We were blessed with another calm night at sea, the ride was smooth, and we slept well. The time changed once again on the ship last night, so now we are only four hours different from Eastern Time. We were quite tired from all of the walking in Funchal, and it felt good to sleep in, and gain the extra hour. We did have a decent sunrise this morning, once the sun got above some of the low clouds.
Morning Sky Before Sunrise
After eating breakfast in the buffet, we headed over to the International Cafe for a couple of specialty coffees. We purchased one of the coffee cards at the beginning of the cruise, so each morning, I go for a fresh brewed regular coffee, which is free with the card. The card covers 15 specialty coffees, each of those is a punch on the card when ordered. The card is good until all of the spots are punched, so it can be used on subsequent cruises for either the free regular brewed coffee, or remaining punches for specialty coffees.
Sunrise
While we were drinking our coffees at a table, the line was forming outside one of the dining rooms for another big “ship sale event”. One would have thought a free cruise was being given away with the number of people that were already in line 10-15 minutes before the doors opened at 10:00 AM. Yes, it was mostly older women, I guess it is in their blood to need to be first in for the best deals. Once the mad dash was over, and all of the eagerly waiting passengers were inside, we went in just to look at what was being sold. Once again, there were not really any special deals, pricing was listed as being “Up to 75% Off” of US retail prices. It was the same junk (items) that have been hanging in the stores for the entire cruise, this was just a marketing ploy to get people to look at them once again.
At 10:15 AM, we headed over to the Princess Theater to watch the International Culinary Demonstration hosted by Culinary Ambassador and Master Chef Commendatore, Alberto Marzi. He has been working for Princess since the initial days of the cruise line, and worked on the old Pacific Princess, famous from the TV show, the Love Boat. He was very interesting to listen to, and he made three dishes, one of which had the recipe written on a special printed handout that each person received when entering the theater, which was also signed by the chef.
He was quite funny, really put on a good show and explained in detail how to prepare the dishes he made. We enjoyed it, and even bought a bottle of his special olive oil (Yes, it was really Stephanie that wanted it) that he produces, or at least is produced for him, in Sicily, Italy, or so we were told. Now we have that to pack up and get home, hope it does not leak!!!
After the culinary show, we headed to the gym and did our daily exercising. Afterward, we walked a couple of laps around the Promenade Deck to cool off, especially at the bow of the ship, where the wind was quite strong. The weather was really nice today, sunny and not too much wind, but the wind is now against our direction of travel, so it is more apparent than earlier in the trip when it was coming from the stern. We did spend a little time on the balcony, just watching the ocean go by.
It was disappointing because once again, we did not get any coverage of football games on our pseudo ESPN2 channels that we get. Unfortunately both ESPN channels being broadcast on the ship show the same programming, and instead of football, we got ancient 2009 Strongest Man competition reruns, same ones as last Saturday, and then got 2010 Winter X-Games reruns. Nothing like current competitive sporting event TV to get you excited. We got ZERO football games and no score updates. These must be closed circuit channels that are fed from a media library on the ship since we were not receiving the banner at the bottom of the screen showing any real time scores for other sporting events.
Tonight is the second formal night, and also the drop in party for the Captain’s Circle Membership in the Club Fusion. The party started at 7:30 PM, and we found out this was the second of four different times for this event during the cruise. Due to the large number of past Captain’s Circle members on board, the ship can’t accommodate everyone in the lounge at one time, so it was split up into different sessions. It was well attended, and the complimentary drinks were being served for about 30 minutes before the Captain, really the Commodore, spoke, as well as the Captain’s Circle representative. We watched a short video on the new Royal Princess, already in service, and the sister ship, Regal Princess, schedule to enter service in June, 2014. They are much larger than the current class of ships, and seem to offer quite a few different types of services, specialty restaurants, and some different cabin configurations.
We happened to meet up with our cruise friends, Mike and Barb, from Halifax, and ended up going to dinner with them and another couple they had eaten with the previous night. It was lobster night, so we ordered a bottle of Pinot Grigio wine, and enjoyed the small but tasty broiled cold water lobster tails. There was only one lobster tail per entree, and, as on our last cruise, if you wanted another one, you got an entire additional meal, including the crab cake and asparagus. I was a little shocked when I requested some drawn butter, they were not serving any to add to your lobster I was told it was “already on them” according to our waiter. This was a first, I guess they just make cost cuts wherever they can, but none the less, it was surprising.
After dinner, we invited Mike and Barb back to our cabin for some wine, Stephanie and I are beginning to realize that we probably have some excess adult refreshments, so we did not mind having them over to assist us with the difficult task of reducing our inventory. They are in the same predicament, so tomorrow, we are obligated to help them to reduce their inventory, it will be tough duty!
It was getting much more windy as the evening progressed, and we actually had some heavy rain bands come through while we were entertaining our friends. By the time we all split up and retired for the evening, it was getting quite rough, we were apparently heading through the low pressure weather system that the Captain had informed us about yesterday.