20240414 Sapphire Princess South Pacific Cruise Day 11 - sea day - it's about to get weird

Sapphire Princess South Pacific Cruise Day 11 - Sea Day - weirdness is coming

This morning, we time-traveled again, gaining an hour for another 25-hour day. Tomorrow, an entire day will disappear. 

Between now and the time we reach Samoa, we will cross the International Date Line or IDL. When you do that from east to west, a day simply disappears. When you travel across it from west to east, you relive a day twice.  It's weird.

When you do it on a cruise ship, nothing actually happens at the exact moment you cross the IDL. Rather, the Captain decides when the ship will observe the crossing and change dates.  That happens for us tonight. We will go to bed on Sunday, April 14, and awake on Tuesday, April 16. Monday will simply disappear. Man, could I have used this when I was working.  The time on the clock won't change. We are currently UTC-11 or seven hours behind the US East Coast. Tomorrow morning, we will be UTC+13 or 17 hours ahead of the US East Coast. the difference between -11 hours and +13 hours is 24 hours, so again, our clocks won't change, only the date will. Here is the issue. We will ultimately skip two days on this cruise, and we will enjoy the same day two times twice on this cruise. How do I date the blog? I don't want to not have a 4/15 entry and I don't want two 4/19 entries. Therefore, I will publish this based on the date on the US East Coast, even if the title or description has a different date. Confused yet? I am.

This was the view in our hallways today.

Emergency? Drill? Nope - just a scheduled battery change for the water-activated lights in the life vests. The cabin stewards retrieved all the life vests from all the cabins and placed them in the hallway. The batteries were changed and they replaced the vests in the cabins. A lot of work, but safety first.

Arlona attended a Polynesia Arts and Crafts event today and made a bead lei.

Of course, we did our regular morning, noon, and afternoon trivia challenges. Our various trivia misses today:

• What was the Lion's name in The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe?
• We didn't know - it was Aslan
• What Polynesian island has a Paul Gauguin museum?
• Again, we didn't know - Tahiti
• Where did Van Gohn paint Starry Night?
• In an asylum in France
• What country did Indonesia gain independence from in 1949?
• We should have known it was The Netherlands, as they owned the spice trade
• What one word is an anagram for Monday?
• Again, we should have come up with dynamo but didn't
• What is a group of caterpillars known as?
• We guessed brush - it was an army
• What type of animal is a lumpsucker?
• Fish
• What is a dromophobiac afraid to cross?
• We guessed deserts - it is streets

One of our games ended with our team tied with two more for the win. The tiebreaker settled it:

• How long is the Dingo Fence?
• One team guessed 1200 miles, another 35 km, and we guessed 2500 miles - it is 2,488 miles long so we won for the closest answer

We went for lunch at the Trident Grill on the pool deck for bacon cheeseburgers and then hit the room for a little reading. The weather was a marked departure from the weather we've had up until now. 

The temperature was at least ten degrees warmer today and the humidity was dialed up. Still, it was comfortable until the sun started baking us.

Arlona recently finished a book so I started reading it as well.

I wrapped it up today so we could compare notes. That was fun. We haven't read a book at the same time before but might going forward.

For the first time in several days, we almost got a nice sunset, but didn't.

We headed to the International Dining Room for dinner. The Princess mascot, Stanley the Bear, was greeting passengers. Of course, that is so the ship's photographer can take a photo and then sell it to you. I have long arms and a quick process, so I snapped a quick, illicit selfie with Stanley. We're living on the edge.

As we were waiting to enter, I spotted this lock that came with instructions.

So...the purpose of the lock is...?????

The main dining rooms come with a dress code of Smart Casual. I want to talk about that. This is what Princess defines as Smart Casual on their website:

Smart Casual

Guest attire should be in keeping with what they would wear to a nice restaurant at home.

• Skirts/dresses, slacks, blouses, and sweaters for women
• Pants and collared or dress shirts for men

 That's all fine and good, except every night, we see people every night with baseball caps, shorts, t-shirts, and so on eating in the main dining room. We don't care what you wear, but...if there is a policy, it should be followed and enforced, or ditch the policy. I really don't care if you eat in shorts, but why does Princess have a dress code if they refuse to enforce it? Pick one - have it and enforce it or drop the dress code and let it be a free-for-all like it is in the buffet. We follow the policy every night, but now, I'm asking myself, "Why?"

Tonight's dinner was a special one, and a bit annoying. They offered pork belly, lobster and crab cake, and beef tenderloin. All on the same night. It would be nice to spread that out so there was something special every night, but instead, they stacked all the special items on the same night.

Cajun-style crawfish vol-au-vent appetizer

Air-cured prosciutto with ricotta flan

We both got the lobster and crab cake main dish with a beef tenderloin added

Dinner was good and it was nice to have a traditional, fancy cruise dinner.

We walked through the art gallery again and I decided to share another olive painting, this time, with a strawberry too!

I can hear the Bond theme

After a nightcap and a failed attempt at 90s sitcom trivia, we headed to the room. We have a lot of sleeping to do tonight (Sunday) since we won't wake up until Tuesday morning.