Transatlantic Cruise: Part 1 of 2 - March 9th to 15th, 2025

To get to Europe, we took a Princess 15 day Transatlantic cruise on the Sky Princess, called the Moroccan Passage. The cruise started in Fort Lauderdale Florida and ended in Southampton England, with three ports of call along the way. This post covers our experience on board for the first week. Part 2 will cover our second week on board. The post after that will be a ship tour of the Sky Princess. There will also be a separate post for each port of call.

We hate to fly. Ann’s long legs don’t fit in an airline seat very well. We flew economy class over to Europe in 2018 and Ann’s hip has been bothering her ever since. As she would like to be able to walk when she arrives, Ann refuses to fly to Europe again unless it is business class or first class. For about the same price, we can take a transatlantic cruise where we have two weeks of food and entertainment, a comfortable place to sleep, a few ports of call, and no jet lag. It was an easy decision.

Sunday was the day we boarded the Sky Princess. After breakfast at the hotel, we packed up and ordered an Uber at 10:30 am. Boarding time was from 11 am to 2:30 pm. Daylight Savings Time started over night, so we lost an hour. It’s a good thing that we got an early start, because it took over half an hour for the Uber to reach Port Everglades Terminal 2, due to all of the cruise ship traffic. Sky Princess was not the only ship setting sail that day.

A person took our luggage right from the trunk of the Uber car and onto the hundreds of baggage carts in the drop off area. Of course, the staff was looking for a tip. We could have carried our luggage through security ourselves, but it was worth it to be waited on.

It took about 45 minutes to get through the security line, then another half hour to get checked in. We were in the Blue Line, since we opted to not have our Medallions shipped to us ahead of time. If we had, it might have saved us about ten to 15 minutes. At check in, they checked our passports, cruise tickets, and our ETA (Electronic Travel Authorisation). The ETA is a new requirement by the United Kingdom. It is similar to a Visa, but they claim it is not a Visa. You fill out a form online along with pictures of yourself, pay your small fee, and wait for acceptance, which typically only takes a couple of days. The ETA is good for two years.

We boarded the ship around 12:20 pm. Boarding takes you onto Deck 5. Our rooms and luggage would not be ready until 1:30 pm. There were several places to have lunch, but we opted to head up to Deck 16 to the World Fresh Marketplace buffet, to get away from the crowds of people on the lower decks.

As you enter into the buffet area, there are handwashing stations, with an attendant encouraging everyone to use them. The buffet was huge. We could eat every meal at the buffet and not get bored.

After a delicious lunch, our room was ready. So we went down to Deck 9 to check out the room. We had a balcony room, about mid ship, on the starboard (right) side. The room was nice. There was a queen sized bed, a desk, a large closet area, and a compact bathroom. The bathroom is smaller than a hotel room bathroom but much larger than the bathroom we are used to in our RV (a Winnebago EKKO).

Our luggage had not yet arrived at the room. So while we were waiting, we sat in the room and watched the required safety video. Then we found our muster station and reported in, which was required to be done before 2:00 pm. When we returned to our room, our bags had finally arrived. That made us feel better. We didn’t want the ship to leave the port without knowing if our luggage was on board.

We went up to Deck 16, by the pool area, to listen to live music, as part of the Sail Away party. We bought a couple of Coke’s. We don’t have the drink package, so we paid about $3.54 a piece for them. Some of the ship’s talent did a little dance number on the pool deck. We were scheduled to depart at 3:00 pm, but the ship didn’t start pulling away until 3:30 pm. There were lovely views of Fort Lauderdale as we sailed away.

Afterwards, we wandered around some of the ship decks. On decks 16, 17, and 18, there were several swimming pools, mini golf, a sports court for basketball and/or pickle ball, a jogging track, a fitness center, and a teen and youth center in addition to a bar, pizza and hot dog stand, and the World Fresh Marketplace where we had lunch. Down on decks 5, 6, and 7 are the shops, main dining rooms and restaurants, and entertainment venues. This was also where Guest Services was located. Most of the decks in-between were mainly guest rooms.

We were having trouble making dinner reservations in the Cielo Dining Room, on Deck 6 at the back. It said some slots were open, but kept giving us an error when we tried to reserve it. So we waited in line at the Guest Services desk and finally were able to book a reservation at 5:30 pm.

Dinner was wonderful. We opted for a shared table so we could meet others on the ship. Our table sat six people, so we had a lovely two hours with Carol and Robert from Wales and Scott and Karen from Golden, Colorado. For dinner we both had the pork loin. Keith paired his main dish with a Greek salad but Ann doesn’t remember what her appetizer was called other than delicious. For dessert, Ann opted for the flourless chocolate cake while Keith had the crème brûlée.

