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Published: June 26th 2017
Still 3 days at sea to go…
I think the entertainments team are running out of things to host. We happened to gatecrash a Grandparents get together whilst waiting for trivia to start. This was actually advertised in the 'Patter'. There were not many people in attendance. The crewmember who was allocated this ‘gig' must have felt sorry for one old lady who was desperate to share her photos of her grandchildren with someone. She was trying to show some interest but it was obvious (to me, anyway!) she was inwardly screaming ‘
Get me out of here!!' If that was a trifle lame, the following day there was an iPad get together!!
3:00pm Calling all iPad owners. Come meet your fellow passengers with your devices for an iPad get together! Crooners lounge, Deck 7 midships. Just to balance things up, there are still plenty of great events scheduled around the ship during sea days. There is target shooting, a pop choir, plenty of enrichment lectures. These are very well attended. The current on board lecturer is very good and knowledgeable about the subject matter. They are on diverse topics from The Life and History of the Prince of
Wales and Birth of a Cruise Ship to History of the Mafia and the Art of Picasso and Chagall.
In the short time that Roisin and I have been cruising, we have never encountered any animals on board. Of course, certain dogs can be trained to assist in various kinds of disability. These can be dogs to aid the visually and audibly impaired, there are even dogs that can be trained to detect epileptic fits. These are working dogs (as they're not considered to be pets) and as they are registered are allowed where other animals aren't.
There is one passenger on board who is a wheel chair user. On his lap is a very small poodle whose name I now know is ‘
Honey'. She doesn't seem to do anything except lie there. If it is a ‘working' dog then it is the most work-shy dog I have ever met. Simon mentioned that some animal lovers can't be parted from their pet and so register them as a service dog that provides ‘emotional support'. I have never once seen a dog give a pep talk to its owner. In fact a few nights ago, the man appeared in
an American football shirt. The dog was also wearing a mini version of the same shirt. If anyone needs emotional support, my money's on the dog!!!
We're only down to a few moans per day as people are now running out of things to whinge about. But wait!!! The ship ran out of lids for the takeaway coffee this morning!! Shock horror. Hold the front page. I feel the share price of the Carnival Group plummet as I type this!!! First we had ‘
soap gate' and now this. This does have a happy ending as the day after the lids reappeared. Princess must have had a batch helicoptered in overnight at no expense spared!!
During the week at sea, this gave us plenty of time to explore parts of the ship we haven't yet had the time to discover. The adults only part of the ship has a poolside retreat known as a cabana. These are small gazebos with a couple of sun loungers within. The Cabana has curtains to maintain privacy should you desire it. We ventured in to this area and noticed there was a distinct lack of minors. However, at a cost of $50 for
half a day or $90 for a full day, there was a distinct lack of adults as well!!
When Roisin and I woke up on day 5 out of 7 of our trans Atlantic crossing we have now been at sea for the longest stretch. Our previous was 4 days between San Francisco and Hawaii and then Hawaii to French Polynesia.
The ship is continuing on a southwesterly course maintaining a rhumb-line track sailing across the North Atlantic Ocean and the mid Atlantic Ridge. Not knowing what a rhumb-line is I collared one of the deck officers who explained that a rhumb line is a constant true course between two points whereas the alternative is a great circle course which is the shortest distance between 2 points taking in to account the curvature of the earth.
The depth of the water in these parts stretch to 4,000 metres (about 15,000 feet). In the boutique they are selling waterproof watches that are good to a depth of 50feet. They're OK if you're swimming off shore but crossing the Atlantic?? You never know!! I'm just saying!!!
I noticed in the patter that there was a football tournament advertised
on deck 18 on several occasions. As this is the same deck as the shooting a target practice simulator I expected Xbox or Playstation. I had to go up and investigate. OK, I wasn't expecting a 40,000 all seater stadium but was surprised to find a basketball/tennis/football court hidden away just behind the ship's funnel. Furthermore, overlooking this course on deck 19 is the 9 hole putting course.
Throughout the 7 days at sea we continued to be the most consistent trivia team. We only won outright on 2 occasions but after losing our 9
th tiebreak we discovered that the team marking our paper are crap at marking!!! To rub salt in to the wound the immediate trivia to follow we tied again. The tiebreak question was:
‘What year was the first Matrix film released?' We put ‘2000' and handed in our answer. The quiz master then repeated the question and added ‘Without going over!!' The answer was 1999. The team that was awarded the prize put 1994. We know it is only a game but surely, playing for fun or not, the rules can't be constantly changed to suit!!!' Furthermore, the winning team of the morning session of
trivia get to put a member in to the mastermind grand final. I wouldn't say we're bitter but…
The latest argument to break out was: ‘
What is the largest island in Europe?' The answer is of course
Britain. Someone shouted out, quite irate, that Britain's not in Europe. I'm devastated!! After all these years the Government have lied to us!!
