Day 02 - Mon - 11/03/2025 - At Sea to Funchal - Day 1

 Today was both a long and a short day as we continued our voyage to Funchal.  Since we are about 8 hours ahead of our local time, our local football team the Seattle Seahawks were playing in the NFL network starting at 1am our time.  We watched the first half and rather enjoyed it as the team enjoyed a 28-7 lead at the half when we decided to turn off the game at 3:30am and salvage some rest.  I salvaged my rest by sleeping in until noon!  I must have been really tired from staying up for the World Series and then the Seahawks.  I need to get on a more normal schedule.


In any event, I joined Angela in the Lido for lunch.  The order taker got my order wrong, but the Japanese street food item (a fried egg wrap of rice and chicken) was delicious.  My first choice was ramen. We also learned how to order Coke Zero without paying for the can (one has to order it through a server and not the APP).  Fountain drinks are free using our Princess Plus package, but canned soda has a charge.  


There weren't any activities that really interested me, so I sat at our table for the next two hours and composed my blog entry for Sunday. From time to time people would sit at the adjoining table and we had brief conversations.  Most were British.  I also watched 3 cargo ships pass by our port side as they headed northbound.


At 4pm I sat in on a general knowledge trivia session in the aft Vista lounge.  It was a pretty hard session. Afterwards I joined Angela and our friends, Joanne & Gary, for drinks by the Crown Grill bar. We had another good chat.  Tonight was a Gala night so we dressed up a bit.  For me that means putting on a collared shirt, slacks, & dress shoes.  I don't bring a suit and tie and haven't for many years.  


Dinner was once again in the Lido and it was an Asian themed dinner.  I ordered a Mongolian grill item and its preparation was very slow.  The crew gave me the impression that they just didn't care.  I'm not at all impressed with the service levels in the Lido on this ship.  They seem to be short staffed.  The servers are friendly enough, but they don't initiate greeting very well.  If we greet them, they will respond.  This is our 6th Princess cruise and it's been the same pattern on all of them. In the end, the dish was delicious.  The Beard's joined us for dinner.  After dinner we all headed for the Princess Theater for the 8pm entertainment which was Nate Simpson, a West End (think Broadway) singer that we saw a month ago on our previous voyage.  He's really good and I didn't mind seeing him again.




Tonight in Princess Live was the Yes/No game show and when they ran out of contestants (nobody could last 3 minutes in an interview without saying yes or no), Angela volunteered and lasted 1:28.  I then volunteered and was the only victor for the evening.  I declined the bottle of Champaign and exchanged it for two Princess wine bottle stoppers.  We stayed on in the venue for the ABBA trivia which we did okay in.  The winning team had a perfect 25 score.  We finished the evening with karaoke there and Angela sang "What a Wonderful World".  After she sang, I walked deck 7 from stern to stem a number of times to get in my 5k steps.  By then it was midnight and that made it a very long day.  


We enjoyed a chocolate treat (we bring our own and enjoy one every night) and watched the Wake show before retiring for the night.  Tomorrow is another sea day and we have a lot of entertainment including the first of the two Imagine Cruising events: a lecture by an English soccer coach who also coached the Seattle Sounders. It's a ticketed event and our showtime is 7pm.

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