EXPLORING THE WORLD: SEA DAYS X 2--TIME TO RECUPERATE!

SEA DAY

Thursday, November 16, 2023

Aboard the Enchanted Princess

Room Aloha 212

Sunny/ 63F

After a good night’s sleep, I finished the blog about Florence. We did a bit of walking around the ship. Today there will be no marathon walking for us. Since this is our 3^rd trip on the Enchanted, we are quite familiar with it.

Sea days are not very exciting and since today was a recuperation day, I will be brief. We attended the Cruise Critic Meet and Greet and were introduced quickly to the ship’s officers. Generally, each officer welcomes the group and says a bit about his/her position and encourages us to contact them if we have any questions or concerns. Not so today. The cruise director mumbled their names as an introduction and they all left, pronto. Usually, members of CC then introduce themselves to the group-that did not happen today either. I sensed from the beginning that this was a different group and that is why I did not organize any tours myself—we just booked Princess tours or we are visiting the ports on our own.

We did see our friends from 2009, V and B, now from Nova Scotia (previously Vancouver). They were happy to see us, and we will have dinner with them soon. V and B have over 1000 cruise days on Princess, but we met them in the early days before their “fame.” V now does port talks for Princess all over South America and other venues—will be more specific later. Those 1000 cruise days were not working days, so she has many more sea days! The 2009 cruise on the Grand Princess was such a great time—where we met Donna and Lawrence (WI), Brian and Nancy (CA), and Colin and Gwenda (England) in the Southern Caribbean , with whom we have had multiple cruises. Those were the days!

Before dinner, we enjoyed the “Mysterious Strings,” two women who play violin and cello. I love those instruments, especially when current music is played—like theme to “Game of Thrones.”

Mysterious Strings

Their musical instruments are unusual.

Crewmembers were setting up the champagne tower, but we did not stay for that. It was a formal night, and most were dressed to the nines. As far as dinner is concerned, the entrees have really been quite good, not overly spiced or herbed.

We did take a photo of TK’s German chocolate cake last night—what do you think??

Allegedly, German Chocolate Cake

[Janie revised this to Black Forest Cake, as the menu said-

compare this to the one below!]

Left over from Florence--this is the pine tree

I was mentioning--produces pine nuts

TK's Take:

TK spotted this naval ship this morning near our cruise ship

He believes it is a heliocopter landing ship/Italian Navy

SEA DAY

Friday, November 17, 2023

Aboard the Enchanted Princess

Room Aloha 212

Sunny/ 63F

Back to normal! We have overcome jet lag and walking a gazillion miles and now feel like ourselves again. Good thing, because two ports in a row coming up!

After dropping off Grisham’s The Appeal at the book exchange, we went to the Port Lecture in the Princess Theater about Corfu given by Kenneth Broadhurst, a Brit. He was very informative, and we are looking forward to both Kotor, Montenegro and Corfu, Greece on our own for the next two days.

The piano in Take Five

(the books offered were mostly romance novels, so I passed

My book was scooped up right away.

Because I almost ran out of books last year, I brought 12 this year

I hope that is enough!!

Princess Theater stage

Princess Theater has two levels-

this photo was taken while facing the back

From there we headed to the Pastry Extravaganza, and lunch at the World Fresh Marketplace, a.k.a. the buffet. I opted for nacho chips and salsa and a cheese enchilada. To my surprise there was a pepperoni-like circles in the cheese enchilada. That did not compute for me, so TK ate it.

Cheese enchilada and chips and salsa for lunch

The Pastry Extravaganza was a WOW, but with fewer desserts than usual. Usually, cruise food looks better than it tastes, but the carrot cake was astounding. I took just a bite of the Black Forest cake, and again, WOW! It tasted like chocolate covered cherries, which used to be one of my favorites at Christmastime. I think they finally went to the MaryJane Koenig School of What Things Should Taste Like. I am sure this is a result of my "discussion" with the Sous Chef last year when I said all I wanted was a grilled cheese sandwich--he then directed the buffet cook to make me one.

We did not try all of them, so I don't know what two were:

Cake

Black Forest Cake

Carrot Cake

Cake

Carrot Cake for me/Black Forest Cake for TK

Admittedly, TK went for the carrot cake too.

Our rule of thumb is nothing tastes as good

as it looks, but today YES!

I must revise a mistake I made in a post a few days ago—I reported the dessert as German chocolate cake. TK said the dessert that night was on the menu as Black Forest cake—I will post photos of today and that previous photo—only one looks like the Black Forest cake, and not in any way like German chocolate.

I took a few photos of ship, there will be more, and then it was time for dinner---