Anyway, whether I'm European or possibly after today's revelation, African, our consistency paid off!! Apart from the individual trivias, there was a progressive trivia. This means that for each sea day there is a different topic. For example: Geography, Sport, Art, Mythology and Literature etc. The scores are carried forward each day and the winner is announced at the end of the 7 days. We were 5 points ahead of the 2
nd team going in to the final game. We dropped a few points but won by 2 points. Finally…it's made all the previous disappointments fade away. We won a bottle of champagne and not just 1 ‘ship' prize' but a whole host of ‘ship' prizes. Well at least I thought that's what the quizmaster referred to them as!!!
It has been 9 days since the film
crew boarded in Barcelona to create a documentary about life on the Royal Princess. I haven't seen them since day 2 when they were filming someone walking down some stairs. I hope they have managed to shoot more footage than that otherwise we are in for a very short but interesting item entitled: ‘
Woman walking down some stairs'!! . I'm sure they're doing a lot of behind the scenes stuff before they get to us!! Speak of the Devil, I walk in to Club 6 and there they are!! The dance floor is shrouded in dry ice. The hotel controller (the husband of Sam the Cruise Director) is doing ‘dad' dancing to some disco classic. It looked that they were filming a dream sequence from the ‘
who killed Laura Palmer' TV murder mystery, ‘Twin Peaks'!!! For our 3
rd and final ‘formal night' we arranged to dine with our new best friends Simon and William. Both like their white-knuckle rides, having recently ridden the rides at the top of the Stratosphere casino in Las Vegas. Both have recently done a sky dive. There are experiences in life that you just need to try before you die. As far as
jumping out of a plane goes, Roisin and I are quite happy to let this ‘gig' pass us by!!
William explained that you are tethered to an experienced skydiver during the jump. As soon as you leave the aircraft the pressure felt against your chest and face takes your breath away. All you can hear is the wind as it rushes past your ears at hundreds of miles per hour. As soon as the rip chord is pulled, everything seems to decelerate in to slow motion. The wind immediately drops and a certain peace and tranquillity overtakes the initial adrenalin rush. Now, the last thing you want to hear from your instructor (he was British by the way!) as you still have 15,000 feet of nothing between you and terra firma is:
‘Oh bugger! Now that shouldn't have happened!!' Apparently one of the cords got tangled as the primary chute opened. The instructor had to release the main parachute. William was in free fall again. Within seconds, the secondary chute was deployed and he was guided to earth safely and under complete control. He told us that despite the jump not going according to plan, everything happened so
fast, there was hardly anytime to react emotionally and therefore never felt in any danger. Like I said, this doesn't even make my ‘reserve' bucket list!!!
For the past 18 days I have passed a portrait of a tiger several times a day on the way to our cabin. I have learned from the Art Manager that this is not just any old painting. It is actually body painting. I have had to take a photo. Take a closer look at the nose of the tiger. Can you see a female outline crouching down with her back to the artist? This has to be a case of Hidden Tiger, Crouching lady!!! Fantastic!!
7 days at sea. Where has the time gone? It seems a long time since we were listening to Verdi in Venice but at the same time it seems like no time at all! During this trip we have linked up with old friends and have met some new friends that I can see us meeting again despite the miles.
As we neared the Florida coast, the route took us through the chain of islands known as the Bahamas and in to the Providence Channel.
The water under the keel was now5000 metres 18,000 feet)
The final show of the cruise belonged to the traditional talent of the crew. However, in shows gone by, the event kicks off with hundreds of balloons being released for the audience to play around with. Oh no, not tonight. I know times are hard and austerity is biting everywhere but to hand out the balloons and expect the audience to blow their own up!!
The talent didn't disappoint for a magician from Thailand to singers from Philippines and Bulgaria. The evening was finished off by the entertainments team giving their interpretation of the traditional shanty:
‘If I were not up on the sea…' The total distance travelled from Venice to Port Everglades was 5,922 nautical miles (6,810 proper miles!!)
We have 3 days left that will be spent in Florida so our adventure on the high seas may be over but the fun is just spilling out on to dry land.
So, the best and the worst of this cruise? If I was shallow I could say hangers in the stateroom – good; thin soap in the bathroom – bad!! The best of the
best was actually meeting up with old friends and making new ones. Madeira had to be the highlight although we enjoyed all our destinations despite having visited most of the ports before. Our enjoyment was down to visiting new and refreshing places with the port stops due to Roisin's meticulous planning prior to the voyage.
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Elaine
non-member comment
They should have the get together meetings at the beginning of the cruise not near the end. You could have suggested a Canon 1000D owners get together and that would have resolved your problems earlier!!Thanks again for the blog Chris.