3rd and 4th Sea Day

Well yesterday was an amazing day, it started out with John winning a drink of the day on the morning show and in the afternoon we Won Trivia!!! That sure tickled all of us, and we were in a tie too at the end. But our tie breaking question, was how many women out of 10 buy shoes that are too small? We put down 7, I told them it was 9, and when the other team said 4, I knew we won,,, and the answer was 9!! So we all walked away with passport holders,,,,, yaaa,,, Bragging rights that was the prize!
Last night we went to the early Production Show, Motor City. It was very good, and I loved the music, I'm sure it was because it was from when we were young, and in Hawaii. We then went to dinner and once again had a good dinner and then went on to a very good comedian magician, Jean Boucher, he did some amazing things, and he was funny too.

So this morning we slept in tell about seven, and watched the morning show and Linda won the drink of the day!!! Wow since seeing the rainbow it has been very lucky for us.
Ed is at the lecture "Who is my Mother" with Michael Bishay, I will be interested to hear what that was about.
Ed is then going on to Dr Glick on "Why the Russians need a Czar" So I am catching up here and then maybe read, it will have to be inside, as it is raining. I am not interested in doing Hula Dance so I will meet Ed for lunch,,,, eat and eat some more, but it seems we may have a bit of Noro on the ship as they have started serving us in Horizon Court. Lots of very old and people who don't seem to be all that well on the ship too. God bless them.

More later.

Second Sea Day

Today we awoke at 06:30, and what did we see right outside our balcony,,, a rainbow,,, so close we could almost touch it. So then we got ready to do The Ultimate Ships Tour, at 08:30 We went down to the International cafe, to have a cappuccino and a coffee and egg muffin. While we were eating we met a couple that had just been on the cruise before this one and they gave us a lot of info for our South American cruise next year. We will try to meet them again, later.
So at 08:30 we met our guide and proceeded on to the tour. We started in the theater, up on the stage, I saw this part before, but it was still very interesting.
Then we went to the bow of the ship, to see the anchors and all the paraphernalia that it takes to put out the anchor, and the ropes that hold the ship at the dock. I knew they were big, but seeing them up close and personal, was really something.
Then it was on to the kitchen. Now when we did the Chefs table, we got to go in the kitchen, but this time it was much deeper, all the way down to deck 2, it is just amazing how large an area it is that holds all the stores for the ship. And all the food is from the States! It is shipped in, by container, to meet the ship. We were not allowed to take pictures, or even bring our cameras, so I have nothing to show you.
We then moved on to the meat prep area, and the Chef told us about how many people work there and how they keep it all clean and, separate. One of the guys cutting up chickens, can cut up a whole chicken in less then two minutes!

I will let Ed take over here on some of the other things, as the next stop was the engine control room. Two of the engineers briefed us on operation of the fresh water generation from sea water system, the integrated electrical generation and distribution, and the ship propulsion system. The ship has six large Diesel Engines which generate over 60,000KW of electrical power. The ship normally operates on 5 engines during daily operations. The ship also has 6 thrusters, 3 forward and 3 aft. The ship has a fresh water capacity of 750,000 US gals and can produce 500,000 gals per day. Clearly a the capability to support a small community. It was noteworthy to us to understand that the design architecture of the Star Princess or any other Princess ship's electrical distribution was not similar to the Carnival ship design. The engineers also highlighted Princess's redundancy requirements. It was very impressive.

We went to the Photo-lab next to be briefed on their transition to digital operations and implementation of photo recognition technology. We noted that the photo operation was a Princess operation, not a concession. They indicated their goal was to sell at least 50% of the photos. And Cindy told them that maybe if they lowered the price to say $15 more photos would be sold, she said write it up, so we will. We then proceeded to the printing operation to observe the publication of the daily Princess Patter and learned that they have not transition to digital technology due to their concern of the brittle nature of the technology.

We then proceeded to the ship's bridge! Wow what a treat! Our new Captain Lubrano was quite charming and gave us a good tour of the Bridge and gave lots of technical stuff that Ed could tell you, but he is at a lecture, so I will proceed. While on the Bridge we had a magnificent view, of the ocean and the women lay totally necked on dolphin deck!!! That was the end of our tour. Later they brought us robes, aprons, and photos of our day, nice.

First day at sea on the way to LA

Today we awoke about 0800 it was sunny, and warm. Went down to the international cafe, to get breakfast and wait for the time to get a ticket to learn ribbon lei making. There was a long line but I was at the front so I could chose which class time I wanted, we all took the 11:15 today. That was good for me as tomorrow, we are finely on the Ultimate Ships tour,,, we have wanted to do that for some time. We will do that in the morning at 08:30. We are excited about it.
Tonight we are going to see the comedian, Darrell Joyce, at 19:00 and Ed might go to the Movie under the stars and see Mission impossible, Ghost Protocol.
We shall see, LATER

Ribbon Lie making was very good, I can't wait to teach the girls. And the comedian was pretty funny. And dinner was very good again. Everyone was very happy with dinner. The guys are off watching the movie, and the woman are in bed reading or writing in there blog LOL

Bora Bora and Moorea

OK, I am back again, as I said we arrived in Bora Bora, and it was raining hard,,, but by the time we arrived the island on the tenders, it had stopped, Of coarse there were puddles everywhere and it was HOT. It reminded me of Southeast Asia. The local area reminded me of that anyway, lots of french influence, so a lot like Vientiane.
Our tour wasn't until 2:45 so we had lots of time to look around at the pearl stores. Have I mentioned the pearl stores? They have been everywhere, black pearls gold pearls, and pistachio colored pearls. Those last being the most expensive, but none of them are cheap. I found a strand of black pearls that looked modest, and they were $8,000. not modest at all. Not sure I like black pearls.....
Any way when our turn for our tour came it was late,,,, oh well, but we did get a nice island tour around the Island. Because of the weather we did not see the water at it's best for the jewel-like colors it is noted for.
Life here centers around three main villages, Vaitape, Anau and Faanul. Music and dnce are an integral part of the life here. We didn't really see any dance, but we heard music being played as we were brought in.

A French possession since 1888, Bora Bora became an American naval base between 1942 and 1946. You can still view the WWII huts, piers and bunkers, we only saw a bunker from the road and our guide said that when they have a bad storm or cyclone, the people use them as they have extended tunnels.
Along the way Cindy bought a pareo at Mama Ruta's

She didn't buy the guy,,,,, It was fun, and we had a good demonstration, on how to tie Pareo's then we went to a famous beach, Matira Beach, the water was nice, but the beach in my opinion leaves a lot to be desired, for those of us with Hawaii and the outer banks, and Florida, in our history, you would not be that impressed.

Then it was back to the "Le Truck Station" for the end of our tour. We asked the guide how to get back to Bloody Mary's and as luck would have it the shuttle to there was waiting for us, so it was on to the famous watering hole. It was lots of fun, wish we would have had time for dinner, but hay you can't have it all.

Did I mention that the floor is all sand, they ask you to remove your shoes, it was fun, we got a shuttle back to the dock, and boarded the ship about seven. The ship left at 9. And we were on our way to Moorea.