Day 12 Hawaiian Cruise

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Day 12 Hawaiian Cruise, Monday, November 7, 2011 Dress: Formal
Weather Forecast: Mostly Cloudy- High 67F Low 56F
Sunrise: 6:49  Sunset: 5:18
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Its easy to work the routine from this room for everything except dinner.

We are 35 feet away from the elevators that go all the way to the 5th floor from the 14th.
The 5th deck from this elevator opens to a Hall that leads into the art gallery. This ship has a large quantity of Art that will be put up for auction at times throughout the cruise. Prior to these auctions, these auctions these works of art are hung or displayed in the gallery.

The morning connections to the Piazza is through this art gallery. In the Piazza, is the International cafe with free 24 hour dinning. The internet cafe, a wine cafe doubles as a wifi station for those passengers that have brought their laptops along. A Godiva chocolate store and a tall central ear that exposes the central core of the ship 3 decks of open area. There is also a bar, and thankfully no smoking allowed. Many "outdoor" activities occur in the center. An activity that some people participated in was a group "sing" of some popular songs. Those interested, met and rehearsed a couple of times at sea and then performed in the piazza with a conductor. The chamber quartet would often perform in this area as did the instrumental jazz group. "Street performers" and piano players were scheduled to use its center stage. It was also used as the location for the champagne tower that is the Princess cruise lines signature captain participation event. This central area is much smaller than those on most of the previous ships we have cruised. However there seemed to be much more programed for it use than other ships. It was too small for that art auction . The wait staff for this area as it relates to the only place where you could order a gourmet coffee such as you might get at Starbucks, was very attentive. Most people, just like at Starbucks back at home, were gathering up the coffee to go. They have big "here" coffee cups here for the cappuccino, donuts (small) are there every morning with croissants,yogurts parfaits and breakfast sandwiches. Its really a nice alternative to the buffet and the formal dinning room.

Going to our dining room was a bit difficult. Usually we took the elevator to the 7th deck (the promenade deck, walked through the smoky casino, a piano bar, the piaza central open area, another smaller nightclub venue, the photographer's hall with their kiosk, and finally to the only elevator that would go down to the 6th floor on this deck. This a power chair, this was not that hard to do. If you wanted to do this with a walker, it could be problematic.  

Being on Lido deck (deck 14) with a cabin is pretty special. You are only 35 feet from the outside. This was very quiet, and as close as you can get to the the bar for the diet coke, and the hamburger bar. Its a short walk across the deck to the buffet. There is always a buffet line that is open except for the middle of the night. A trip down to the International buffet has food available. A free room service with sandwiches and minimal food is also available from just a phone call.
 The sun deck and the spa facilities were located one floor above us. 

10:15 Culinary Demo
Our head chef  is Scottish. The matre dei for this cruise is Italian. Where there is usually pasta potatoes become an option.

Demo today Salmon cured 48hours with salt and sugar and vodka.. sliced very thin.
Pesto pasta- chef drops some toasted walnuts into the usual mix
Garlic shrimp- olive oil, garlic with shrimp. tossed as they cook with brandy.. set aflame
Black forest gateau- chocolate sponge cake with whipped cream and cherries

11:30 Ship board Naturalist doing Natural Triva (from her talks)
Bonus round questions:
A. Demonstrate the sound/song of the humpback whale (someone in the crowd did)
B. Demonstrate physically the life cycle of a barnacle (no one did so she did on stage)
1)swimming upward 2) attaching to a site with tentacles 3) Feeding using feet to drag food to the mouth area (demonstrated by lying down on the stage and performing the movements)

Throughout the ship there were other activities going on full bore. The people who were getting uekeulalie  lessons were rehearsing for their performance. There were also chances to make "woven leis"

The professional photographers were getting into their last chances to photograph people in the "fancy clothes."
I only counted 6 men with tuxedos on the entire ship for this night. All the women on the ship look forward to these nights as it is a chance to get out their fancy clothes and have a "night on the town" without having to worry about alcohol consumption and where we will eat and what we will see after. "Formal" for most men consists of a dress shirt with a tie and a suit like jacket.

Dinner- Formal Lobster Night!

Pat: Chopped cold crab cake with other chopped sea food ingredients (calamari, squid, mussel meat)
         Asparagrass in tiny bundles (poached in stock)
          Mango cold soup
           Lobster and shrimp (the shrimp were just a little smaller than the medium sized lobster)
            Beef wellington
            Baked Alaska (the waiter parade with lit platters) then divided into individual servings
Sue: Chopped cold crabcake
         Mango soup
         Lobster

Another song and dance revue played at the major theater venue. It was called the "British Invasion" and featured songs of the Beatles and other tunes of that era.
Costumes from the "Mod" era and stage props included an inflatable captain for the Yellow Submarine . A parade sized mini car with a union jack painted on it was driven on stage for another song.

Our dining schedule had us eating at the 8:15pm serving.  The most requested time is the 5:30 seating. This made it pretty late to go the late show after dinner for many of the guests that have this seating. This gets complicated for the people that want to see the show twice as they can sit through the show and maintain their seats. This ship's main theater does not hold enough people so that everyone can sit in there at one time.


When I went to see the British invasion show, all the seats left in the entire theater were standing room only.  After about half way through, some people had had enough and there was room for us to sit.


Overall this is not that big a deal.