Seven Days at Sea with a Princess - Part Two

Day 2 - A day at Sea.

The Gulf of Mexico.  Deep waters sometimes.

When I woke the morning after embarkation, I could look out the door to my balcony and see no land in site. We were not far enough off shore however to loose site of ships and the oil platforms that dot the continental shelf extending into the gulf of mexico.  The sea lanes coming in and out of Houston are very busy.  In fact, I lost count of the number of ships that cruised by uncomfortably close to us as we navigated the shipping channel in Galveston Bay, the previous night.  I'm sure the Ship's crew knew their business, but on more than one occasion the other traffic heading into Houston looked much closer with which i would have been comfortable.  I could  see quite quickly why the port was closed due to fog the previous night. Even with the modern radar systems it would only take a small error to have disastrous results.  However, this didn't bother my ability to sleep in the slightest and I had no Poseidon Adventure nightmares that night. One of the interesting things about cursing on the ship is that each cabin had a TV in the state room that can access a channel with the speed and position of the ship.  We could see from the map that we hadn't quite cleared the continental shelf and passed above the Deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico Basin. At its deepest point, Gulf of Mexico is 14,383 feet deep.  If you put Pikes Peak at the deepest point, there would still be 269 feet of water to go through to get to the top of the mountain.  While we didn't cross the deepest point, the water was still very deep.

Coral Dining Room.  We took most of our meals there.

I started the next day with a phone call from my parents asking if we wanted to eat a little breakfast.  Something about sea air or maybe it was the quality of the food aboard the ship, made us ready to eat.  So we showered and dressed and met my parents at the center lifts.  We rode down to the Deck 7 ( Promenade Deck)  to  the Coral Dining room where breakfast was served.  Breakfast is served "Open Seating" through out the cruise and you never knew who you would meet up with when you went to breakfast.  You were given the choice of sitting on your own or sharing a table with other passengers.  We would always choose to eat with others when we had the chance.  One thing I have to say about cruising out of Houston is that, obviously, there will be lots of Texans on board the ship.  We found them refreshingly friendly and not all that different from folks in Indiana.   We ate breakfast with a couple of women that were cruising together.  They were wearing Texan's gear and we of course are Colts fans.  The Texans and Colts were playing later that day, but there was no animosity towards us and we had a lively and friendly discussion about football. We ran into these folks several times during the cruise and we always had a smile and a wave for each other. The meal started with a selection of sweet rolls.  It is at this point that I discovered the decadent deliciousness that was the Chocolate croissant.  The rich buttery croissants were filled with just the right amount of chocolate and fortunately for me, they were served all over the ship at breakfast time.  I made it a point to have one when ever I could.  For my breakfast entree, I had an egg scrabble with smoked salmon.  Not everyone in my family likes smoked salmon and sometimes I find it a bit too smoky even for my tastes, but mixed with the eggs, the salmon made for a perfect beginning to the day.  I also had a side of bacon.  The bacon was crisp and flavorful much to my relief.  My sister is not fond of cruise ship coffee.  She believes that there is a cistern of coffee somewhere in the middle of the ship made from coffee concentrate.  I don't doubt that she is correct, but for me it tasted good.  Perhaps its just the good memories of sitting on deck with my father talking and drinking coffee that make it taste as good as it does.

One thing that we have enjoyed through out most of our cruises has been the trivia game that the Cruise director of the ship leads twice daily in on of the bars on the ship.  This day,  He held the challenge in the Wheel House bar, our muster station if you will remember, at 10:30 in the morning.  We were well breakfasted and ready to compete.  Normally, when my sister and brother-in-law are with us on the ship, we make the perfect size team.  No more than 6 may compete as a team at a time.  Of course, we found another couple that was more than willing to play on our team.  They were from Houston and were some of the nicest people that you would want to meet.  Both were well versed in lots of topics that my family were not so we complemented each other nicely.  We did pretty well and of the 23 points available we got 20 of them.  We thought we were tied for first but someone spoke up an said they had 21 answers correct.  This was after the cruise director was getting ready to figure out a way to break the tie.  Oh well, Like he said it was just a game and the prizes were not worth fighting over.  It was fun none the less.

The Old Regal Princess This was a beautiful Older Ship.

Horizon Buffet on the Caribbean Princess.

This is the pizza bar on the Caribbean Princess downloaded form beyondships.com

After trivia, it was getting close to time for lunch.  After a brief discussion, My wife and I decided to give the pizza counter on the Lido deck a try.  We have been fond of the pizza aboard ship since we took the cruise to Hawaii on the Regal Princess in 2007.  The old Regal Princess was transferred to P&O cruise lines and now cruises the waters near Australia as the Pacific Dawn.  P&O Cruise lines is a subsidiary of Carnival that owns both Princess and Costa Cruise lines as well.  The Regal Princess had a small restaurant dedicated to pizza on the Lido Deck of the ship.  Passengers could go and get a made to order pie.  On the Caribbean Princess, the pizza ovens were at a counter near the pool on the Lido deck and for the most part, you could get a slice of the pizza that they had already cooked.  Pizza by the slice can be pretty good and they had a choice of an artichoke and cheese pizza and pepperoni pizza but pizza by the slice is much better when the pizzeria puts the slices back in the over to crisp up the crust before serving.  I bet if the people cooking the pizzas on the Caribbean princess had crisped up the crust, the pizza would have been better.  But as I like to say, even bad pizza is pretty good and this pizza was fine for what it was.  Just across the bar from the pizza counter was a burger counter as well.  We didn't get a burger while we were on the cruise this time but I had heard others saying that the burgers were very good.  I would probably have enjoyed the burger better but I had waxed  nostalgic for the wonderful pizza we got on the Regal Princess.  So after eating our pizza slices, my wife and I decided we would like something sweet to go with the pizza.  On the same deck is pizza and burger counters is the Horizon Buffet.  I know that people know that ships are famous for their buffets.  I would say that the reputation is a little overrated, especially on Princess ships.  The buffets are good but they are not the extravagant feasts that one pictures when one thinks of the spreads for which cruise ships have a reputation.  I will say however, that the cruise company isn't responsible for their buffets being over-hyped.  I just think that people have this image of what a cruise ship buffet should be.  That being said, my wife and I went to the Horizon Buffet to get some sweets.  They had some wonderful tarts, cakes and puddings that were delightful and I couldn't resist getting a little of the savory stuff they had to offer as well.  Just for the record, My wife and I spend many breakfasts and lunches at the buffets and really enjoyed the food there.  It was at the buffet that I got my daily fix of Chocolate Croissants. I like the buffet even if it wasn't the Ice Sculpture decorated thing that lots of people see in their heads when they think of Cruise ships.

