Thursday Oct 4 – Day at Sea

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Hello as the Sapphire Princess sails north again, across the Bay of Biscay. When we were heading south early in the cruise, the wind was blowing and the sea was choppy. Today the temperature is about 75, the sky has been clear and sunny all day, and the sea is very smooth.

We set the alarm today for 8:00 so we would get back into more normal hours and not sleeping too late. So we went to breakfast about 9:00 and got a buffet breakfast from the Horizon Court. We sat with a British couple and compared stories about Lisbon.

After breakfast Janet went to the Knitter’s meeting in the Skywalker Lounge. There were only 4 knitters today and Janet only followed about half of what they were saying. But it was peaceful and refreshing. Meanwhile David went down to the cabin and started watching the “Solo Star Wars Movie” again. He saw it on the QM2, but he enjoyed it a second time.

About 11:45 we went to the Pacific Moon dining room. This is the 4^th dining room and we mostly wanted to see what the room looked like. Our excuse for being there was a sale on leftover passenger merchandise. Pacific Moon is an Anytime Dining Room for people who do not have a scheduled dinner time. It gave us an Asian feeling as we looked around the room. That makes sense since this ship spends half the year operating from Singapore.

Then we went to the Savoy Dining Room (5^th and last one on our list of dining rooms). They were having a Pub Lunch today. This room didn’t actually seem Asian but not Mediterranean either. However they had it decorated with lots of British pendants and the receptionist at the main door was dressed like an English Bobby. With an abundance of UK passengers, they weren’t particularly excited about a pretend pub so the room was not very crowded. On other ships this is usually held in one of the lounges or a specialty restaurant. Anyway, the food was good – David had Fish & Chips while Janet had Prawns & Chips.

After lunch David went up to the pool deck to watch as they held an ice carving demonstration. Two carvers attacked two blocks of ice and created a horse head from one and an angel fish from the other. It took them about half an hour but it was interesting to watch. One of the cruise staff was trying to keep talking to the audience while the carvers worked. He did say that a lot of cruise lines had stopped this demonstration because each block of ice costs about $500 each. But Princess still does this.

When he went back to the cabin, David brought a bowl of chocolate ice cream for Janet. For himself he had gotten a serving of cherry crumble and got vanilla ice cream on top from the Swirl Girls. So this was a yummy dessert for our lunch.

Janet took a nap after that and David went up to the pool for possibly a last swim. The temperature tomorrow will probably be even cooler than today. There weren’t too many people in the water but the deck chairs were packed, at least those in the sun. Apparently all the Brits were trying to get one more day of suntan before they get back home.

David came back to sit in the sun on our balcony and read some more of his latest book. Earlier there had been some dolphins swimming beside the ship so David took the camera with him, but he did not see any. When she got up from her nap, Janet finished watching a movie she had started last night and did some more knitting.

We had ordered some more of the canapés for 5:15. They were 3 shrimp rolls and 3 salami rolls. Don’t worry; they weren’t large enough to mess up our appetite. Dinner tonight was the last formal night of this cruise. Janet had the Shrimp Cocktail appetizer. David had Baked Potato Soup and Chilled Granny Smith Apple Soup. For our main course we each had the Beef Wellington. For dessert Janet had Floating Islands and David had Praline Ice Cream. As usual it was very good.

The show in the Princess Theater was a production routine called Bravo. It was supplemented with an excellent soprano from London named Celena Bridge. The orchestra was also augmented with the piano/violin duo that we have seen around the ship elsewhere. All together it was a good show - there was some pop songs and some opera songs mixed into the repertoire.

After that we went to the Vista Lounge for the Princess Pop Song Grand Finale. One of our tablemates was in the final group so we went to hear him and the others. He did not win though. Then we headed off to the cabin for a good night’s sleep.

The definition of Formal Night says: Evening gown, cocktail dress, or elegant pant suit for women and tuxedo, dark suit or dinner jacket and trousers for men. Why do they feel they have to specify that men wear trouser?

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