Sunrise
It was a little cooler and a bit more cloudy when we woke up this morning. We were once again lazy, not really getting up until about 8:30 AM. We got dressed for breakfast, and went up to the Horizon Court Buffet. This morning, we decided to do something we had talked about that we had never done before, sit in the special wooden deck loungers on the Promenade Deck and read. These are reminiscent of the wooden chairs seen on all of the photos and movies depicting people crossing the Atlantic on the old ocean liners. Most of the time they are shown all bundled up in blankets for protection against the cold. Luckily, this was not the case for us since we are still in the warmer Pacific Ocean.
This is the lowest outside deck on the ship, so it can get a little windy, and this is where you can tell how fast the ship is really moving, you are much closer to the water passing by below. The Promenade Deck is also the deck that usually goes around the entire perimeter of the ship, so it is used a lot by people walking for exercise. On these Princess ships, the deck does go around the entire perimeter, from bow to stern, but you have to climb a stairway at the bow to go up about one deck to actually go around the bow of the ship, then back down a stairway to return to the Promenade Deck level. The bow of the ship at the Promenade Deck level is reserved for the crew, they have an outside pool, and some areas for sun chairs, and a large spare ship anchor is stored there. Sometimes, the stairs up to the bow area are closed off due to the high winds that are present when the ship is heading into the wind, it is just too windy to even walk up there when the wind is blowing 20-30 mph or more across the bow of the ship. This was the case the other day when we had the 35 knot winds, the area around the bow was closed off for safety.
Even though it was fairly warm, it was a little cool sitting on the Promenade Deck with the wind blowing, so we headed to the covered pool deck to sit on the padded loungers there and read some more. After a while there, the skies cleared and the sun appeared. We headed back to the room for some sunscreen, and then sat out on our balcony while the sun was still on our side of the ship.
Stephanie sat in the sun while I sat in the room practicing on my Ukulele. I was contemplating going to lessons today, but then decided not to attend, it was just as easy to sit in the room and learn the chords myself. There were still lessons being given each day even though the big concert had occurred. The music director on the ship was willing to help people learn to play if they wanted to attend the lessons.
We went to lunch a little later today since we had gone to a later breakfast. After lunch, we watched an event in the main pool. Passengers were to construct a boat out of miscellaneous items that they scavenged on the ship. There were two entries, and one was really well done. They were judged on appearance, and seaworthiness. They had to carry six “passengers”, which were six cans of coke, and had to be propelled for one lap out and back in the pool, but the boats could not be touched. It had gotten pretty windy at the pool, and the water was really surging from the seas, so the contestants had a lot of trouble getting their ships to go against the wind. It was pretty funny to watch.
Later in the day, we headed up to the Lotus Spa area to sit in our favorite hot tubs. We usually go there for the hot tubs late in the afternoon when most of the other passengers are heading to the early dinner seating at 5:15 PM. As is typical for that time of day, there was no one else up there so we had one of the two hot tubs to ourselves. These hot tubs always seem to be warmer than some of the others on the ship, and are certainly more private and quiet than the hot tubs by the main pools.
There was nothing really appealing on the dining room menu, so we headed up to the buffet for dinner. Also, there was a show at 8:15 PM that we wanted to see, it was a musician from Poland, Jakub Kawmik, and he played a Vibraphone. He was really talented, and had a couple of other strange instruments to play, one was an electronic device with two antennas, that he actually played by the position of his hands between two antennas, never touching the actual instrument. This was invented long ago and is used for special effects sounds, and was used in the original “The Day The Earth Stood Still” movie to make the strange sounds of the ship flying.
After that show, we stayed in the Explorer’s Lounge to watch a game show between the passenger teams and the cruise staff, sort of a rendition of “to tell the truth”. It was also enjoyable.
After that show, we headed back to the room. We change another hour on the clock tonight, losing another hour of sleep. This is the final change to get us to Pacific Time as we head nearer to Los Angeles. It had gotten noticeably cooler as the night went on, so we will see what the weather holds for tomorrow. We received our paperwork on the Embarkation process when we returned to the room tonight, so we know the cruise is nearing the end.