20240408 Sapphire Princess South Pacific Cruise Day 5 - Eclipse viewing and account renewing

Sapphire Princess South Pacific Cruise Day 5 - We just needed an eclipse to get things sorted out

Out here in the North Pacific Ocean, we're sailing well north of the path of totality for the solar eclipse today. Oh well, it is what it is. We awoke this morning to announcements from Armando, our Cruise Director, talking about this morning's solar eclipse. The show was set to start shortly after 8:30 AM with maximum coverage at our location of about 25% around 9:40 and wrapping up shortly after 10:30. Princess thoughtfully provided eclipse viewing glasses for everyone onboard. That was a nice touch.

At about 9:15 or so, we moseyed up to deck 17 to take a look. We opted for the forward part of the ship since Armando recommended aft. We figured that we could avoid the crowds while still getting essentially the same view since a few hundred feet over 93 million miles wouldn't matter. We were right and other than one other couple, we had the place to ourselves.

Stylin' in the Princess eclipse glasses

I tried to use my regular camera but the sun was too bright, and even setting the ISO to the least sensitive, the aperture to as closed down as possible, and the shutter speed to as fast as possible, everything was still overexposed. My next option was to repurpose the eclipse glasses as a lens filter on my cellphone. It turns out that this was a much better plan. With one of the lenses held in place over the telephoto lens on my Samsung S24 Ultra, I was able to capture a pretty decent image of what we could see.

It looks like I might have captured a sunspot - or there was a piece of crud on the lense or glasses

It was cool to see, but not nearly as cool as folks who got to see the full totality. It was great that Princess provided the glasses - that certainly was a nice touch.

We got a note under our door this morning from Guest Services stating that they were still, after several days, trying to resolve our account issues. Wow - I don't get what's so complicated. I checked our account and it appeared that our package had finally been added to our account. This then begged the question of why Guest Services didn't think it had been resolved yet. I just don't get it.

A short time later, we got a call from Guest Services. I answered and they asked to speak directly to Arlona. I handed her the phone and they let her know our account issues have been straightened out. Why they couldn't talk to me remains a mystery. So they finally seem to have figured it out and our account seems to finally be correct. Woo!

I wanted to talk about tech on this ship. This is a Medallion Class cruise. I've already discussed the Princess Medallions - the devices you wear around your neck or wrist that serve as your room key, charge card, and so on. On our last Princess cruise - they worked, sort of. While on that ship, Caribbean Princess is a sister ship to Sapphire Princess, the medallions only worked sort of. On this ship, they seem to have the kinks worked out and so far, it has been flawless. When you walk up to a bar, your photo automatically pops up on the bartender's screen so he/she knows who to charge drinks to. When you approach your room, your room door automatically unlocks. When you pass by any of the massive information screens, if you're celebrating something - birthdays, anniversaries, and so on, the screens present festive greetings. They also let you order food and drinks and get it delivered wherever you are on the ship. One additional benefit, and in my opinion, brilliant on Princess's part, is that when you're in port, Princess partner businesses display the Princess logo. In those businesses - stores and restaurants - you can use your medallion to make purchases and those purchases appear on your cruise account. Princess gives you shipboard credit for a small portion of your purchase. Princess gets additional business and the vendor has Princess directing customers their way. That's just smart.

Another positive has been the internet service - with one caveat. So far, internet access has been terrific. The speed, while not super-fast, has been more than acceptable - with one exception. WiFi calling and texting have been hit or miss. Using other tools like Facebook Messenger or WhatsApp has been perfect, but WiFi SMS messaging and WiFi calling have been spotty and nobody knows why. Still, it's better than some other cruise lines (are you listening Oceanaia and Viking?).

Trivia today was another mixed bag of incredibly easy questions mixed with unbelievably obscure ones. The misses:

• Name the four patron saints of Britain and Ireland
• We got St. Patrick (Ireland) - the other three were St. David (Wales), St. Andrews (Scotland), St. George (England)
• What nationality was the inventor of the Rubiks Cube?
• We missed that he was Hungarian
• Who was the first Holy Roman Emperor crowned in 800 AD?
• Charlemagne
• What two countries border Lake Titicaca?
• Bolivia and Peru
• What element takes its name from the Greek word for green?
• Chlorine
• What country does comic book hero Tintin come from?
• We knew the area but couldn't come up with Belgium
• Tropicalia was a movement of art, music, and film from what country?
• Brazil - we guessed Cuba
• What decade did the movie Greese get released?
• We guessed 80s - it was the 70s
• What is Neptune's largest moon?
• Triton
• What Roman empower was known as Gothicus Maximus?
• Tacticus
• In what year did Arthur Hailey publish The Moneychangers?
• 1975
• What US State's state fruit is the cherry?
• Utah - seriously - wow
• How many elevators are in the Empire State Building?
• 73
• What is the sixth sign of the zodiac?
• We missed by one with Leo - it is Virgo
• In the most obscure question of the day - who wrote Shakeshpere's Christmas?
• Charlaine Harris - who?
• What is the atomic number of iodine? - another obscure question
• 53
• OK - one we got and we don't know how - what is a group of lizards known as?
• We decided to be smart-asses and say "lounge" - it's lounge!

For lunch today, we made it simple and hit up the pizza on the pool deck.

I had a slice of pepperoni and a slice of Hawaiian - both were tasty

Arlona, providing perspective on how big the slices were

We spent some time reading and relaxing and of course, Arlona continued her ukulele lessons as well as continuing her knitting project.

We grabbed a pre-dinner cocktail at the Explorers Lounge and then hit up the International Dining room for our scheduled 6:20 dinner. We had one repeat guest at our table from last night and a new couple. It was an interesting dinner as he was one of the people credited with inventing the lottery game, Powerball. They had traveled to over 130 countries as he had been president of a company that helped set up lotteries all over the world.

Dinner was good, but the dessert was picturesque enough for a photo - the chocoholic cheesecake.

We returned back to the Explorers Bar for a post-dinner cocktail. Arlona opted for a dessert drink.

They were starting a gameshow called The Sky's The Limit. Three passengers were each paired with a member of the entertainment team. We each had to bid on our partner's ability to come up with lists of items that met a specific category. I was selected to participate and it was all great fun. 

Different contestants had 30 seconds to name as many items as they could in these categories:

• Hairstyles
• Disney Princesses
• Things at a circus
• Things in a first aid kit
• Places for a first date
• Countries that start with "A"
• Dance styles
• And several others

In the end, I came in second, but all participants got a Princess swag bag.

Princess backpack, notebook, wine stopper, and coaster

It was a good day and we're very happy that the seas are calm and the temperature is getting warmer.

Tomorrow, we continued our trek toward Hololulu.