World Cruise - Day 5 - Jan 17 - At Sea

Before our cruise, a friend asked about whether we could make it through 107 days onboard a cruise ship in such a confined space.  The most difficult part for us is being apart from our kids and friends back home.  But being onboard with Krissie is a wonderful joy.  Let me explain more by telling a quick story about someone we met on our recent Mediterranean cruise.  They had lived for 4 years in a motor home, moving around to different areas, living in the motor home the whole time.  “Do you know how we did it?” he asked me.  “Easy.  I’m married to my best friend.”  And so it is with this cruise.  More than 27 years ago I married my best friend.  And she is still my best friend.  Krissie is truly a joy to be around and she helps me to become a better person each day.  I am so blessed to be married to such a wonderful woman.

Patti asked about the trivia question (“Who was Janet Jackson singing with in the Super Bowl when she had her wardrobe malfunction?”) and the answer is Justin Timberlake.  Trivia is all about having one person at the table who can get the difficult questions that no one else can answer.  Everyone has their category in trivia, even if they say they aren’t typically very good at trivia.  It’s all about diversity of the team.  The more diverse the team, the better the team does at trivia.

In response to your comment, Sonia, yes, we have been told to not wear any expensive jewelry or watches, etc. in Colombia as well as most of the other ports we are visiting.  And we should always be in a group of at least 2, ideally 4 or more.  We are doing our best to practice situational awareness, although I would guess we may end up with a story or two from all of these ports.  In most cases there is little we can do about sticking out as tourists, no matter what we might do to try to travel with a low profile.  We are doing our best to be safe and praying for God’s protection along the way.

As part of my tour around the ship, today I will show you the buffet area, also known as the “Lido” on some cruise ships.  The buffet on Pacific Princess is very nicely put together and has a lot of great salad options.  Krissie and I decided it was the best place to go for lunch.  That is, if you can keep to the salad bar.  Here is the entry to the buffet area (notice the supersize plates):

The salad bar area has two different areas, this is one…

…and this is another:

You just have to be able to bypass the dessert area at the end:

I mentioned on a previous blog post that Krissie and I were not the youngest on the full world cruise.  Actually, it’s not even close.  That honor belongs to Emmanuelle, from Paris, France.  I got a chance to talk to her today.  Here’s a pic of her:

Emmanuelle is 37 years old.  She has been saving up her vacation for 10 years to be able to take this cruise, which is truly a trip of a lifetime.

Here’s another view of the pool area.  I took a pic of it on the sailaway, but today is a sea day:

Normally on a cruise, it’s difficult to find an open deck chair.  Not on this cruise.  Here is the upper deck where Krissie normally lays out to sun:

She is in the chair to the right of the photo (I wasn’t allowed to put her in the photo).

During the afternoon, we had the opportunity to hear from Rolly Crump, one of the early Disney animators, who worked on, among other things, 101 Dalmatians:

…and was one of the primary designers of the Tiki Room at Disneyland:

…and was involved in the original set design and construction of It’s A Small World:

He also designed the Tower of the Four Winds for Disney for the 1964 World’s Fair.

In the following photo he is shown (younger) along with Walt Disney on the TV show:

Rolly had a lot of fun stories about working at Disney.  One particularly touching story was when Walt Disney saw a nun coming into Disneyland with about 15 kids in tow, all strapped together so that they wouldn’t get lost.  They had just come in the entrance gate and Walt asked if they were from a school on an outing.  She said no, these were underprivileged kids who had been saving up their money to go to Disneyland.  Walt asked her to wait, walked over to the ticket counter, got her money back and gave it to her.  He said that it was his treat.  Walt Disney sounded like a very warm and loving person to work with and for.

Our trivia team did pretty well in both morning and afternoon trivia, we got 15 out of 20 both times, although 19 of 20 won in the morning and 17 of 20 won in the afternoon.  Here is today’s tough trivia question (which we missed): Which planet rotates around the sun once every 84 years?

I played ping pong for the first time today.  I got second place, which was respectable.  The guy who beat me was quite good.  We played games only to 11, he beat me 11-9.  I think his name is Eric.  Anyway, I was happy to get second place.  And I got a shiny silver Princess Cruises medal.

Krissie has started doing Zumba, which they do outside by the pool.  The Zumba instructor at the first class said that you don’t really have to follow all of her dance moves exactly, that you can just do your own moves, just keep moving.  Krissie likes that.

The evening show was “Harmonica Virtuoso” Bernie Fields.  I’m not sure what one does to be designated a harmonica virtuoso, but if there is a such a thing, this guy is it.

So this is what I love about cruise ship entertainment.  I would never go to see a “Harmonica Virtuoso” when we are at home.  “Krissie, how about if we go out tonight to watch a harmonica player.  He’s supposed to be a virtuoso…”  Yet on a cruise ship, you end up going, since it’s the only game in town.  And this guy was really, really good.  Best harmonica player I’ve ever heard.  He played quite a few familiar songs, my favorite was What A Wonderful World.

After the show, they had karaoke going in the lounge.  I sometimes like watching karaoke and this one was a lot of fun, a lot of singing along.  Sweet Caroline was a crowd favorite (“Ba ba ba…”) as was Amazing Grace (sung by the resident minister onboard).

Tomorrow we are in Cartegena, Colombia.  We have an early morning arrival (7a), but we gain an extra hour overnight (back on Eastern time), so it won’t seem that early.