We’ve just completed two more sea days, from the Azores to Lisbon, relaxing on this lovely ship.
DAY ONE we slept in extra late, tuckered out from our full day excursion and staying up into the wee hours of the morning making sure this travel journal was up to date. Ted headed down for an Americano around 11 a.m. while I was still trying to rouse myself for a shower.
It was lunchtime as opposed to breakfast before I was ready to eat, so I headed on my own to the Horizon Bistro area of the buffet for a nice big salad. I’ve decided I really need more greens in my diet after a first week of lunches comprised mainly of delicious breads and desserts.
Then it was time to get in a Sunday morning chat with my best friend back in Canada. One of the pleasant surprises on this cruise has been the excellent wifi. I was able to do a FaceTime chat with no lags or connection drops, which is something I’ve not been able to do on our previous Viking or Holland America cruises. The point goes to Princess!
The balance of the afternoon was devoted to reading in a comfy chair up on deck 7, where lots of other folks were occupied in the same activity. Of course, there were also new acquaintances to chat with, especially a young woman transiting to England with her mom before completing a post-graduate gap year in Europe. Her enthusiasm for travel and learning about international cultures is inspiring.
Pre-dinner, we caught another of Chief Alcohol Officer Niño’s cocktail demonstrations in the Good Spirits At Sea bar, which specializes in destination-based cocktails uniquely designed for Princess Cruise Line by world-renowned master mixologist Rob Floyd.
Niño is from the Philippines, but worked for a time at Bangkok’s Sheepshank Public House, where he learned all about Thai whiskey, a whiskey/rum hybrid that is even sweeter than bourbon. While mixing today’s drink, he entertained us with great stories about adapting to the Thai culture while living and working there, shopping for Kaffir limes and other fresh produce at the famous Floating Market, eating amazing foods new to him, and perusing the night markets.
The featured drink was a Bangkok Mule, made with 1-1/2 ounces of Jack Daniels whiskey, 3/4 ounces of lime juice, ginger and lemongrass syrup, and 2-3 dashes of Angostura bitters, all thoroughly shaken with ice and then strained over fresh ice and a couple of ounces of Gosling’s ginger beer in a highball glass. The method of pouring the alcohol mixture OVER the carbonated element is called the Shaolin method. The final garnish on the glass was a wheel of lime and a sprig of basil or mint that is also rubbed on the rim of the glass to add a tantalizing aroma to the first sip.
In a funny – and very flattering – turn of events, in Good Spirits we met Patti and John, who recognized us from our blog! That’s the first time that has ever happened, and made us feel a bit like celebrities. It was interesting to be able to chat about travel with another couple who are nomadic like us. Maybe, if we’re lucky, John will reinstate their blog and we’ll be able to benefit from their experiences as we plan more of our own.
All too quickly it was time to get ready for our dinner in the Concerto main dining room.
Tonight’s entertainment was another of Princess’ production shows, featuring their own troupe of singers and dancers. “Sweet Soul Music” featured hits from Motown and beyond, in a show that had many of us singing along and dancing in our seats. Not only was the singing and dancing really great, but – surprise! – the stage floor had an entire section that moved up and down to bring the cast up from below! It really is a stage worthy of any theatre on land.
DAY TWO I was determined to be up in time for the morning’s Behind the Seas: Life at Sea presentation by our Cruise Director Alexandra (Allie) Ambriano and Entertainment Director Martin Moss.
In fact, I ended up being awake for breakfast foods (a made to order spinach and jalapeño omelette) still available on the buffet, and the morning “enrichment talk” about the Boeing 737 MAX: Fact or Fiction. I’m honestly not sure why the talks on this cruise have all been air travel related, as opposed to all the potential subjects related to our route and destinations, from flora and fauna to culture and geography. I’d assumed it was simply to do with who was available to speak on the crossing, but it turns out this speaker has done presentations on many Princess cruises. This is only the second of his talks that I’ve attended, and, while the topics themselves were quite interesting, unfortunately I found his manner somewhat condescending to his audience. He couldn’t seem to hide the fact that he believed he was the smartest person in the room. To be fair, he was an experienced ex-USAF Desert Storm pilot who has also flown for and worked with several major commercial airlines, and an expert in his field – it’s just that he seemed to need to remind us of that at every turn, and especially during his Q&A session. Amusingly, he referred to several other experts as “legends in their own minds”. Pot, meet kettle.