To work off some of those calories, we walked a few laps around the jogging track. Seven times around was equal to one mile. It was already dark outside and there was a nice breeze to keep us cool. We were surprised that we could see about half a dozen other ships out on the water with us.

At 9:30 pm, we went to the Princess Theater down on Decks 6 and 7 to watch Brent and Sarah’s Comedy Magic Show. The show was 45 minutes long. It was cute and entertaining.

By the time the show was over, we were ready to call it a night. Before going to bed, Ann took a shower and hand washed her dirty clothes. She had skipped washing the night before, as she didn’t want to pack damp clothes when we left the hotel.

We felt no movement on the ship on Sunday, the first day, but very slight movement on Monday, day 2, the first full day on the ocean. It was enough movement that the empty hangers in the closet would rock and bang against the wall. So before we went to bed on Monday, we pulled the empty hangers out and left them on the floor, so the noise wouldn’t keep us awake.

For breakfast Monday, we went up to Deck 16 to the World Fresh Marketplace. The breakfast buffet was just as massive as the lunch buffet the day before. Ann’s only complaint was that the orange juice was too sweet. Luckily, there were other drink options.

After breakfast, we relaxed on our balcony. Ann wrote up her notes about the previous day. Keith sent a check in message to our kids using our Garmin InReach (paid link) via satellite. We didn’t pay for the wifi while we were at sea. Our plan is to keep in touch via satellite, and if something comes up that requires us to get on the internet or exchange emails, then we will pay the $30 per day per device charge.

At 10 am, we went down to Deck 7 to listen to the Shore Excursions Live Tour Presentation in the Princess Theater. We have been avoiding the elevators and using the stairs. Having our room on Deck 9 meant that we were only going up six flights (there is no Deck 13) to get to Deck 16, or down four flights to get to Deck 5 (there aren’t any public areas below that except for Medical on Deck 4).

The Medallion that we got at check-in is used quite a bit. You are supposed to keep it on you at all times. They give you a lanyard by default, but you can buy other types of holders, such as a wristband, so you can wear it like a watch.

The Medallion transmits your location. This is used by the room attendant, so they know when you have left your room and they can clean it while you are gone, which they do twice a day. That seems a little excessive to us, but, at least they don’t change out the towels unless you leave them on the floor.

There is local wifi on the ship, where you can add a shipmate, like someone else in your travel party, so you can send text messages to each other and locate each other on the ship via the Medallion and the Princess phone app. That’s very convenient, since the ship is really large.

We had a credit card linked to our Medallion, so we could purchase items on the ship without having to carry around our credit cards. There is a safe inside our room, so we locked up our passports, drivers licenses, credit cards, and cash instead of carrying them around the ship with us.

The Medallion is also used as the room key. It detects when you are approaching your room and unlocks the door for you along with displaying your first name on the small display outside your room. We later learned that the color of the Medallion indicates how many cruises or days spent on a Princess Cruise. There are about a half a dozen to a dozen different levels, with the black Medallion being the highest level. Ours was clear, indicating this was our first cruise.

We were having troubles getting the messages and location finder to work in the Princess app. At first, we were both logged into the same Princess account, so the app on Ann’s phone thought she was Keith. Ann created her own account and linked it to our booking number. However, we were still having troubles with messages and the location finder along with the errors in making dinner reservations. So we headed over to Guest Services again. They couldn’t get the messages and location finder to work either, but they reported the problem to tech support. Later in the day, everything seemed to be working.

Evidently, many people were having problems with the dinner reservations and Guest Services suggested we walk over to the dining room to make reservations in person. What a concept! We went to the Ceilo Dining Room, where we ate the evening before, and got someone to reserve us a shared table spot for 5 pm in the Soleil Dining Room. He told us to meet him at the entrance at 5 pm.

At noon, the ship clocks advanced an hour. The captain came onto the loud speaker to inform everyone of the time change and what time zone to set our phones and watches to. The documentation we had received so far was to not have our phones and laptops automatically set the time and time zone, but set it manually every time the ship time changes. We started out being set to the time zone of Miami Florida. Now we were on Buenos Aires, Argentina.

For lunch, we went up to Deck 16 to Slice, where they served pizza. This was the fast food pizza that was included in the base package. There was another pizzeria, Alfredo’s Pizzeria down on Deck 7, but there was an extra charge for that one. The pizza at Slice was pretty good. We tried both their pepperoni and the vegetarian. It had a nice New York style crust, the type that we like. We walked into the buffet area to get some iced tea. We didn’t have the drink package, but there was free ice water, iced tea, and lemonade.

