At Sea

March 17^th, 2024

We woke up to the Pacific Ocean looking totally calm. It is hard to imagine the storms we had been experiencing a few days ago.

The ship is decorated for St Patrick’s day. I mean really decorated, and there are may passengers wearing green. We are a very international group on board, and so a large number of passengers are mystified by all of the green and shamrocks around the ship. It is hard to explain to them that everyone is Irish on St Patrick’s day. To most it doesn’t make sense.

Everywhere you look there are decorations

And a leprechaun guarding the dining room

To celebrate St Patrick’s day they had a pub lunch in the Savoy dining room. We got there early, but there was already a queue to get into the room. Not to worry, we were able to get a table. I thought it would have been more fun to have the pub lunch in the pub, the Wheelhouse Bar, but I suppose the dining room was a better venue in terms of the obvious demand for fish and chips.

There wasn’t a ploughman’s’ lunch, but there were fish and chips and shepherd’s pie. And there was Irish Cream trifle for dessert, but I really would have loved a good sticky toffee pudding. The fish and chips were quite mediocre unfortunately. Nowhere as good as the Golden Lion.

We were given a copy of our passage through the Chilean Fjords which I thought was a lovely gesture. We had tried to follow our progress on the TV in our cabin, and Google Maps, but this is so much better. A really nice gift.

Apart from all of the St Patrick’s Day hoopla, the ship was quite quiet. A large proportion of the passengers are disembarking tomorrow in San Antonio and they must have been in their cabins packing. For the first time the ship felt quite empty. I actually like it that way. It was much quieter, and  easier to negotiate your way around the ship.

Finally there are very few clouds, and we thought we may even see the green flash this evening, but no such luck.

Tonight the dress code was smart casual. When we are on cruises, on St Patrick’s day, Brian usually wears a green tie with his sport coat, and I wear a black dress with a Kelly green cashmere shawl. Well the evening was populated with green T shirts – with slogans such as “give my wife a beer”. I suppose times are really changing.

I was disappointed that they didn’t have corned beef for dinner, I thought that after the effort they had made for the pub lunch, this might be on the menu, but no, there was no acknowledgement of St Patrick’s day on the menu at all.

During the rough weather they had had to cancel the production show “Let me entertain you”, so the rescheduled performance was tonight. The singers, dancers, and house band did a splendid job as always, I am always so impressed by their talents. It was a fun way to spend the last evening on this segment of the cruise.

I also discovered that just like on airplanes, you could pull a little table out of the arm of your chair in the Princess Theater, and hey presto! You had somewhere to put your drink. It has taken me this long to notice that. I was wondering how people who brought drinks in to the theater with them managed to hold on to the drinks and clap at the same time. Now I know.