Our trip begins with 6 sea days, offering plenty of time to explore our ship, checking out the amenities, restaurants, onboard activities, and entertainment.

The Princess app let us see the full schedule of ship’s events a couple of days before sailing, so I had the chance to “bookmark” activities in Ted’s and my shared shipboard calendar. That doesn’t obligate us to attend, but does mean that we get alerts on our devices as the times for events of interest are pending… and directions to each venue, which is useful on a big ship.

I hadn’t bookmarked anything for the morning, wanting to simply explore – plus the morning was lots of spa/shopping/exercise stuff – but my afternoon “wish list” screen looked like this:

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After a challenge with the VERY bright built-in motion sensor nightlight in the open closet area that wouldn’t turn off (until magically at 4 a.m.), we both slept in this morning. A couple I met at breakfast – alone, while Ted oriented his day – suggested pushing all our hangers to one end of the closet before going to bed, in case the slight movement of the ship was making them sway enough to keep the motion detector “detecting”. That’ll be the plan tonight.

I had yogurt and melon from the Horizon Court buffet, which proved just as daunting to navigate this morning as we’d expected from its twisty layout. I grabbed food first, and then found a table. I’m not sure how I’d have found my table again if I’d left it!

Then it was out onto a lounger on the sundeck (17) to join the folks watching Aquaman (surprisingly good!) on the big screen.

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It was a comfy place to read, and to test out the “Ocean Now” app and medallion feature to order a coffee refill and have it brought to me. Wearing our medallions is like wearing a GPS locator, and gets staff to within 3 feet of us with good accuracy. Then they just need to verify our name and hand over goodies!

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It turned out that Ted was checking out the ordering system too, getting a piña colada slushie and a burger and fries delivered to his spot on Deck 16. I took my coffee down to join him, and we struck up a conversation with Renée and Pat, a couple just 2 weeks into their own nomadic lifestyle! Hopefully we were an inspiration to them, since we’ve never regretted our choice to sell everything in order to travel full time.

By about 1:30 I needed some lunch too. En route to the International Café we crossed the Seawalk, jutting out over the ocean on deck 16. What a view down to the waves!

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My “bravery” walking across that glass floor clearly earned me a completely ridiculous lunch: cake and Prosecco! (I’ll skip dessert at dinner – maybe)

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Then I went back up to deck 17 to continue reading Elly Griffiths’ Stranger Diaries, with the new musical Willy Wonka movie starring Timothy Chalamet running on the big screen. We’ve seen and enjoyed it, so it was mostly just background. Ted, meanwhile, was enjoying the house band’s excellent jazz set in the Piazza.

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There’s lots of live music on board; just 15 minutes after the band’s set ended, the Viennese String Duo began playing, beginning their set with Elton John’s Your Song. It’s fun watching people dancing to the music on the Piazza’s central dance floor, but nonetheless we were ready for a bit of quiet time in our room. This is when we miss having a comfy loveseat or couch in our stateroom, but sitting propped up on the bed with lots of pillows is not all that different from the configuration of a lounge chair.

Tonight is the first of two “formal” nights on the ship, so Ted donned dress shoes with his new black jeans and a button-down shirt, and I put on a pair of black palazzo pants with a sparkly shirt and sparkly sandals. There were a few couples in full-on formal wear, but we pack too light for that level of dressy. We changed early and headed to Crooner’s Bar on deck 7, overlooking the Piazza, where there was more live music in the form of solo pianist Jowita in the hour before our 6 p.m. dinner seating. Unfortunately we’re going to miss the Captain’s Welcome in the Piazza tonight, because it takes place while we’re in the dining room. While I enjoyed a pre-dinner negroni, Ted bravely went for a “Mayan Heat”, made with Patron silver tequila, triple sec, lime juice, agave syrup and muddled jalapeno! Muy picante !!!

We chose to share a table in the Symphony Dining Room again tonight, and ended up reminiscing about old TV shows during another delicious meal.

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Tonight’s show in the Princess Theatre was one of their “production shows”, Born to Dance. The show highlighted the dance styles of famous American Broadway choreographers, from Agnes de Mille and Jerome Andrews to Bob Fosse and Twyla Tharp, plus many more, and included video clips of famous Broadway dancers talking about their careers. Below are just a few of the highlights.

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Unfortunately the lighting for some of the other numbers didn’t allow for good photos, but I’ll want to remember that Memory, from Cats, had a fantastic vocal to go with the choreography. There’ll be two more – completely different – production shows on later on our cruise featuring this ensemble of Princess own entertainers: 4 great vocalists who also dance a bit, and 8 dancers who also sing.

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As if all that wasn’t enough, we got another hour of live music in the Piazza after the show, with Static, one of three excellent live bands on board.

Tomorrow at noon (because, as our cruise director explained, it’s better to miss a meal than miss an hour’s sleep!) we’ll jump ahead one hour to the next time zone.

For now, it’s off to bed.