For dessert, we tried to get some soft serve ice cream, but the machine wasn’t working and needed about 45 minutes for the next batch to be ready. So we went back to our room for a little while before coming back to get a treat. The ice cream wasn’t anything special, but it was cold and refreshing.

In the afternoon, we went up to the jogging track and walked a couple of miles to get some exercise, then we came back to our room to freshen up for dinner. Ann took a shower and washed her clothes. She’s found that it is easier for her to take her clothes with her into the shower and wash them as she showers than washing them in the sink. Keith still prefers doing the hand wash in the sink.

Dinner was in the Soleil Dining Room on Deck 5. The menu is the same in all three dining rooms, but each dining room has its own character. The Ceilo Dining Room takes reservations for multiple time slots throughout the evening for either a shared table or a private table and you can pick a different time each evening. The Soleil Dining Room only has two seatings, 5 pm and 7:30 pm. You are assigned the same table, at the same time, with the same waiters every night. The Estrella Dining Room is walk-in, with no reservations.

We were assigned table 67, which sat eight people. We were the first ones to arrive. Henri and Jacalyn from Utah joined us a few minutes later. The staff waited a little while for the other three people to show up before taking our order. The other three never showed, so we ate without them. Henri was born and raised in Casablanca Morocco, so he had some nice stories to tell. Ann had the Mexican salad, prime rib, and carrot cake, while Keith ate the pork terrine, Grandma’s coq du vin, and cheese cake. While most of the menu changes every day, there are also some items, under Princess Favorites, that are available every day.

After dinner, we went to the Princess Theater for the Branden & James show. They are a musical duo of a vocalist and a cello player. They were very talented and performed a very entertaining show. After the show, we returned to our rooms. We watched one YouTube video that we had previously downloaded, then hit the sack.

Tuesday, Day 3 of our cruise, there was a little more movement on the ship, but still not too bad. There were occasions where we felt like we were drunk as we walked down the hallways, involuntarily drifting side to side with the sway of the boat.

We were started to get into a routine. Breakfast was in the buffet. We had fruit smoothies this time. Now that was much better than the overly sweet orange juice from the day before.

After breakfast, we hung out on our balcony until the morning Enrichment program in the Princess Theater. While in our room, we charged our watches and sent a daily check in message to our kids via our Garmin InReach. Today’s Enrichment program was the Real Pirates of the Caribbean.

Then we hung out on our balcony again until lunch at the buffet. The captain gave his noon announcements again, but this time we didn’t change our clocks. Then it was back to our room to hang out again. Ann worked on a video while Keith took a nap. Hopefully, that doesn’t indicate how boring her video is.

A little later, we headed back up to Deck 16. Ann went up to the jogging track to walk a couple of miles while Keith hung out at a table in the shade near the pool. After getting all sweaty, despite the strong winds keeping her cool, Ann went back to the room to shower and hand wash her clothes.

Then it was time for dinner. It was formal night and we weren’t sure if they would let us in. As we passed through the Piazza on Deck 5, they were setting up the champagne glasses for the Captain’s Champagne Waterfall. Unfortunately, we were not done with dinner in time to see the event at 6:15 pm.

There were quite a few people dressed up, but not many, if any, tuxedos. However, there were also others who were dressed rather casually. No one seemed to care what others were wearing and Princess didn’t seem to be enforcing any rules. We seemed to fit right in. Ann was in her leggings, hiking shirt, and Teva sandals while Keith had a button down shirt with his hiking pants and trail runners.

In addition to Henri and Jacalyn, the other three guests assigned to our table showed up. They were Chris, Chris, and Theresa. Chris and Chris were married and one of them was Theresa’s brother. The two Chrises were from Seattle, Washington while Theresa was from Nashville. Everyone at the table were veteran cruisers, so it was nice to learn some pointers from their experiences.

Dinner took over an hour and a half. The dinner service always seemed rather slow, but that gives us more time to carry on long conversations with our table mates. It is rather impressive that they are able to serve a sit down dinner for so many guests with fresh, hot food to order.

Ann paired her duck a l’orange with a cold melon soup while Keith paired his with a seared goat cheese appetizer. For dessert, Ann chose the Love Boat, which was a chocolate covered heart filled with strawberry mousse. Keith had the berry mousse.

Every night with dinner, Keith had his daily beer. So far, he’s been alternating between an IPA and a Stella Artois. That is somewhat unusual, since he normally isn’t a big fan of IPA’s. Since we don’t have the drink package, we are charged $9.44 for each beer.

