Sea Day, November 24

As the ship has turned and we’re making our way to the Strait of Hormuz
today’s sunrise, like last night's sunset, is also at the back of the ship.

Today’s blog post is more about some FYIs than anything else…

Today started just as every other sea day has. Early breakfast. Time on Promenade Deck. 

Sunning and swimming. Blog posting. Probably a nap. But today I had to add time to get ready for tomorrow. We’ll be in Abu Dhabi tomorrow and have a Princess shore excursion planned. We’re fond of hop on hop off tours so we have one booked.

Camera and phone charged? Check.
Tour tickets? Check.
Conservative clothing? Check.
Laptop charged? Check. (I’ve heard the terminal has WiFi so after our excursion I hope to get back out there.)
Passports and passport copies? Check.
Abu Dhabi immigration letter? Check.

A few days ago we received a questionnaire asking about our plans for Abu Dhabi.

Why did they need all this information? Because every person on this ship – passenger and crew members, excursion or not - is required to have a face to face meeting with immigration officials in the terminal tomorrow. If you don’t want to go into to Abu Dhabi and plan on just staying on the ship? Tough cookies. You still have to leave the ship to go through immigration in the morning. We were told at the Abu Dhabi immigration presentation it should take 1 minute to be processed. How much you want to bet the line itself will take 50 times as long? 

Some other immigration FYIs for this trip…

At the port in Civitavecchia at the beginning of this cruise, we had stickers placed on the back of the passports with our cabin number on them. We have a lot of countries this trip and lots of processing to be done with them so the cabin numbers helps make sure they get to and from the right place. Thankfully the ship takes care of most of our immigration processing, including our visa for Oman. (We did have to get our own visa for Sri Lanka which was super easy.) 

When we got to the cabin on embarkation day we received information about immigration in all of our upcoming ports. It spelled out clearly when we could keep our passports (Italy), when we needed to hand over our passports to the cabin steward so the ship could get them processed for immigration (Greece, Suez Canal/Egypt, and Jordan), when we were required to have a face-to-face meeting with immigration off the ship (Abu Dhabi), and what happened after turning them over to the UAE authorities. (They’d go back to the ship for processing in Oman, Sri Lanka, and Malaysia.)

Some other Princess excursions FYIs…

As tomorrow's hop on hop off company is contracting with the ship, the price you pay onshore independently is the same price Princess is charging. But if you had purchased the ticket online through the tour company you would have paid less. Now here’s another but...Princess has a price guarantee for their excursions. If you’ve booked a tour with Princess but find a lower price for that same exact excursion they will give you 110% of the difference in the form of onboard credit. Hop on hop off tours are easy to match online ahead of time and we did so for three different ports on this trip. We each received $20.63 for one tour, $5.39 each for another, and $7.04 each for another. It’s not a whole lot, but every little bit helps! (The paperwork for the price guarantee is easy to fill out. If you want to know more, let me know.)

Tonight is formal night and since Princess no longer is doing the balloon drop (for environmental reasons, of course) there is a Captain’s Farewell Party. Some folks will be leaving the ship in Dubai so the first leg of this cruise is almost over. So glad we’re sticking around for another one!

Sea Day, November 23

My billionth attempt to get this posted...the Internet has sucked these last couple days...

My days have pretty much fallen into a routine.

This morning's sunrise comes way of the covered Calypso Pool.

 

Up and at the buffet before 6 where plenty of seating is available.

The buffet is where I get my caffeine for the day in the form of a glass of ice tea. As I’m at the counter putting sweetener in my tea, I can’t help but think how Princess is only halfheartedly trying to show they care about the planet. Thanks to some bad environmental practices, they are now on a get-rid-of-single-use-items kick to prove their commitment. They’ve done away with sugar packets and gone with these weird, hard-to-use glass containers.

But with the sweeteners? Are they worried about the single use packets those come in? By the looks of the pile of sweeteners I get to choose from every morning, I think not. You can’t convince me the new practices aren’t more about cost-saving measures than anything else.