Oh, well. Not every speaker can be equally engaging, or equally interesting to everyone on board. Like most things, it’s subjective, and this is just my opinion. The ex-military guys in the audience were certainly very engaged with the speaker.
I think I just got spoiled with the quality and variety of expert speakers (from astronauts to diplomats to professors in various disciplines) on Viking, but I have to give Princess kudos for providing educational talks as part of their shipboard entertainment options.
The second morning presentation was much more fun, both for its relevance to our actual voyage, and for the personalities involved. Both Allie and Martyn are excellent at what they do, but neither take themselves too seriously when interacting with passengers.
These Question and Answer sessions with ship’s officers are always incredibly informative.
Martyn and Allie began the session with a bit of personal background.
Martyn was a Cruise Director for many years before becoming Entertainment Director, and his British sense of humour and self-effacing manner are incredibly engaging. He told us that he began his “real” work life as a policeman in Lancashire, England, then as a salesman – and briefly a ski bum – before joining a cruise line as an onboard retail shop worker. After his first 9 month contract on Premier Cruise Lines in the stores, he was recruited into a role as cruise staff (as opposed store staff). When Premier went bankrupt in 2000, he worked on Cunard’s QEII and Queen Mary… joking that he’s somehow gone from being a Queen to being a Princess. At 55 years old, he has now spent more than 25 years in the cruise industry.
Allie told us that in her case she was “in the right place, at the right time, with the right skill set” after the pandemic. She studied theatre and journalism at Rutgers, and interned for NBC news at 30 Rock from graduation until the 2016 election, simultaneously dancing in shows off Broadway. The disconnect she felt between journalism/news and opinion/bias helped convince her to choose acting as a career instead of news. She became “Fortuna Luck”, a sassy Italian character from New Jersey (playing to type!) on Princess cruise ships as an entertainer, and had her first opportunity to be Acting Cruise Director when the CD on one of her voyages became ill. She fit the role so well that she was later given the job full time.
On to information about the ship. There are 1344 crew on the Regal Princess. 64 nations are represented, including 500+ Filipinos, with East Indians and Indonesians comprising the two next largest groups. Martyn explained that there are 3 major departments: 1100 crew working in the hotel, with the hotel officers wearing white uniforms with gold & white stripes; black and gold in navigation; burgundy and gold in engineering. The single environmental officer has green and gold stripes, and medical officers have red and gold.
“Technical” staff (non officers, in all departments) share cabins, with every 2 cabins sharing a bathroom. Petty officers also share cabins, but with a private bathroom per cabin. Staff cabins are on decks 3 and 4, plus aft on decks 7 through 14. Officers ranked as having one stripe or more get a private (not shared) cabin. A two stripe ranking rates a window – but that does not necessarily mean outside, since “window” can mean a porthole looking at a hallway. At three stripes and higher the cabins get progressively bigger.
Crew are almost all paid in US dollars – except those from the UK, Canada, and Australia, who are paid in their own currencies.
We learned that there is no restriction on crew members being involved romantically, although crew are prohibited from becoming involved with passengers during voyages. Martyn commented on the fact that relationships can fast-track in such an enclosed ship environment, to the extent that “after just a couple of months together couples already have children and mortgages….”
Q: To whom are the included crew gratuities distributed? A: Food and beverage staff and housekeeping staff.
Q: Can married couples work on a ship together? A: Yes. In fact, any two crew members can choose to be “linked” for purposes of coordinated contracts.