By the time we finished dinner, it was time for the evening show. After a quick stop at a bathroom, we headed straight over to the Princess Theater and arrived around 6:45 pm. The show didn’t start until 7:30, but the theater was already pretty full. We’re glad we didn’t wait.

Tonight’s entertainment was called the Spotlight Bar. It was a musical production, with a large cast of talented vocalists and dancers. It was our favorite show so far.

After the show, we walked over to the Vista Lounge at the opposite end of the ship to check out the Silent Disco. It had been going on since 7 pm and would be over at 9 pm. Keith doesn’t dance, but Ann thought she might join them for the last half an hour. Guests put on head phones and dial in the station that matches their music preference. The headphones light up a different color for each station, so you can see who else on the dance floor is listening to the same station. For some reason, it didn’t really seem to appeal to Ann that evening, so we went back to our room. After backing up the photo and video footage from the day, we watched another downloaded YouTube video. Then we turned in for the night.

We woke up to cloudy skies and rougher seas on Wednesday, Day 4. After a buffet breakfast and relaxing on our balcony, we went down to the Enrichment Program. This one was Galileo to Hubble - The Evolution of the Telescope.

Afterwards, for a change of scenery, we went to the Cielo Dining Room for the Quite Reading Room hours (10 am to 3 pm). There were drinks and snacks available there while we spent time on our laptop and iPad. However, we didn’t partake in the refreshments this time. We were not lacking for calories on this cruise.

For lunch, we also tried something new, the Salty Dog. It is near the Slice pizza place on Deck 16 with the pool. Ann had the classic burger while Keith tried the chicken sandwich, both paired with fries. Ann was surprised Keith didn’t get a hot dog, as he is usually a big fan of them. The sandwiches were OK, but we both felt the pizza at Slice was better.

As it was starting to lightly rain, Ann decided to walk all the public areas of the ship. She started with the mini golf on Deck 18 and worked her way down. However, after 49 minutes and 2.3 miles, she only made it through Deck 12. The rest of the decks will have to wait for another day. She did discover the Wedding Chapel and the Concierge Lounge in the mid deck of Deck 14.

We hung out in the pool area for a little while, listening to an acoustic guitar player. It was not quite what we were expecting, as he had a recorded accompaniment and we couldn’t see him very well through the colored glass railing. So it didn’t really feel that much different than the recorded music that they sometimes have playing in that area.

Then the rain came. At times it was a downpour. We retreated to our room until dinner. Instead of going to the dining room, we decided to try the buffet for dinner. We knew that the other members of our usual table in the dining room were not going to be there because they had other activities they wanted to attend, so we didn’t want to sit at a large table by ourselves. The buffet was OK, but probably not as good as what was being served in the dining room that evening.

Right after dinner, we went down to get a seat in the Princess Theater for the 7:30 pm show. It was a comedian, Carl Strong. We knew it would be crowded because the Princess app would not let us bookmark the event. We’re assuming that meant there were more people who had already bookmarked it than there were seats in the theater. There was a repeat performance at 9:30 pm, but we didn’t want to go that late. So we showed up at the theater at 6:40 pm. We had no problem finding a seat then, but we were not the only ones there. By 7 pm, the theater was pretty full, although we believe people were still able to find a few seats left by around 7:15 pm. But we were right, the theater did fill to capacity. Carl Strong was a great entertainer and he had us laughing the whole 45 minutes of his show.

The Princess app is nice for looking up what all the different events are for the day. Once you figure out what types of things you like, you can use the search function to easily find them. Then you can bookmark the ones you want to go to and they show up in My Journey. We don’t really care for most of the activities, but focused in on the Enrichment programs and the shows. However, scanning through the list is how we found the Quiet Reading Room in the Cielo Dining Room. So it does help to browse the full listing.

After the comedian show, we walked over to the Crown Grill Bar. Keith had is daily beer, a Grolsch this time, while Ann had a glass of Chardonnay wine. There was some live music playing, but they finished their set before we finished our drinks. Keith took a picture of the beer selection so he could order something different at dinner the next evening.

We woke up to partly cloudy skies on Thursday, Day 5, but the seas were much calmer than the past couple of days. Our daily routine continued with the buffet for breakfast then back to our balcony for a little while. Then we went back to the Ceilo Dining Room for the Quiet Reading Room before heading up to the buffet again for lunch. We weren’t interested in the Enrichment Program for that morning, so we skipped it.

After lunch, Ann continued her walk of the rest of the ship, picking up where she left off the day before, on Deck 11. She discovered a couple of small secluded deck lounges, one on each side of the ship, near the aft on Deck 7. She even went down to Deck 4 to see where the Medical Center was. There are no public areas below Deck 4. The second half of the ship took her 49 minutes to cover the 2.4 miles.

