Monday April 22th & Tuesday April 23th – 2 Sea Days

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This is a two-day report. We continue to have multiple sea days to get back to the USA from Bora Bora – it simply is a long way to sail. By the time we get back we will have had our longest number of continuous sea days of any cruise we’ve ever taken. So on Monday evening we actually reached the midpoint on our voyage back to Los Angeles.

We lost an hour Sunday night so Monday morning was extra early. We both continued to have coughs on Sunday night so we were fairly tired when the alarm when off in the morning. But we got up and went to the dining room for the sit-down breakfast. Once again Janet was able to get Eggs Benedict – she is certain that Princess makes the very best Eggs Benedict anywhere! She was a little late heading off to Knitting, but they have a pretty loose schedule and she can always catch up on the conversations.

David headed back to the cabin to try to continue last night’s sleep, but it was not to be. He had stopped coughing sometime in the preceding night, but could not lie down without coughing again. So he went to the Explorer’s Lounge and spent a couple of hours reading his book. That doesn’t sound very exciting but it was restful when he wasn’t feeling very energetic anyway.

We met back in the cabin about 11:30 and actually neither of us felt like much lunch today. There reaches a point where you cannot continue to stuff as much food down the gullet as early in the cruise. We have finally reached our level of full saturation and we each had just a little lunch. Janet had an apple cupcake and David had a couple of slices of cake. We didn’t say our minimal lunch was actually nutritious but it was delicious.

At 1:00 David went to the theater to listen to a presentation on the battle of the Pacific. It actually began with the Russo-Japanese War in the late 19^th century. Japan basically won and it created the idea that they should be able to dominate the whole of Asia and the Pacific. From there the presenter progressed to describing some of the actions which preceded America entering WW2 (including an oil embargo against Japan) and then got to the attack at Pearl Harbor. From there he gave an overview of Jimmy Doolittle’s raid on Japan, the battle of Coral Sea, what was the turning point of the war in the Battle of Midway, then Guadalcanal, the Battle of the Philippines, Leyte Gulf, Iwo Jima, Okinawa, and then the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Finally he wrapped up with the surrender on the Battleship Missouri in Tokyo Bay. It was a quick summary but very interesting.

David came back to the cabin and Janet was gone, so he went to look for her in a couple of places on the ship. She had come back before him and had an embarrassing but funny experience. The man in the cabin next door had left his keycard in the cabin and his wife didn’t answer his knocking on the door. He asked Janet to knock on the partition between of balconies and have her let him back inside. She did not answer her knock so she leaned over the balcony and around the partition and the lady was sunbathing au natural. She did not speak English very well so it took a while to understand what Janet wanted. This is definitely another first for our cruising experiences. But if the timing had been slightly different, David would have been the one returning when the neighbor needed someone to knock on the balcony partition.

Janet then spent the rest of the afternoon in the cabin to work on her needlework while David went up to the pool for an hour (they were all wearing suits up there). After David returned to the cabin we rested for a little while and then we went to dinner.

Monday night we had a somewhat limited menu as far as things we found desirable. Janet had a BLT hamburger and David had Jerk Chicken. We had a couple of appetizers and a little dessert, but it wasn’t their best dinner of the cruise. Then at 7:00 was the Captain’s Reception in the Vista Lounge for returning Princess cruisers. There are 461 first time Princess Travelers although we assume many have cruised before on other cruise lines. There are 355 who are on their 2^nd cruise with Princess (Gold), 265 with 3-5 cruises (Ruby), 826 Platinum who have 6-14 cruises, and 692 with more than 15 cruises in the Elite category. Then they announced the 3 passengers who have taken the most cruises – 822 days, 1015 days, and 1077 days. Our measly 200+ days does not even get honorable mention.

To end Monday Janet stayed in the cabin and watched a “dumb fluffy” movie called Second Act. David went to the Princess Theater to listen to a show by a soprano singer named Heather Lundstedt. She sang a combination of Classical and Broadway songs. She was very good and we will probably want to see her second show in a few days.

Some of the interesting things we picked up during the day is that the Easter Egg display on Sunday took about 3 weeks for the pastry/chocolate chefs to prepare 56 Easter Eggs. There was a combination of almost 500 pound of chocolate in those eggs.

The Star Princess is going to be transferred to Australia P&O cruise lines in 2021. It is currently 17 years old and Princess is moving on to a newer larger ships. Our captain, who is especially personable, is going to transfer to the brand new Sky Princess in November. He has done a lot to make our cruise very entertaining.

We also got a picture of our poor cat looking longingly out the window, as though hoping to see us return someday. Well that day is coming later this week.

We again had trouble getting to sleep Monday night – still coughing when we lay down. But once we finally got to sleep we slept very well and did not wake up until almost 10:00 on Tuesday morning. Being much more rested we had a leisurely breakfast in the Horizon Court. We met with another couple who have cruised a lot and we enjoyed comparing cruises.

We had another fairly quiet afternoon. Janet went to the International Café and got one of the Salted Caramel Strata Coffees. David went to the theater to watch a short preview of the DVD about our cruise. Then Janet watched a movie on the TV called the Green Book. We had a light lunch as Janet had a slice of apple pie and 2 cookies while David had 2 slices of cake and a piece of pie. Once again it wasn’t nutritious but it was tasty. We will have to change this practice once we get back home.

David went back to the pool for a little while this afternoon. During the morning it had been cloudy with even a little rain. By afternoon the sun had reappeared and it was a nice afternoon – only about 79 degrees but with a 40 knot wind. By the end of the day the temperature had gone back up to 86 degrees. The pool today was actually a little choppy with small splashing of the water from one end of the pool to the other.

Janet finished her needlework project. YEAH! Now she will start another project. We went up to the Crooner’s Lounge for drinks – it’s nice to try different places on the ship. Janet got an Oceans-11 Martini and David got a Mai Tai. Then we went to the dining room. Our head waiter (Emil) is Romanian and he was cooking special pasta this evening. We had a small sample of his authentic penne in addition to our main course. We both had the Veal Scaloppini. That was after an appetizer of prosciutto & melon for Janet and minestrone soup for David. For dessert David had a slice of tiramisu.

This evening’s entertainment in the Princess Theater at 7:00 was a second performance by the excellent piano player (Ryan Ahern) who we had seen previously. Tonight he played an eclectic collection of songs and did a great job. We enjoyed his playing so much that we went ahead and bought the souvenir CD.

That’s all for these 2 days. Good night.

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