Q: Is the natural career progression from Cruise Director to Entertainment Director? A: Yes, as long as you wait around long enough for the Entertainment Director to die. Yup, Allie said it!
Q: Does Princess have a pension program? Yes, for “ranked” staff, at age fifty-six. U.S. staff also have the option to invest in a 401K.
Q: What do you do on vacation? A: Martyn: The jobs his wife has saved for him. Allie: Sleep.
Q: How much influence do you have over which guest entertainers come on board? A: As Entertainment Director, Martyn can make band and entertainer requests, but the final booking is done at the corporate level.
Q: Does the Entertainment Director organize weddings on board? A: No, there is a separate staff member in charge of that. Princess Cruises can have legally valid weddings because of their Bermudian ship registration.
Q: What are crew contract lengths? A: As of 2015, the maximum allowed contract length is 10 months. Crew from Indonesia and the Philippines often do 9 months. Junior officers generally work 4 months at a time, higher ranked officers 239 out of 365 days, and deck crew generally 3 months on and 3 months off. In many countries, merchant seamen who are out of their home country for 6 months or more do not have to pay income tax in their home country.
That brought us to the end of the session, and time for another noon-hour time change. We’ll have one more jump forward between Lisbon and Bilbao, and then a drop one hour backward between Cherbourg and Southampton.
Since it’s still windy and a chilly 16°C/60°F outside, the indoor venues are all pretty full. I had to find a chair in the Vista Lounge/Comedy Club to read, all the while trying to ignore the Snowball Jackpot Bingo. That’s when I realized that Destination Expert Veni Shykin was presenting a talk entitled “Why I Love AI”… so off to the PrincessLive! theatre space.
Veni is a big fan of AI. He was quick to explain that he’s not an I.T. guy, but just a user. As a historian by education, Veni sees AI as just one more fantastic invention, like the wheel, that has the potential to enhance the quality of human life, and his enthusiasm for the technology is pretty contagious.
His presentation used images that he had almost exclusively generated himself using Artificial Intelligence, including images that helped to explain how a machine “learns” to combine many individual pieces of knowledge into a conglomerate – a bit like the way we teach children to “layer” details in a drawing to create a complete image.
He talked about my personal favourite piece of AI: Siri, on my iPad and iPhone. “My” Siri has the voice of a posh British butler, which makes me smile every time I talk to “him”. Of course, on a non-verbal level, Roomba vacuums also use AI, and I’m a fan of those too!
Veni had a lot of fun showing us obviously AI generated photos of real people, like Pope Francis wearing Balenciaga’s parkas, but he also talked about the dangers of not recognizing real vs AI-generated photographic “evidence” (hint: count people’s fingers!).
The second last part of his talk focussed on whether or not we should be scared of AI, especially with regard to how our children interact with computers. Veni opined that kids (including his own 4 year old) need to learn with and on computers to function in our technological world, but also need to have plenty of non-screen time in order to develop real human empathy. He did say, though, that kids may actually be reading more and not less because of the text involved in computer game instructions!
Finally, Veni demonstrated a couple of programs that he uses regularly: Leonardo AI to generate brand new images using simple text, and Adobe Photoshop 2024 to edit photos, including adding or removing elements. Fun!!
Lots of folks had questions after the presentation, but we had to vacate the room for one of the MANY daily trivia events! Wow, folks really love trivia!
For dinner tonight, we returned to the Symphony main dining room. Same menu, different decor.
Top R: French onion soup. Bottom L: fettuccine Alfredo with chicken.
Bottom R: porcini mushroom risotto.
Our evening ended with the “second half” of The Trawlermen’s set from two nights ago: more folk and traditional sounds, and a second chance to sit with, and talk with, Pam and Beau.
Tomorrow we’re in Lisbon, taking a half day (morning) walking tour, so it’s early to bed.
Rose and Ted’s Excellent Adventure 