After my tea glass is empty, I grab the same thing every single morning - an omelet and bacon. On the Royal Princess and Caribbean Princess you can fill a container with your omelet ingredients. It was nice because you could pick from a wide range of fillings and could choose exactly how much you’d like in the omelet. But from our experience on the Royal, the person making the omelet dumps the container in the middle of the eggs. When you get the omelet you have to open it up, spread the ingredients out, and then refold it. There the omelet is fried on a flat top and therefore the eggs are really, really thin.

Here on the Sapphire there is a very short list of ingredients to choose from and they decide the amount to put in your omelet. It’s okay though. Because here they use an omelet pan and blend all the ingredients together throughout the omelet, resulting in a light and fluffy omelet with everything incorporated together.

Even though they have limited filling choices,
they taste 1000% better than the omelets on Royal Princess.

Since the buffet is relatively empty I usually wait for my omelet near the cereal section. As we don’t have boxes like these in the US they put a smile on my face as it reminds me we’re far from home.

No regular sugar packets but still plenty of single use cereal boxes.

I sometimes (okay, almost every day) check out the muffin section, too. The muffins on this ship are heavenly. Moist and chock full of yumminess, a very welcome change from the flavorless and dry muffins we’ve seen on the Princess ships over the last couple years.

Just look at all those blueberries!

After breakfast we head to the Promenade deck to sit and watch the waves. About 8:30 we head back to the cabin to watch a movie. Sapphire Princess has the on demand TV system which is great for as many sea days as we have on this cruise. (The satellite does go out several times a day, and our TV completely went out for a couple days. A new modem solved the black screen issue but the satellite reception continues to be a pain.) After the movie comes pool time for a few hours.

Then back to the cabin so E can have his nap and since I’m done swimming for the day, I have my shower then start a bit of work on the blog. Despite being a non-napper, the combination of the sun and swimming and writing makes me a bit sleepy. I wind up falling asleep at some point and then wake up in a panic when I look at the time. (5:30? Yikes!) I don’t know about you, but when I wake up in a start in takes me a while to get the adrenaline calmed back down. By then it’s 6:30 and neither of us really care about dinner. I read, he watches sports-news-sports-news, I tell him to turn the TV down, I get tired of the junk he’s watching and I make a run to the buffet. Decide I’m not really hungry and usually come back to the cabin empty handed. (Other than the occasional chocolate chip cookie in hand.)

My night ends there and in the morning another very relaxing day begins.

So if you're wanting to know about the shows or the dining room menu or the dress code on formal night, I can't help. At home I work all day long (way too much if you ask E) so this cruise, with my limited Internet minutes and an iffy connection, has been my time to relax. Really relax. It feels so good.

Tomorrow we have one more very relaxing sea day before we get to our next port, Abu Dhabi.

Tonight I think I took one of my best sunset at sea photos.

Sea Day, November 22

Our first cruise ever was on the Diamond Princess, the sister ship to the Sapphire Princess. Our second cruise ever? It was right here on the Sapphire Princess. This ship is one of the reasons we fell in love with cruising and it taught us what cruising was all about. Obviously it worked out well because here we are, some 85 cruises later, flying thousands of miles to sail on her again.

Today's sunrise from the Gulf  of Aden. Somalia is to the right of the sunrise.

There is so much to love about this ship. She’s reminded us of some things we’ve missed by sailing so much on the Royal Class ships. Here on the Sapphire Princess we are reminded:

• The Promenade deck is great for both walking and sitting.
• 
• The atrium is a great place to listen to music without the noise level being way too loud.
• You don’t need to have 50 crew members being robotic in their serving of drinks in the buffet. Since there are fewer passengers, you can have fewer crew members who can also be more engaged with passengers.
• Covered pools are downright awesome in rainy and cool weather and the uncovered pools, at least on this itinerary, are relatively empty.
• Riding an elevator doesn’t have to be a bad experience. The elevators here are empty, with me only once having to step into a full elevator. Think about how the Royal holds 1,000 more passengers than the Sapphire Princess - with the same number of elevators. Actually, the aft elevators here hold more than the Royal Princess' aft elevators. No wonder the elevators on the Royal are so crazily jam packed!