My Wife enjoyed the Lotus Spa.

We spent our afternoon exploring our beautiful ship. My wife had enjoyed the lotus spa on other cruises and she could could get access for a fairly low price at the beginning of the cruise.  My wife and my mom went up to the spa to check it out. From her description, it was pretty much just like the the Spas on the Crown Princess where she had gone on a previous cruise. I am not really the spa type of guy but I am a singer as some of you already know so my shipboard activity was to join the Princess Pop Choir that met for the first time that afternoon.  This group of singers is completely composed of passengers on board the ship.  I sang in the Princess Pop Choir on the Crown princess.  The songs we performed on the previous cruise was stuff done by Tom Jones and Neil Diamond.  I had hopes that since we were just a week before Christmas, we would be singing Christmas songs.  Unfortunately, with a couple of exceptions, the line up of songs was the same songs we did on the Crown princess.  Since we only had a half an hour daily for a week to learn 6 songs were were pretty much all singing melody with a little light choreography.  I guess that Political Correctness and the Diversity of the people aboard ship prevented us from doing the Christmas stuff.  I almost tried to convince the others in our little group to sing "We Wish you a Merry Christmas" or something like that but decided against it. There will be more on the Pop Choir later in another post.

Yani and Noel. They took wonderful care of our family.

We rounded out our first day at sea with a delicious meal in the Coral Dining room.This was our first formal night so we all dressed in our fanciest clothes to go to dinner. The formal nights are nice aboard ship, the food is a bit fancier, and that is saying something, and the wait staff offer an additional course from the standard 4 courses.  Dinner usually consisted of an appetizer, A soup or salad, and an entree that was usually chicken beef or sometimes a pasta.  Princess always had choices that were offered every day.  Diners could always include Filet of beef as an entree and shrimp cocktail as an appetizer to name just a couple of the selections that were offered every day. The formal meal always offered petit fours and cookies at the end of the meal and our first formal meal we were offered strawberry sorbet that was delicious as a palate cleanser between the soup and the Entree.  Since this was the first time we would be sitting at our assigned table and the first time we would be served by our wait staff.  Our server was from the Philippines and was, appropriately enough because it was the Christmas season, named Noel.  Our assistant waiter was named Yani and she was from the Ukraine I believe. Noel and Yani took terrific care of us while we were aboard ship.  He always knew what the best dish that the kitchen was offering and never failed to let us know what he felt tasted the best.  Much to my regret I didn't take his suggestion and ordered something else. The entree he suggested was much better than the one I had chosen.  Anyway, My family likes to joke around with the wait staff and try to put them at their ease. I think that the wait staff has always enjoyed our more informal approach and have in turn given us service beyond any which I would have had any right to expect.  I still remember the names of the two waiters that served us aboard our first cruise.  Yordon and Edmond provided perfect service to us for 15 days as we went round trip to Hawaii.  When the cruise finished the both sat down and had a cup of coffee with us.  I appreciate that they felt comfortable enough to do that with my crazy family.  Later, on my next cruise, Yordon was on the ship.  He remembered us from the Hawaii cruise and it was like seeing an old friend.

After our dinner, we went to the Princess Theater in the bow of the ship to see our first of many shows.  Princess has entertainers do shows every night on board the ship. The show for this night was "So You Wanna Dance" and was performed by the troupe of singers and dancers that were assigned to the Caribbean Princess.  I believe all of the Princess Cruise liners have a group of singers and dancers that are under contract with Princess and perform on an assigned ship.  "Do You Wanna Dance" was a medley of songs that were associated with dances from around the world.  While the singers often left a little to be desired, I truly enjoyed the dancing which is made more impressive when you consider they were dancing on a slightly pitching stage.  Tippy Shippy doesn't abandon you when you go to shows and the ship tips as much for dancers as it does for those of us just trying to make it down the hallway.  As far as the singing is concerned, all of the singers were smiling and seemed to be happy to be there, but sometimes you couldn't shake the feeling that they were just mailing the performance in that evening.  At times some of the singers had pitch problems and it hurt a bit to listen.  Even so, I enjoyed the one and a half hour show and was intrigued by some of the dances form India and Thailand, and the rousing dances from Ireland were lots of fun too.  There were other things we could have taken part in during the evening but as soon as the show was over my wife and I turned in for the night.  It had been a fun first day at sea.

Time for bed in a great cabin.