Day 13 , 1/31/24

5th sea day of 6th….not as hot and humid as the last couple of days as we are sailing away from the equator… But still feels lazy…. Time for happy hour at one of the lounges…. Whiskey sour is only $10, ipa beer is only $7.50…and a wise quote from Hemingway at the front of menu just cracks me up….. Cheers Papa πŸ₯‚

Heres another fun door decor that we enjoyed

Poolside Zumba on sea days kept me sane…

What about the food on the ship?

I guess we should do some reporting on the meals that we are having…. There are many choices, varieties and styles…. Buffet, formal sit down, room service, your own balcony… Etc.. all these are free unless you want to go for specialty dinning …. Basically eating on a ship is an exercise of your power at self restrain…..we tried to avoid meat (unless they look really yummy πŸ€”) and go for seafood and vegetables… There’s always green juice during breakfast and lunch at the buffet, plenty of vegetable dishes, salads and fruits… Much more healthier choices than at home…. Lol… Here are some pics…deciding what to eat and how to eat is a challenge….. Luckily we bought some instant noodles in Honolulu and get to have a taste of home 😜

Breakfast buffet
Chinese congee available at breakfast
Lunch buffet, messy piled on food
Sit down dining where food are nicely plated instead of piled on πŸ˜†
Sample of sit down men’s main course
Couple enjoying breakfast on the balcony

We are changing course…

After all that speculation and chatter, they finally make an announcement of a major route change in lieu of the escalating situation at the Suez canal and middle east…we are no longer going to Asia or Middle East, but we are going to South Africa, western Africa, and loop back to western Europe and the Mediterranean via Strait of Gibraltar …. We are quite ok with this route change and applaud Princess for still keeping the Mediterranean part of the cruise which we care most! Here are the details of the changes from 2/16 till 4/15…others remain the same

Day 12, 1/30/24 Traveling Back to the future and became Golden Shellbacks

So we keep turning our clock back one hour during the voyage and on the 4th time of backing, we backed into the future and lost 1/29/24…. But, we gain two certificates… Hooray!!! People who crossed the equator are called shellbacks… And people who crossed the equator and the international date line are called golden shellbacks…. We can now tell people we are golden shellbacks, woohoo πŸ˜„πŸ™ŒπŸ™Œγ€‚Thank you Captain Cataldi and crews of Princess cruise πŸ™πŸ™πŸ™

Another work of art from the universe …

Crossing the Equator ceremony

It’s fun, it’s hilarious and even the captain is involved…

Naptune and his queen holds court and turns pollywogs(people who never crossed the equator) into shellbacks (people who had crossed the equator) by dumping jams and creams and pastas on them and make them kiss a fish

Kiss the fish
They even grab the captain of the ship and have him take a dive into the pool…
We are shellbacks twice over, once going to Antarctica and now on our way to Fiji

Apparently for every voyage that crossed the Equator they went through this ceremony… Someone told me there’s also a ceremony when you cross the arctic circle, which we hope one day to experience..

Can we part (/cross) the red sea?

There have been many chatters and discussions onboard on whether we can actually make it through the red sea and the Suez canal as scheduled given the current Houthis situation…. I guess we will know for sure in about 1 month…..many seasoned passenger don’t really care that much since they have been every where multiple times…oh well, to us this unknown element adds a little adventurous vibe to the cruise… Que sera sera

Day 9, 1/26/24 Woke up at 6 am to this full moon over the ocean

… Hauntingly beautiful and mesmerizing… And later when the sun comes out this moon becomes the brightest moon we have seen during daylight and still pretty high up in the sky…while this was going on, our friend with cabin on the other side of ship reported seeing spectacular sunrise..

We are on the starboard side (right side) of the ship and heading south towards Fiji, (our next stop was Samoa but was changed to Fiji)… So we get to catch all the sunsets and “moonsets”…. Heres today’s sunset…

From the shows nature put on at sea to the shows people put on stage.. Tonight’s production show ” latin quarter” is mui bien πŸ™ŒπŸ™ŒπŸ™Œ