We’ve even seen a huge difference with the passengers. First of all, this itinerary has attracted a different kind of passenger than what we see in our 7-14 day Alaska, Mexico, and Caribbean cruises. It takes a special kind of person looking for a special kind of experience (with plenty of time on their hands) to visit places like Jordan, Dubai, and Oman, and also be okay with 15 sea days (actually 17 if you count our two days in the Suez Canal). It seems most of the passengers are in their mid-60s, adventurous, and so far, kind, polite, friendly, and relaxed.

When E found out the nationality make-up today, the numbers confirm what we've felt. Only 915 are Americans with the friendly and kind Aussies and New Zealanders, Brits, and Canadians totaling 1,511. This cruise is like a breath of fresh air and makes us so happy we ventured away from the US. (Jeannie, you were right about this ship, and Vickie I wish you and Bernie were here to feel the difference.)

No one seems to be bothered by the Promenade Deck being closed at night because of the crew on watch or the very high winds we are experiencing. (Gale force winds plus the ship having to travel at maximum speed through these risky waters make for very, very, very windy decks.) I haven't heard one person complain once about all the sea days and no one seems bored. And like I said, the elevators really are heavenly. 

I do love this ship. What don't I love? We have yet another time change tonight. Yep, another hour forward and another challenge to getting up before 6 AM on our way to another sea day tomorrow.

Sapphire Princess Sea Day, Nov 21

Today’s sunrise as seen off the coast of Yemen.

My to-do list for today was a short one:

1. Watch Mamma Mia at Movies Under the Stars.

2. Listen to the live band at the pool.

3. Find out the cut off for the Most Traveled Guest Luncheon.

4. Check the map of Deck 10 to see what could have made the last cabin so noisy.

1. The first time I ever watched Mamma Mia was on a cruise ship. Up until that point I had never had any interest in it, and I’m not sure I even knew when it arrived in the movie theaters. But now when it’s on a Princess ship I watch it. I’ve seen it in Alaska, in a thick fog, with the ship’s foghorn blowing every few minutes. I’ve watched in the sticky, steamy heat of a Panama Canal cruise. I’ve seen it in the Gulf of Mexico on a Caribbean cruise, in the Pacific Ocean on a Mexican Riviera cruise, and in the Atlantic Ocean on a transatlantic cruise. I don’t necessarily like the movie that much, but it’s the reaction of others watching it that makes it so entertaining. What typically happens is a couple walks through the area. The wife looks at the screen, wonders what the movie is, and joyfully exclaims, “It’s Mamma Mia!” while the husband looks not at all interested. Usually the wife winds up staying for the movie and the husband wanders off. Said wife then spends her time singing her way through the movie. Watching Mamma Mia and watching the others watching Mamma Mia is just a downright joyful experience. (At least for me, as E is one who wants no part of it.)

2. I’ve been at the pool every day this week, working on my tan (and my swimming) and hoping for a live band to finally show up. To me, there’s nothing like a live band playing by the pool to make you feel like you are really on a vacation. And when they get around to playing the Cupid Shuffle it makes you want to jump up and dance. Except I don’t dance – and never have – but if I did I would be dancing. Guess I’m dancing inside because I always look forward to the live music.

3. E generously offered to head to the Captain’s Circle Desk to find out the cutoff for the Most Traveled Guest Luncheon. 595 days. So the 40 passengers onboard with the most days at sea with Princess have 595 days or more. We were short just a few days. Oh, well.

4. The Sapphire Princess has portals near the elevators with the map of the decks. I went down to Deck 10 where our old cabin was to see if I could figure out if there was anything around the cabin that could have been causing the terrible noise. I did find there was an entire section of no cabins. 

