Crown Princess Sea Day #3

 by Glenn

Yesterday was our fourth of five sea days before the port of Hilo.  The weather was absolutely perfect, around 25°C with mostly sunny skies.  It was definitely a day we'd enjoy as much outdoor time as possible.  After a quick breakfast in Horizon Court, we made our way to one of our favorite spots on this class of ship, the Mix Bar.   This bar has plenty of shaded outdoor seating, larger tables and is close by all the quick service food venues for when you need a snack.  A perfect place to stay all day, relax, read or play games. 

I worked on my daily update and finished my Quordle while Angie caught up on some work.  There were just beautifully calm seas.  I kept looking out hoping for a remote siting of whales but, not surprisingly, there were none.  As soon as Slice (pizza place) had opened, I went over and grabbed a couple of slices as an appetizer.  Every day they have a special pizza in addition to margarita and pepperoni.  Today's was veggie including zucchini, mushrooms, tomatoes and onions - and of course cheese. The Salty Dog Grill was also open so I had a cheeseburger and Angie had the Salty Dog which is their hot dog.  Both delicious.  

It was now afternoon and we played a couple of games of Quirkle.  This is a block tile game where you try to make a six block connection of the same color with all six shapes.  Or the same shape and all six colors.  You can't duplicate colors or shapes.    It's a great game for two or more people. Angie beat me by forty points in the first game.  I came closer in the second game.  We ended up meeting a couple of women who were travelling with their high school class of 1960.  There were about 100 of them and they had these kinds of trips frequently.  It was wonderful to hear about that.  

After our games it was mid afternoon and time for a mandatory rest period before we got ready for the evening.  We wanted to see the Captains Champagne Waterfall event which is a signature event on Princess.   It takes several hours for the crew to set this up with several hundred glasses.  It's always good people watching and this didn't disappoint.  We had our usual table at Vines and Bian brought us some French Sauvignon Blanc and tapas.  The chicken lollipop was delicious.  It was fun watching the people climb the stairs to the waterfall and then have the champagne poured and shaken about.  Definitely a splash zone if you were nearby.  But if you don't get splashed with champagne, can you say you were at the champagne waterfall?  I think not.  

It was getting very crowded so we gave up our table and headed to the Happy Hour. There was hardly anyone there so we had the place mostly to ourselves. The fried shrimp were very tasty.  And off course the smoked gouda.  We saw our bar waiter Gusti from Indonesia again who brought us our gin and tonics.  We had a great chat about life onboard.  None of us will ever truly appreciate how hard it is for the crew.  And many will say they choose this life. And while that is true, it is not an easy choice for them to make being away from family and children for six to eight months at a time.  He also told must he would be in the Skywalker's nightclub later for "Queen hour". We said we might see him there.  

It was formal night and we contemplated whether we'd go to the dining room for dinner.  We both agreed the tapas and shrimp were more than enough.  We then headed to Broadway trivia.  Here they played twenty songs and you had to write down the name of the song and the show it was from.  We did pretty well with 31 points. The winning team had 35. After the trivia they had a comedian who we enjoyed. 

It was then time to head to Voice of the Ocean for night two of auditions.  You didn't need to sing again if you had already the previous night.  There were 13 more auditions and many people from night one sang again. Votes weren't accumulated. They took the most number of votes from either night as your final count.  There were some good singers. Ultimately when the final eight finalists we're announced, I was not one of them.  There's always next year. :-)

We ended the night by visiting Gusti at Skywalker's and had a nightcap.  One more sea day today before we arrive at Hilo on Sunday where we have a volcano excursion.  The weather looks promising today so we will likely have a "Rinse and Repeat" day from yesterday.   Perhaps cribbage instead of Quirkle.  And tacos and chicken sandwich instead of a burger.