At Sea

March 16^th, 2024

We should be in Puerto Montt looking at volcanoes today, but instead we are sailing on a relatively smooth Pacific Ocean heading north to San Antonio, Chile. My eye is definitely on the mend thank goodness. No need to check out the medical center.

With this extra sea day, the enrichment speakers had the opportunity to give extra talks. My favorite was Robert Raincock’s talk on the penguins of Stanley. I must say I didn’t think there were any penguins in Stanley itself, they are in other locations around the island. Well, Robert Raincock didn’t want to offend anyone, so instead of using the terms Falkland Islands or Malvinas he just said Stanley. This talk might have been more appropriate before we went to the Falkland Islands, but it was excellent anyway.

Although the best place to visit with penguins in my opinion is where we went, Volunteer Point, there are several other good penguin places on the island. Good to bear in mind for future penguin visits if we go back to the Falklands.

He also gave a very good talk on the origin of penguins, and what he called “Penguin Bits 101”. Who knew that penguins had 4 lungs and can swim at up to 50 miles an hour? Very impressive.

I must say that I have not been involved in finding ducks on cruise ships. But Robert is very into ducks. He hides green ones around the ship, and there is a prize if you find one.

I have only ever found one duck, and that was in the Queens Room last September. It looked out of place there.

On some sea days there is a lunch special called the Crab Shack in the Savoy Restaurant. . We couldn’t make a reservation through our malfunctioning phone app or on the TV (we are already on the Emerald Princess apparently) so I went to guest services, but the Crab Shack was fully booked. However, sometimes people don’t show up, so we were told to stop by the restaurant and see if they could fit us in. Yes, indeed they did have space for us. Yay!

I loved that they had paper table cloths and crayons, so you could occupy yourself waiting for the food to arrive.

The also gave you cloth bibs. Clearly this was going to be a messy meal.

We ordered the bucket of seafood. This didn’t disappoint. There were prawns, crab legs, lobster tails, clams and mussels. It was all delicious, and I had quite a work out getting in to the crab legs and lobster claw. It was a wonderful lunch, and we really enjoyed it.

On leaving the Savoy restaurant you walk by the international café. I checked with the man behind the counter what the deal was for paying for the food there. He said that you pay for your coffee and tea, but the cakes and sandwiches are free, except if you want a whole cake, then you have to pay. All of the food looked wonderful.

It was a shame I felt so full after our lunch. I grabbed some plums for Brian,

and as I was leaving he offered me a slice of cake. I turned it down. Red velvet is not my favorite flavor of cake, and the slice was huge. However, he was very insistent, so I just smiled and took the cake and plums up to our cabin. The plums went down well. I must confess that I didn’t finish the cake.

We went to the final Spanish lesson. I am not sure we have learned that much, but Amparo who teaches the class is so delightful, it makes it s fun way to pass an hour.

Amparo also helps with the Bingo, together with Fortuna Luck. Fortuna Luck is the goddess of fortune and luck, and appears on all Princess ships. Our Fortuna is energetic and very funny. We often end up sitting in Club Fusion when they are doing Bingo, and I love to listen to Fortuna and Amparo get so excited about what they are doing when they call the numbers. It almost makes me want to play Bingo.

Our sea days seem to go by so quickly, I am looking forward to another sea day tomorrow. Many of the passengers will be disembarking in San Antonio and flying home from Santiago. I am so glad we have another 2 weeks on board. I am totally not ready to get back to reality just yet.