It leads me to believe there was some type of machinery in there causing the terrible racket. And by the speed at which they moved us to a new cabin, I would guess they’ve had complaints before. So if you will be sailing on the Sapphire Princess, study the map and don’t choose Caribe 534. 

Looks like a normal cabin, but nope.

I would surmise the other cabins in the area may also suffer from the noise, but I don’t know. We are plenty happy with our new cabin. Even though it is an obstructed view, it is mostly quiet, near the elevators, and close to the buffet. 

It’s a connecting cabin but we haven’t heard a peep through the door. Glad to see the lock is only accessible by a steward’s key.

The lamps in both cabins have a USB plug. Love it!

Also love that we still have mailboxes outside the door.

That was pretty much the day, with the biggest chunk of my time being spent at the pool. While the weather has been warm, the pool hasn’t been very busy at all. You can show up any time of the day and have no problem finding plenty of seats to choose from. There are no chair hogs at all. If this was a Caribbean cruise with weather like this the place would be jam-packed. I’m really enjoying having the space to spread out. Another place where we’re finding plenty of space? In the elevators. I think only once so far have I gotten into an elevator that was almost full. And the passengers on this ship are nice and friendly. It has been a welcome change from our other sailings this year. 

I think I could get used to this kind of cruising. Kind of reminds of what cruising used to be like when we first started.

One last thing – we are now sailing through the High Risk Area. We’ve been told we’ll see military units patrolling the waters these next three days.  Then starting tonight the Promenade Deck will be closed after 10 PM and lights will be off out there. We have additional crew members on watch so it needs to be dark so they can maximize their night vision. Upper decks will continue to be open. 

Off to another sea day tomorrow.

A Brief Stop in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

Today’s sunrise comes to you courtesy of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. 

We weren’t supposed to be stopping in Jeddah, but we had yet another passenger requiring a medical evacuation and Jeddah is where the early morning transfer occurred. We arrived just as the sun was coming up.

Having never been to Saudi Arabia before, and knowing I'd never get to go, I was quite happy to have a little look from onboard the ship. 

The signage at the dock was the first clue we were in a different country. With a different language and different culture.

But the differences didn't stop there. Both the female passenger being wheeled off the ship (thankfully not on a stretcher) and the female medical personnel were wearing head coverings, as would be expected in this conservative country. Men onshore were either military or port personnel in camouflage or dressed in traditional white garments.

The last time we witnessed passengers being taken off a ship because of an emergency we were in Ketchikan. That cruise was the one where we had passengers involved in a float plane accident. Then is when we saw families being taken off and ship officials meeting with hospital officials. All very cordial, friendly, and from afar, respectful.

Not so today.

While the lady was transferred to the ambulance relatively quickly and her husband climbed aboard with her, the ambulance sat on the dock. And sat. And sat. For a full hour the passengers in need never left the dock. From my vantage point it was clear the officials were not happy about the ship being in port. The female medical personnel were sent back to the ship (this is Saudi Arabia and men rule), and the men did try to rule each other. There was plenty of explanations and hand waving and finger pointing and head wringing and shouting and...and...and... 

More and more Saudi Arabian officials showed up. Then some left. Then others showed up. This went on for a couple hours. At one point I counted 22 people on the dock. Two of our ship's officers, two male medical personnel, and 18 Saudi Arabians. The men from our ship deserve an award for their patience and perseverance today. Even after the ambulance left, the brouhaha continued. Finally the Captain announced we were finishing up some bureaucratic paperwork and would be leaving in 20 minutes. 

The 20 minutes came and left with us still sitting at the dock. Another 20 minutes came and left. And another, and another, and another. Four and a half hours later the ship was finally allowed to leave the country.

After witnessing what we saw today, E and I both came away with a bad taste in our mouths. I've never said this about anywhere I've ever traveled before, but I'm glad I don't live here and I don't care to visit here.

The Jeddah lighthouse is the tallest in the world. The only thing of beauty we witnessed today.

Tomorrow we're up for a full sea day, with hopefully all passengers staying healthy.