Thursday was our second sea day on the run back to Sydney, and it couldn’t have been more different from the day before. The sea was calm, the wind light, and the temperature sat comfortably around 23 degrees. After the swell and bluster earlier in the week, it felt like the ocean had finally exhaled.
Our routine is well and truly set now. Quiet mornings in the room, reading, blogging and easing into the day without any urgency. These slower days are where cruising really comes into its own.
As with most cruises, the last few days bring a ship-wide “sale”. You’d be naive to think this means big-ticket items like $20,000 watches, luxury handbags or fine jewellery suddenly become bargains, but curiosity got the better of us and we went down to have a look anyway. As expected, none of the main brands were discounted. The sale racks were mostly filled with old stock that had clearly been pulled from storage. Princess-branded jackets, dated souvenirs, some oddly styled clothing that looked like it had been made in the 1980s. We had a quick poke around and moved on.
Mardi did manage to find something useful: a silver chain for a necklace. She bought 20 inches at $2.40 an inch, which felt reasonable and practical, even if the rest of the sale was forgettable.
We then headed up to the buffet for what was meant to be a late breakfast or early lunch, possibly brunch. Unfortunately, it confirmed why we don’t love ship buffets. Too many people, too much noise, and food that lacks flavour and finesse. I had scrambled eggs and tried a couple of things described as “healthy sausages”, which were anything but. Mardi built herself a salad from what should have been fresh ingredients: lettuce, tomato, ham and cheese, but even that tasted bland. It must be incredibly difficult to deliver fresh, vibrant food on a 14-day cruise when so much relies on frozen or pre-prepared ingredients, but the buffet just doesn’t work for us.
Trivia was front of mind today because this was the final scoring round for progressive trivia. The results will be revealed tomorrow, so there was a bit of nervous energy among the regular teams. Our host for progressive trivia is Donovan. He’s great fun in other events, particularly in the Liars game show and even running line dancing, but progressive trivia brings out his very serious side. He’s South African and runs the session with absolute precision. The rules are strict, clearly stated, and repeated every time. I’ve quietly renamed it “aggressive trivia”.
We played well and scored 16 out of 20. Not perfect, but solid. We don’t think we’ll win outright, but we’re hopeful of finishing somewhere in the top five or six. We’ll find out tomorrow.
Throughout the afternoon we dipped into other trivia sessions as well. There was a 50s, 60s and 70s rock and roll quiz, a Harry Potter trivia where we performed incredibly poorly, and a couple of general knowledge quizzes. It’s less about winning at this stage and more about enjoying the time with the friends we’ve made along the way.
Before heading to dinner we bumped into Stanley the princess cruises mascot. He is a large bear and we had a our photo taken. We also had more photos taken and went to the Photo gallery area to look at them and get some printed for later on our package allow us some free prints
Dinner tonight was at Sabatini’s, which has probably been our favourite of the specialty restaurants. The Italian food is well prepared, flavoursome and comforting. I went for the spaghetti bolognese, which was excellent. Mardi had a burrata salad, and as always the bread arrived warm and fresh. The timing of dinner lined up perfectly with sunset, and I managed to take a few photos of the sky as it shifted into deep burnt orange and soft evening tones. A beautiful end to the day.
After dinner we headed back for a bit more trivia, less competitive and more social, sharing a couple of drinks and plenty of conversation with our friends. We finished the evening with a short visit to the casino. Sadly, our favourite Founding Feathers machines were occupied, so we played a little roulette before calling it a night.
Tomorrow is our final sea day and the last round of progressive trivia. Then it’s homeward bound.
