Friday, 09/27/13 At Sea Day 5

Friday, 09/27/13 At Sea Day 5

Another day of heavy overcast and light rain, as every day has been since Vancouver.

Attended the port lecture for Qingdao, which again was quite poor. The port lecturer, Heather, is such a nice, pleasant person, but her lectures are not good.

After the port lecture, I watched the football game between San Francisco and St. Louis, which I also found to be boring. I was just not interested in the teams.

Another day with no Internet service -- the second day in a row with no Internet service on the ship. Princess could pay for a better satellite connection, but chooses not to do that. As a result, passengers do not have Internet access on many of the days, particularly days at sea.

Just before dinner, I had signed up for us to sit for formal black and white portraits in the “dark room”, with Korli, a professional photographer on the ship from South Africa. She was also the teacher in the photography classes. There was a special promotion on the ship for ladies to get their make up, hair and even the loan of Swarovski jewelry for the photos. Rae got her make up done by Demi, from South Africa, and she did a really great job. Rae wore her own jewelry and needed only a touch-up for her hair. Korli did a really great job, and we will look at the photos on the day at sea after Vladivostok.

At dinner, something shocking happened -- SUN!! The clouds disappeared and the sun shined just at sunset. Although the sunset was not spectacular, at least there was a sunset. This was the first time we had seen the sun since Vancouver, and many people were out on the decks to see the sunset.

The evening was formal, and we attended the Captain’s reception, where he announced that of the 2700 passengers on board, about 350 were Elite. I was very surprised; usually it seems that almost half of the passengers are Elite.

The entertainment was a production show, “Words and Music”, featuring music from Broadway musicals. 

American musicals. It was really excellent, as always.