Sea Day – March 11

Sea Day – March 11

I couldn’t sleep this morning, so I got up and walked the track early. Last night one couple canceled the Sri Lanka tour they signed up for (and made deposits), so I needed to fill their spots with very little time left before the port.

I got back and made a couple of calls to see if anyone wanted the 2 open spots and then got showered and ready for a 10:00 lecture on the unveiling of the 2021 World Cruise.

Everyone on the ship was excited to see where it would go. It was a bit of an odd presentation, but it does have some new interesting ports. Many of the segments will not be in the “usual” places. There are 50 ports with many late nights or over nights. Then, she talked about the extra “freebees” that have never been included before. One bottle of wine for each segment, free internet unlimited internet for 1 device per person, 1 specialty restaurant for 2 each segment, free airfare and the usual benefits of the full WC of included tips, free laundry, $2,000 shipboard credit and the bar set up.

All of this led up to the biggest surprise (disappointment). The WC will be on the Island Princess in 2021. Almost the whole room groaned and loudly expressed their disapproval. Some, because it’s a larger ship, but most because it’s about the worst ship in the fleet. It’s the sister ship to the Coral which everyone loves. However, it’s the one we did South America on last year and they had modified it to add 55 cabins and removed a show lounge and moved the gym to a room downstairs with no windows. It also is the one that the pipes keep bursting and there was lots of flooding and mold & mildew and some rooms had a terrible sewer water smell because of it. Hopefully, it will go into dry dock and they can get that fixed. That still leaves just 1 room to hold all the activities. There is no walking track or International Café.

There are some positives. It should be open seating for meals which is nice. The Main show lounge is larger and dedicated just for performances, so the shows are usually better. It has the Bayou Café which has great Cajun food and steaks.

It won’t go up for sale for another week (not sure of the exact date). Elites get it a day earlier than the general public. She is taking deposits and we will choose a cabin and do that. We will compare it to Holland America’s itinerary when it comes out to see which we prefer.

Neither of us won at Bingo today.

We had a full table for dinner tonight and everyone got caught up with each other since it had been days since most of us had eaten there.

The entertainer tonight was a Stevie Wonder impersonator named Gary Walker. He was pretty good. He did a lot of famous songs, but a few too many obscure ones for my taste.

One more sea day until Sri Lanka. (I filled one of the 2 vacant seats on the tour and maybe tomorrow I’ll find one more. Though, it isn’t that big of a deal.)