2025-08-12: Ocean, Ocean Everywhere

Today was our first of two sea days. The second sea day is our last full day on the ship.

We took it pretty easy today. We had a late wakeup. We ended up watching the ship pull out of Saint John last night. Or rather, this morning. The ship didn’t pull out until 1:00am. We slept until about 9:30am. We got ourselves up and headed up the International Market for some brunch/lunch. We sat on the back deck to eat and watched the wake of the ship while we ate. The ship is moving rather slowly since it doesn’t have to cover a ton of distance to get to Halifax tomorrow.

We spent our afternoon walking around the ship and relaxing. The ship was originally built for the Asian market so most of the signage onboard is in English and, we assume, Chinese. It’s not something we’re used to seeing.

Amanda and Darrell headed down to the dining room at 3:00pm for afternoon tea. The line to get in was half way through the piazza. We joined the line fully expecting to be turned away when they reached capacity in the dining room. Amazingly, we made it to the front and were seated. We were at a table for 8 so got to meet a few of our cruisemates.

The tea itself was disappointing. Not the food, but the service. It started out good. They brought around some finger sandwiches to start and gave us some tea. Then they brought some cakes. They didn’t have enough on the tray and only half the table were served. The waiter ran away to refill the tray with more cakes, but he disappeared. A while later he came back and apologized and said he’d be right back with the tray, but he never did. We waited, and waited, and a maître d’ finally came by and asked how we were doing. We explained we hadn’t all received cake and we still hadn’t seen any scones. He apologized and ran off. Shortly afterwards the scones showed up with the promise cream and jam would be right behind. Then the tray of cakes showed up. But the cream and jam never came. We all had enough with the waiting so we ate the scones without cream and jam before leaving.

We relaxed for about another hour and a half. It was the first formal night so we started getting cleaned up for dinner to the grumbles of the boys.

At 5:45pm, we headed to the piazza to get some family pictures done. Patrick is really not a fan of getting these pictures taken and made sure we were aware, but he indulged us and got a few taken. We hit three of the photo stations and then headed to the dining room for dinner. They only had a shared table available, but we had no issues with that.

We ended up being seated at the same table we were at for the afternoon tea with three friends who live just outside of Toronto. Darrell made a comment about hoping the service was better this evening. Unfortunately, it wasn’t. Again, it started it off well but quickly went downhill. Our orders were taken quickly. Drinks, bread, and appetizers came as expected. We finished our appetizers and then waited and waited again. An hour after being seated, we still didn’t have our main course. Amanda got the attention of a maître d’ again and let them know we weren’t happy with the service. He hopped on the situation and our main course showed up shortly thereafter. He was involved in the service for the rest of the evening and it went much smoother which was welcomed.

Patrick took off before dessert as he had plans with some of the teens he had met on the ship. Michael ran away as soon as he finished dessert. Darrell and Amanda finished the dinner conversation with the ladies from Ontario. We enjoyed our conversation with them.

We left the dining room and started heading towards Princess Live! to watch one of the evening game shows. We ran into Michael along the way. He had just bought himself a cup of candy from The Confectionary. Michael decided to join us for the show. It was called Survey It! We weren’t sure what it would be about exactly, but it was their take on Family Feud. They just can’t call it Family Feud due to copyright. They brought up four members of the crowd and pitted them against four of the entertainment staff. Laughs were had and we enjoyed the show. The guests beat the crew by a score of 5 rounds to 1.

Darrell and Amanda continued on to the evening show while Michael headed elsewhere. We got seated in the theatre when we got a text from Patrick. He was trying to buy a $100 bottle of cologne from the onboard shops. He did talk to us about it earlier. Of course, the shop attendant won’t let a teenager buy it without a parent present. With 5 minutes until showtime, Darrell had to run to the shop to bail Patrick out. Luckily, the shops are just behind the theatre.

The show was disappointing. It was the ships signers and dancers again. After the amazing Fiera show a couple nights ago, we were expecting another fun show from them. This one was just a bunch of signing from the cast. The singing was good, but there was no story connecting the songs or anything. Just a bunch of mostly ballads being sung.

After the show, we found Patrick in the cologne shop again. We told him he wasn’t buying another cologne. He agreed. He was just there with one of his new friends who was looking to buy something. Darrell and Amanda continued up to pool deck and took a quick walk outside. The moon was out and looking pretty reflecting on the water.

We returned to the cabin and called it a day.