The day dawned bright and clear although it didn’t get light early. The flying fish were soon out and about, although only singles glinting in the sun as they sped across the water and certainly nothing on the scale of ‘The Life of Pi.
We were ready for breakfast by 6am and went to the cafeteria
which had very few customers. We had gone to the café Caribe rather than
Horizon Court when we actually wanted Horizon Court, but they do adjoin and
everything looks the same. We thought
that the offering was a bit sparse until it dawned on us that it was really
only continental breakfast and that the Horizon Court – which had looked closed
where we were, but which was operating on the other side of the ship, was
offering more.
We then had a doughnut and a hot chocolate mid-morning. The
unlimited soda and more package at $7 a day plus 15% service charge is
excellent value as it includes ‘mocktails’ and hot chocolate. Then we were off the to $10 sale where there
were some nice items on sale – except that they turned out to be more than $10
so we came away empty-handed!
We had a look for our boarding photo which we had sought
before in vain and finally found it. There’s an offer on which we expect may be
repeated on our second cruise – all your 10” x 8” photos taken by the
photographers for $50, so we’re thinking about that.
Our first trivia quiz followed and a couple from Canada
asked us to team up with them. The woman
asked where we were from and we started to explain. She said she was born in England and spent
the first two years of her life in a little place called Worksop! She couldn’t remember where in Worksop she
was born but she did have connections with an Owen family there - spooky! We were just pipped to winning the star prize
of a lanyard and resolved to come back for more later.
Then it was time for a beer – and a ‘free’ diet Coke on the
terrace at the back of the ship. There
was nobody in the small pool there and anyone who ventured in starting mouthing
words expressing extreme surprise so we got the message it was cold!
After our beer it was soon time for lunch and we decided to
try the restaurant. It was excellent and
Elizabeth soon decided that the waiter looked very familiar. We asked him how long he had been on the ship
and, when he said since 2009 things started to fall into place. A quick look at our 2012 photos from
Caribbean Princess confirmed that it was Mateo from Mexico who had been our
main waiter then and was now serving us our lunch!
After lunch it was time to relax on our truly massive
balcony before heading off for another trivia quiz. This time we came joint first – mainly thanks
to Elizabeth who knew lots of the answers and we had finally got our hands on a
prize lanyard! The loyalty event
followed which was the strangest yet.
Introduced by the Cruise Director rather than the Loyalty Manager, we
had a singing quartet sing two songs for us, followed by a draw for one person
to be upgraded to Elite member status for the duration of the cruise with two
runner-up getting bottles of bubbly.
They then showed us a very bland promotional video sequence, telling us
it would give us an idea of what was happening with Princess in the near future
– which it didn’t - and then a few junior members of staff were
introduced. There was no sign of the
Captain. Then we were told we would get
a drinks voucher as we left the event.
We did – it was worth $8.95 and could be used at any time on this
cruise.
The evening was a revelation. We had had our suspicions that this might be
the worst dressed formal evening we had ever seen afloat and this one was
certainly up there with what we saw on formal evenings on MSC! There were some truly scruffy and some truly
scary sights!
And, as time goes by we seem to see more and more Americans
who appear to have a troubled relationship with food!
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