Wanderung 28

After breakfast we walked on deck for an hour and then attended Dr. Greg Wheeler's morning talk on plate tectonics and vulcanism around the Caribbean Sea, which was quite interesting and well done. I had not realized that the volcanoes in Costa Rica were caused by a plate pushing in from the West, whereas the volcanoes among the Windward Caribbean Islands were the result of the Caribbean plate pushing eastward into the Atlantic plate. Who knew?

Right after Dr. Wheeler's talk, we attended the "Back Stage" presentation in the Princess Theater and then visited the tiny dressing room backstage. The fancy costumes can be so heavy that you wonder how the dancers move in them. At Noon we had an invitation-only "Loyalty Luncheon" (AKA, Lunch with the Captain and Officers) in the Sabatini Restaurant. That turned out to be a great complimentary meal for about 45 Elite members, I guess the most travelled Elite members on that particular cruise. As we entered one of the ship's photographers took a complimentary picture of us with the Captain that was printed while we ate and given to us at the end of the meal. How pleasant!

Each table had 5 or 6 passengers together with one of the ship's officers, which made for some interesting conversation! At our table we chatted with the ship's Environmental Officer, Dimitar from Bulgaria, whose first language was Bulgarian and second language Russian as he had been educated during the USSR empire days, but he had learned English whilst working his way up the officer ranks in Princess Cruise Lines. Since Dimitar was officially still "on duty", he could eat a meal with us but not partake of any of the complimentary wine offered with the meal, which was a shame but understandable. Again I thought of my sister Phyllis during the meal because how she would have just loved to have "Dinner with the Captain" and be able to brag about it afterwards to her friends and family!

I felt happy enough about the free picture with the Captain, which turned out quite nicely, that I then purchased the embarkation picture, the Panama Canal picture of me holding my poster on the balcony at the rear of our deck, and one formal night picture of us between some flower urns that had turned out well. This whole experience was very positive, and thus a marked contrast to our frustration with purchasing photographs during our immediately preceding Holland America cruise on the Ryndam!

At 3 p.m. we had a wine-tasting, again complimentary due to our Elite status. We had a great time sampling four of the wines, although the Australian Shiraz still didn't appeal that much to us. Then Monika went off to the Casino while I continued to update and fill in some gaps in the journal until it was time for dinner. This was a formal night, but the Princess dining room staff accepted my ensemble without demure and we had a very nice evening with Eugen and Brigitte (I think Carmen and Shelley were trying out the steak house that evening and they later said it was quite good).

After dinner we wrapped up our day by seeing the production show, "Dance", which featured very nice song and dance routines from the 50s, 60s, and 70s. With our earplugs in, the sound levels were just right, although without them it would have been far too loud, and we enjoyed the performance very much.