World Cruise - Day 8 - Jan 20 - At Sea

I thought Emmanuelle was the youngest on the world cruise at 37, but I was wrong.  This morning I met Dan at the laundry:

Dan is 21 years old and on the full world cruise, traveling with his grandparents.  He is a very nice young man, he was there to do his laundry for the first time right after it opened at 8a.  As he was trying to figure out whether or not to combine his two small loads of laundry, someone else stepped in and took the laundry machine he was going to use.  There are 8 washers and dryers in the laundry.  Apparently last year there were only four washers and dryers on the world cruise and there were some actual fights in the laundry.  Apparently two women got put off the cruise at a port for fighting in the laundry.  Anyway, the two basic rules of the laundry are: 1) be there when your load finishes and take it out of the machine immediately so that others can use it right away; and 2) never, never, never take someone else’s load out.  I know these two rules are somewhat in conflict with each other, but all I know is I don’t want to get into an altercation over laundry.  And, to make things more difficult, the washer takes 23 minutes and the dryer takes 45 minutes.  So those in the second round of the washers are almost continuously in search of a dryer that has stopped.  I guess one additional rule is: don’t stop someone else’s dryer to check if their stuff is dry.  And, if you do that, don’t close the door of the dryer without restarting the machine, since the clothes will just sit there.  And then they get taken out by someone still wet/damp.  Anyway, I can see how it might get kinda messy.  I am the loader and unloader (and making sure the stuff gets moved at the right time), Krissie is the folder (I help her as well, but she’s in charge).

I finally won at ping pong today. 

So I have two silver medals and one gold medal.  Now I have something to give away for the Cruise Critic photo contest (Fantastic 50 Pics) at the end of the cruise.  Eric is still a much better player, I just got lucky.  I played Eric in the first round.  The pic above is of the final, he was very good as well.  Any given player could win it on any given day, it’s very close in all of the games. 

Julie asked about how it works with the combination of both world cruisers and segment cruisers.  About 50% of the ship is filled with people doing the entire world cruise.  The other 50% is segment cruisers.  So the Fort Lauderdale to San Diego segment is a very popular one, since it goes through the Panama Canal and the ship is completely full.  But the next segment (San Diego to Sydney) is not fully booked yet.  Then by Sydney we are supposed to be full again (that segment is Sydney to Singapore).  Final segment is Singapore to Venice, not sure yet if that segment will be full as well.

Alfredo Marzi came on our ship at Cartagena.  He is apparently the #1 chef over all food preparations for Princess Cruises.  He will be staying with us onboard until either San Diego or Hawaii, not sure which.

Pic above is of the menu given out with one of his recipes inside.  He spoke about food preparation onboard and the logistics involved in getting food to the ship as it goes around the world.  There are containers being shipped to various ports.  Each container has a fresh section, refrigerated section and a frozen section.  They also try to buy local whenever possible, so some of the food will change along the way to reflect the local foods, especially fruits and vegetables.

We saw some dolphins playing next to the ship today.

There were some interesting birds following us, since we’re not far from shore.  I guess the ship stirs up the bottom enough to get some fish action for the birds.

We did the Cruise Critic Cabin Crawl today.  We had an inside cabin, oceanview porthole, oceanview window, side balcony, aft balcony, minisuite and suite.  Here is Lorraine’s and Chuck’s minisuite:

Pat and Jim hosted the Suite.  It’s quite large with plenty of room.  Like a nicely outfitted apartment, minus the kitchen:

View of the bedroom—take a look at the wall of closets on the left:

The bathroom is quite nice, with a Jacuzzi tub:

Tonight was Italian Night for dinner.  All of the waiters dressed in gondolier outfits and the menu was all Italian food.  The food onboard has been excellent, probably the best we have had on any cruise ship.

Tomorrow we will be in Costa Rica.  We plan to go for a walk at the national park, which is nearby the port.