My Big Fat Princess Cays blog!!!

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We have now visited all the places we wanted to see so with a day at sea and a stop at Princess's own resort in the Bahamas before arriving back at Fort Lauderdale we are on our last leg as opposed to many of the guests on this ship who are also on their last legs!!!

During the day at sea we actually had a lie in thus missing the morning trivia! The brain is in need of a refresh so we were happy to do as little as possible, well, until the lunch time trivia.

Each morning, Lisa, the Cruise Director announces highlights from the day's activities ahead. Today she promoted a culinary demonstration by the Executive Chef and the Maître D followed by tour of the galley. She continued:

'…Fortunately for our massive sale we have had to move it to the Concerto restaurant to cope with the amount of stuff at huge discounts up to 75%!'(MISSING)

Not that old chestnut!! Roisin has been on one of these tours before. Whilst the galley tour is very informative, as there are photos of the day's dish by each work station in order that the chefs can see how the dishes should look, Roisin's tour, and it seems, this tour, ends up coming through the swing doors from the galley in to the Concerto dining room and the stalls!! Marketing genius…or am I just cynical??!

Furthermore, Lisa announced that the executive Chef is poorly so won't be leading the culinary demo. Oh dear! I hope it wasn't something he'd eaten!! However, the Sous Chef saved the day and agreed to step in.

The Princess Patter, the free daily guide to what's on had more than the usual get-togethers listed. These are events that are unhosted so are relatively cheap to run. However, in order to have made the daily events guide at least several guests must have shown an interest in the subject. There were ‘Games' and ‘Car enthusiasts' get-togethers. These were followed in the afternoon by a ‘Bridge and Mahjong' and ‘knitters and Needlepoint' get-togethers. I would have thought the Games get-together would have got together with the Bridge and Mahjong get-together as once you start isolating some games who knows where it will stop. Will we see a Boggle' or Monopoly (I Love Lucy – Collector's Edition) enthusiasts get together?? The Princess Patter will turn in to one long list of get together and the likes of Tyrone Babb, our steel drum tutor or demonstrations such as Dr Ann's liquid face lift will fade in to obscurity (unless they list them as get-togethers, of course!!)

Whilst Roisin was on deck taking advantage of this ‘lazy' day to catch the sun, I took the chance to update the blog. I strode in to the Club 6 lounge like a man on a mission. I suddenly heard an elderly gentleman, who was standing up addressing several other seniors who were all looking up, their gazes fixed on the speaker: ‘…When I was in ‘Nam…'I had inadvertently walked in on the Veterans and Military get-together!! I had been caught out like this before especially with over enthusiastic relatives ‘When I was in the war…'

Without breaking step in one neat movement, I swivelled, heel to toe, did a u-turn and marched out as swiftly as I had strode in!!

One of the golden rules of the ship's trivia is to have fun. Also the prizes are pretty naff so not worth arguing about. OK, that's two of the golden rules. However, this doesn't stop some people from being absolutely clear on what is an acceptable answer. During the answers of the lunch time trivia, the question was: ‘What World cup did the USA win for the first time in 1999 that caused disbelief amongst the rest of the sporting world?' The answer was given as ‘Ladies soccer'. The host qualified this by adding: ‘Not just soccer. This answer is incorrect. It has to be ladies soccer'. Someone from the centre of the lounge shouted: ‘Can you have women's soccer?' And this, dear reader is what we have had to put up with for most of this trip!! The trivia has been entertaining if nothing else.

The last sea day was also the 2^nd and final formal/gala evening. We had arranged with Rosemary and Charlie, the New Yorkers now living near Scottsdale, Arizona to meet them at 3pm along with Alan and Cathy in Crooners bar to share the bottle of cheap ship champagne we won for the Sound of Music trivia. They had since defected back to their own kinsmen who form the Ship Pickers trivia team and had become our fiercest rivals!! Whilst Roisin, Cathy Alan and I were still sporting t-shirts and shorts, Rosemary and Charlie were already in their ‘finery'. 3 o'clock is a little early as the first sitting for dinner doesn't start until 5pm. I'm not too sure if we felt a little under dressed in their presence or they felt a little over dressed in our presence but as soon as that cork popped (well, more of a phutt, really) who was wearing what was quickly forgotten.

Now, not being someone who has never had proper champagne I didn't really have anything to compare the cheap ship champagne to. Actually my personal assessment is it wasn't that bad!! However, like everyone else, every time I took a sip I winced as if I'd just sucked on a lemon when really I was thinking: ‘C'mon. A refill wouldn't want to go amiss!' I suppose I could have poured my own but I didn't want to look too keen. This was pretence at its best!! I notice that despite all the complaints of how rough it was, tastes like paint stripper etc… every last drop was drank!!

On walking back to our cabin to get ready for dinner, we noticed a sign on several doors advertising a wedding. I wonder if this couple know that a ship's captain generally does NOT have the legal right to perform a wedding at sea. In order for a Captain of a ship to perform a marriage at sea, he must also be a judge, a justice of the peace, a minister, or an officially recognised officiant such as a Notary Public. I had visions of them getting to the alter and rather than being a case of who's brought the rings it will be whose brought the priest!!

