Wednesday Sep 26 – at Sea


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Oceans and Seas » Mediterranean
September 26th 2018
Published: September 26th 2018
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Hello from the Mediterranean Sea. We went through the Straights of Gibraltar in the middle of the night and all day we have been sailing through the Med. David actually got up at 2:00 this morning to see if there was anything visible in the moonlight. What he found was that the wind was howling and he barely opened the balcony door before closing it again and going back to bed. So we will hope to have a better viewing opportunity when we sail back out later in the cruise.

We slept until the alarm went off at 7:30. That gave us enough time to get up and dressed before we went to have a nice breakfast in the dining room. Janet had bacon & eggs while David had the lumberjack breakfast (steak & eggs). That was after juice, pastry and fruit. We ate everything except a couple of pieces of bacon, so we seem to have recovered our cruise-ship appetites.

At 9:15 Janet went to the Knitter’s meeting in the Skywalker Lounge. Once again there were only 4 people up there doing there needlework – where could they all be hiding? At the same time David went to the Princess Theater to hear the “destination lecture” on Toulon France. Likewise there were not a lot of people to hear the talk – where could they all be hiding.

We met back up in the cabin and listened to the Wake Show on the TV. David had submitted a question and they promised to answer today. The question had requested information about the number of passengers according to age. “How many children? How many young adults? How many mature citizens? How many ancient fossils?” The answer was that 40 passengers were on board under the age of 18. They did not provide other breakdowns aside from saying that the overall average age is 68. So if we discard the children from the calculation then we will certainly be in the younger half of the adult passengers. Yeah! We have noticed a lot of people who use walking sticks, canes, walkers, wheelchairs, and some electric wheelchairs. Our subjective view is that there seem to be more passengers with mobility issues on this cruise than we usually see on others. So despite what we have said previously, there are plenty of people with more “walking problems” than us.

About 11:00 Janet started watching another cartoon movie called “Paddington Bear 2”. A little after Noon, before the movie was over, we got hungry and wanted to go to the Trident Grill for burgers and dogs. So she pressed pause on the movie and we went up to the Lido Deck. We found all the missing people! The deck was crowded with people stretched out on every deck chair in sight, trying to soak up rays of sunshine. The temperature got up to 82 this afternoon but the wind across the deck was close to 30 mph. In the partially sheltered areas where the wind wasn’t blowing on you then it was nice, but they actually closed the open decks on the front of the ship. Anyway, Janet found us a table and David brought the food, and we had a good old fashioned American lunch. And since Janet had picked a table next to the ice cream stand, David introduced himself to the Swirl Girls and got us cups of ice cream for dessert. Once again we ate everything on our plates.

Back in the cabin, Janet watched the rest of the movie and David changed into his swimsuit and went up to the pool. Although there was a lot of completion for deck chairs, he did find one and staked his claim before he went for a plunge in the pool. The water was comfortable warm and there were only a couple of kids in the pool. David was able to swim for a while before returning to his chair and reading his book. He was lucky enough to be behind a wind barrier so it was comfortable. There were a lot of people (probably mostly Brits) slowly turning a bright pink color. Yesterday’s weather hadn’t been too bad but today was the first day in the 80s so that’s where many people were today.

Back in the cabin Janet had finished one of her needlework projects and was getting the next one all ready to start. Once again we wanted to keep her from doing too much walking/climbing, so movies and crafts were the main focus for today. David was able to stretch out on the bed and continue reading his book, before dozing off for a short nap. So we had a quiet time the remainder of the afternoon. Janet joined in the napping too so we had to be careful not to oversleep.

At 5:00 we were invited to a reception with the captain in the Vista Lounge. This is a traditional event on Princess Cruises where we always get a couple of watered down drinks and hear the Captain welcome us back to Princess. Actually Janet got 2 glasses of champagne and David had 2 beers – can’t water those down too much. They announce the names of people with the most cruises and each won a bottle of champagne – not us. The winners had 583, 597, and 756 cruise days respectively. We knew there were a lot of Elite passengers (more than 150 days on Princess) because the laundry service has been pre-announced as being 3-days instead of next day service. However, there were 402 Gold first timers, 245 Ruby (under 50 days), 776 Platinum (51-150 days), and 663 Elite.

After the reception we went down one deck to dinner. Tonight Janet had a Caesar Salad and the Beef Stroganoff. David had Hot Beef Pot Empanada, Gazpacho Soup, and the Crab Meat Hamburger. For dessert Janet had Pineapple Sorbet and David had Apple Strudel with ice cream. We both ate all our dinner and Rolly didn’t have any complaints about our picky eating.

After dinner we went to the theater for an encore performance by the lead singer from the Hollies – Peter Howarth. We don’t usually go to the night clubs, karaoke lounges, swing & dance competitions, or other events because they usually run later into the night than we prefer. We did enjoy this evening’s singer – he did a good job again. The show was so popular that all the seats in the theater were occupied 15 minutes before start time. After a good variety of Rock & Roll music we returned to the cabin by a little after 9:00 and settled down to send the blog and get a good night’s sleep

We have gotten some mail from home. Valerie sent a picture of our cat and sent a message of “meow!!!!” Elizabeth sent a picture of her Fitbit showing all the exercise she got on moving day – guess we missed that opportunity. And Valerie posted a picture of a blanket she made for Tessa to take with her to the hospital for her surgery tomorrow. We will be waiting for an e-mail from her tomorrow afterwards.

That’s all for today - see you tomorrow.

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