joining in the Mardi Gras dancing in front of the stage.
After the finale everyone marched off the stage as before but this time kept going until they reached the Atrium. There all the passengers not at the last show were waiting for the ship’s Mardi Gras celebrations to begin.
We all joined in with the cast to dance and enjoy the moment. After a couple of songs the cast and orchestra left and the cruise party band took over with a medley of Madonna songs. The dance floor of the Atrium was packed and we all had a great time.
On this cruise the ‘organised’ dancing went beyond the Macarena and soon we found ourselves being then odd ones out as the dance routines started again. Just as at the Love Boat disco the whole dance floor was trying to emulate the Entertainment team’s moves. This was the time for us to leave.
Late night in the Horizon restaurant
For the first time this cruise we ventured to the Horizon Restaurant (the 14th deck buffet) late at night. Passengers were eating hot meals as well as the wide variety of cakes that were all laid out. As we were making our cups of tea members of the cast and orchestra were arriving for their late night drinks and snacks – well deserved after all their exertions during the evening.
Back in our cabin (sorry state room) we had to put our clocks forward an hour. This made us now two hours away from San Francisco time again.