However after digging around I learned that Through Bermuda law, and because most of the Princess captains have Bermuda licenses to perform weddings, they may perform weddings aboard ship and at sea as long as the couples are at least 21 and have picture identification showing proof of age. Someone had better tell the happy couple that we're in the Bahamas not Bermuda!!

The wedding must have been a success as the wedding party had the centre table in our dining room. I managed to sneak a quick glimpse and immediately thought of ‘My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding'. The brides and brides made dresses were very garish as in my eyes green and peach have never been a winning combination. Towards the end f the night we heard a rather drunken version of the British National Anthem ‘God Save The Queen'. But then just from observation, their nationality was never in doubt!!!

On walking along deck 7 after dinner, we noticed rather a large amount of balloons netted at the top of the atrium. As there were now Princess events scheduled in the Piazza this evening it has to be connected with the ‘gypsy' wedding.

So, to our full final day. By the time we had awoken, the Royal Princess had already dropped anchor about ½ mile off shore. We had arrived at Princess Cays, a tourist resort at the southern end of the island of Eleuthera, Bahamas. The resort (not the island) is owned by Princess Cruises, who use it as a port-of-call on cruises in the Caribbean.

Princess Cays is located 70 miles east of Nassau, on the southern tip of Eleuthera and comprises of 40 acres including more than 1.5 miles of white-sand beaches food and water sports.

Although Princess uses only a section of the island, the rest of Eleuthera is inhabited by a population of about 11,000 residents. There were a few excursions to the small villages dotted around the island and glass bottomed boat rides but for the majority, the excursions leaflet for Princess Cays revolved around the hire of snorkels, paddle boards, kayaks (standard keel or transparent), aqua chair or the piece de resistance, for $249.99, a full days rental of an Adults Sanctuary Bungalow (4 people max), fully air conditioned with a butler!!

The day started out in glorious sunshine, Roisin and I were in no hurry. We only intended to go ashore to see what all the fuss was about so we had time for a leisurely breakfast. At 10:45 we ventured out on deck to check on the weather. The sun was still shining but big black clouds were looming. We saw several tenders out on the stretch of water between the ship and shore. A tender is another name for a life boat. These can hold upwards of 100 people and are used to shuttle guests between the ship and shore if the quay is not deep enough to accommodate the draft of a cruise ship, or in the case of Princess Cays, there was no harbour, just a small jetty!! Both tenders were rolling quite heavily in the water. It was on seeing this that Roisin made an executive decision to stay on board. Her mind was cast back to a bad experience in Mexico several years ago whilst sat atop the tender, the boat started rocking so badly it felt like it was going to capsize. Roisin's decision was proved to be a good judgement call as within 25 minutes the rain battered down on the promenade deck of the Royal Princess.

On meeting up with Alan and Cathy later on, they had just returned from the glass bottomed boat somewhat underwhelmed at the whole experience.

‘I saw a short video of the glass bottomed boat. It looked state of the art'

‘Oh, it was', said Cathy. ‘But we didn't get to see any fish. I asked the captain if he ever feeds the fish to bring them to the surface. He said ‘Yes'. I then asked him if he was going to feed them on this trip. He said ‘No'. I will feed them during the next trip!!'

The final quiz of the cruise was a Beatles trivia. The Ship Pickers, who had won all three trivia today were quick to ask us to swap papers to mark. They had performed dreadfully but when the host started to go through the answers, they kept shouting them out FROM OUR PAPER which made it sound as if they knew it all!! However, the cream rose to the top resulting in a paltry 11 compared to our magnificent 19. I made them bow in front of us whilst graciously accepting the bottle of cheap ‘not so ship after all' champagne. As we still had two bottles in the fridge, I asked three other teams if they would like a bottle of Champagne. They all refused. The reputation of the champagne has obviously spread. I finally found someone what was happy to accept this last minute gift. Trust him to be another Brit!!!

The final event of the cruise was the Voice of the Ocean. It is the debut of this voyage long talent show. Guests were asked to sign up for this singing contest on day 1 and heats were held throughout the 10 days. The format was similar to the Voice reality talent show where three guest judges sit in swivel chairs with their backs to the singers and turn around if they like what they hear. The first judge to turn around would become the mentor of the contestant. This event was so huge, it was performed live in the Princess Theatre and televised in the Princess Live Studio. All the audience in the theatre had access to a voting pad and the winner was announced in true x-factor style. Roisin and I never saw this final as we had packing to do (see the first entry in this blog!!) From all accounts the winner was well deserved, a Michael Bublé wannabe. I was hoping that he only received a bottle of bubbly for all his hard work but he actually received a decent sized trophy (and the champagne!!)

Well, that's it now. We said our goodbyes to Cathy and Alan and headed back to our cabin to ensure our luggage was outside our door by 11pm. Several days ago, we received a notice explaining disembarkation procedures. Depending what our onwards plans were, we could decide as to when we wanted to leave the ship. We decided an early departure. Our slot was set for 07:15. This was indicated by the colour coded label that we had to tie on to our luggage.

Our story doesn't end here. Once off the ship we will head for Ft. Lauderdale airport to pick up another hire car. We will then drive to a small town on the west coast of Florida called Naples where we plan to stay for the final four night of our vacation, call it recovery time, before heading home for Christmas!!

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