We
are now in the Red Sea heading for Egypt. The sea is calm today. No ‘white
horses’ at all and no pitch or swell.
That’s a big relief as we had a few days where the floor rose and fell
under my feet and walking frame in a most discombobulating way. I never mind if
it moves about at night when I’m in bed. I can feel and hear the crashes, but I
can just go with it and consider myself being rocked on the bosom of the deep.
And I sleep.
It
is much more pleasant now. Today we had lunch in the Pizzeria with friends of a
very old friend of Bruce’s. He had given us their names and it took a bit of
making contact. The desk on Level 5
won’t give you the phone number of people you are looking for. ‘Privacy’ I
guess. They look it up, ring the number and hand you the phone. If they’re not
in their cabin you can leave a message with your name and phone number on their
phone to ask them to call. After a couple of messages left for each other we
eventually met today.
The
Pizzeria is a very pleasant place on Deck 8. Tables are well laid out and
chairs comfortable, and you are far enough away from noisy areas to make
chatting easy. For lunch they only serve pizza of various sorts. We had dinner there
one night and had Antipasta. There was also Lasagna in fancy little oval
dishes. Today there was no rush and we had a comfortable chat to these friends
of friends over our pizzas.
The
night before last there was a ‘formal night’ to welcome in the new passengers
who came on board at Dubai. Quite a lot of people disembarked at Dubai as it is
the end of the first segment of “Round the World”. The next segment ends at
Dover in England, then New York and finally Sydney.
The
‘Dress Code’ for Formal Nights in the Traditional Dining Venues is laid down as
·
Evening gown, cocktail dress,
or elegant pants suit for women
·
Tuxedo, dark suit or dinner
jacket and slacks for men.
People more or less adhere to these
mandates. Not as much as some ships I have been on where there are lots of
Americans. American ladies come prepared with proper Evening Dresses, have
their hair done in the salon and really dress up. Lots of the men bring proper
tuxedos and look very smart. Austalians
are far more laid back about it all, but still manage to look ‘dressed up’.
Even
our table waiters were dressed up for the evening.
One of the perks of being Elite Passengers
(that is have sailed with Princess for over 150 days) is that you may request
canapés to be served in your cabin. At 4.30 we were served three prawn and
sesame seed canapés, and three chocolate covered strawberries. The chocolate strawberries are dressed formally
with white chocolate shirtfronts complete with chocolate bow ties and buttons,
and a complete jacket of milk chocolate. They are such cute little fellows that
I managed to take their photos, which I hope I can reproduce here. In general I
can’t ‘do’ photos, but grandson Darcy – the family tech-head – has sent me
detailed instructions.
There are sometimes ‘cocktail parties’ in
one of the lounges with the Captain. These are for particular groups (eg the
Elite Passengers) and are strictly by invitation issued to your cabin. The
waiters hand around ‘cocktails’ called things like ‘rum punch’ (mainly fruit
juice) and little canapés on trays. The drinks are passed around freely, but
the canapés are more scarce.
Between the first and second dinner
sittings, a ‘champagne waterfall’ may be set up in the atrium. Glasses are
built up into circular pyramid, with champagne poured into the top glass to
overflow all the way to the bottom, and free ‘champagne’ is passed around by
the bar waiters. If the ship is moving too much the champagne waterfall
obviously can’t survive, so is dispensed with.
There are always plenty of ‘photo
opportunities’ on Formal nights. The photo people are always anxious for
opportunities to take and then sell lots of photos.
These are on display on large frames in the
Photo Shop Area on Deck 7, and are
attractive but relatively expensive.
No comments:
Post a Comment