Island Princess Day 1

We're onboard!! Checking out the buffet for lunch. Typically on cruise ships, the saying goes that it's "Party in the front and food in the back". That's because the main theater is all the way forward and the buffet is all the way aft. Unlike every other Princess ship in their fleet and almost every other ship I've sailed, the buffet on the Island Princess is all the way forward. This will take 36 hours to orient myself. Tried a few things. The meatballs, vegetable paella and broccoli were very good. And of course I had to get a slice of the best pizza at sea!! Vegetarian is today's special. It changes each day in addition to always having Margarita and Pepperoni.  

After lunch, we had a relaxing afternoon in the cabin while waiting for our luggage. Angie had never seen the "Deadpool" Marvel movies so we watched both of them. Princess has a lot of free "on demand" titles. Once our luggage arrived we unpacked and got ready for dinner.  

First stop was at the Explorer's Lounge for Happy Hour. On Princess, higher tiers of their Captain's Circle loyalty program are able to attend a night HH which has small bites. We had some vegetables and cheese along with a negroni. We had a nice chat with Johnathan a bar waiter who was from Goa India. 

We then headed to the main dining room for our 7 PM reservation. Dinner was a piroshky (essentially a fried perogie), grilled vegetable antipasto, pan fried cod and asparagus risotto. All very tasty. I was especially impressed by the risotto. It had been freshly made and was so creamy and rich with asparagus flavor. No dessert tonight.  

We then headed back to the Explorer's Lounge to catch the end of a set from Xtasea which is one of the party bands onboard. They played some Motown and reggae crowd favorites. After the set the cruise director and staff had a gameshow called Strike Out. It was a twist on music trivia where everyone in the lounge could play from their seats. They would play songs and provided two possible years on the video screen. You had to guess which year the song was released. One year had an up arrow and the other had a down arrow and you stood up or remained seated depending on which year you thought was correct. If you guessed wrong, you "struck out" for that round. Eventually there would be one person left standing and they would be the winner of that round. They played several rounds. For one of them, I was one of three people left. 

 We had to go up on stage and play to the end of the round. The first song was "Power of Love" by Huey Lewis and the News. The years were 1985 and 1987. I knew the movie was released in 1985 so that was a big clue. My opponents also guessed 1985 so we went on to the next song which was Beyonce's "Single Ladies". The years were 2008 (down arrow) and 2011 (up arrow). My two opponents both stood up almost immediately. But I knew that song was played at my wedding in 2009 so I remained seated. Another great reason to be married!! It may help you in trivia some day. My prize was a coveted Princess coaster along with a bingo card for today's session.  

They also had another game show called Musical Bingo. You grabbed a bingo card that had song titles and artists in the boxes instead of numbers. They played short clips of songs and you would mark your card. We didn't win any of the four rounds but it was very fun. It was then time to head back to the cabin.  

Today is our first of two sea days before we arrive at Bornholm Denmark on Saturday. We'll explore more of the ship that we didn't get to yesterday. And since we won a bingo card, we'll probably go to one of those sessions.