Ann met Keith up by the pool for a soft serve cone from Swirl. Then we headed back down to the Quiet Reading Room. From there, Ann went to the afternoon matinee show in the Princess Theater. The show featured Nathan Chester, a vocalist from Chicago. He sang mostly Motown tunes like Smokey Robinson, but then surprisingly ended the set with an Italian opera. He had an impressive voice.

After hanging out on our balcony a little more, we went down for dinner, back at the Soleil Dining Room at our assigned table 67 at 5:00 pm. Henri and Jackie joined us, but the other three had conflicting plans again. Dinner was excellent as usual. Keith had the Chinese dumplings along with seared scallops while Ann ate the plantain chips with guacamole as her appetizer and pulled pork as her entrée. We both had soufflé for dessert. For Keith’s beer, he ordered the Peroni Nastro Azzuro, an Italian lager.

The show for the evening was Colin Barkell from New York. He performed rock-n-roll tunes, singing and playing guitar, combined with Irish dancing. Colin was ranked in the top ten in the world for Irish dancing. It was a rather unique combination. He had a nice deep voice which paired well with his selection of Johnny Cash tunes. We ended the evening by watching a couple of YouTube videos.

Friday, Day 6, was cloudy and slightly cooler, but the seas were still calm. After a buffet breakfast, we spent the morning on the internet. We signed up for one day of internet for one device at a time, for a price of $29.99. You connect to Medallion Net, then go to login.com and enter your room number and date of birth. Ann had 183 emails to download. She opened both Lightroom and Final Cut Pro so that her licenses would refresh (Final Cut Pro had already substituted fonts, as it couldn’t verify her font license).

The main reason we wanted internet was that we had a PDF document that Ann needed to sign. We were able to AirDrop the PDF document over to Keith’s iPad, sign it in blue ink using the iPad pencil, then Air Dropped it back so Ann could return it via email. After Ann got through all her emails, we transferred the internet connection to Keith’s iPad so he could download some more YouTube videos. We had already watched all the ones he previously downloaded. The internet connection was not fantastic, but was sufficient. So it took a while for the downloads.

At noon, the daily Captain’s announcement informed us to switch our clocks yet again. This time we switched to Ponta Delgada Portugal to lose another hour. After a pizza lunch from Slice, Ann went for her daily two mile walk. This time she was back on the jogging track.

While Keith went to the fitness center to work out, Ann went to the Secret Language of Ships presentation where she learned about all the markings and flags on the ship. She found the pictures of the ship’s stabilizers and electric motors interesting. Cruise ships nowadays don’t need tug boats when docking because the electric motors in the front rotate and there are thrusters in the back to easily guide the boat sideways into the dock.

At dinner, everyone showed up at our table. Chris & Chris had gotten up around 4 am to see the total lunar eclipse. We thought about it but decided not to. They reported that it was mostly cloudy and they only saw a couple of minutes at the start of the eclipse, but nothing after that. We’re glad we slept instead.

During dinner, the captain announced that there was a whale off the starboard side. A bunch of people got up from their seats to try to get a peak out the windows. Ann didn’t have her camera with her, but we didn’t see the whale anyway. For dinner, we both had the papaya soup for an appetizer, while our entrées were cod for Keith and tandoori chicken for Ann. Ann’s dessert was rum custard with chocolate sauce while Keith’s was a mango strudel.

Right after dinner, we headed straight for the Princess Theater to get a seat. We were there around 7 pm and the place was already pretty full. It was another fully packed house by the time the show started. The show was Anna and Oliver, a duo of acrobats. They were very talented, but it seemed like they struggled to put a full 45 minute show together. Several parts of the show were a little weak. It was entertaining, but not our favorite show so far.

Afterwards, we walked to the other end of the ship to the Vista Lounge to sit down for a drink and listen to a Tribute to Adele with Duo Encanto. They played an electric violin and cello. Ann drank a virgin strawberry daiquiri while Keith enjoyed a Heineken. Then we returned to our room to watch one of our newly downloaded YouTube videos before calling it a night.

Saturday, Day 7, was clear skies and calm seas. Temperatures, just like every other day at sea, were in the 70’s. We planned on trying the Estrella Dining Room for breakfast, but didn’t get up in time. They only serve breakfast until 9 am.

Instead we went back to the buffet. We are such creatures of habit. Despite the wide variety of food at the buffet, Ann had settled in on having the same thing every morning. Her breakfast consisted of scrambled eggs, bacon, plain yogurt topped with granola and pumpkin seeds, fresh fruit (usually cantaloupe and pineapple), a croissant, and a fruit smoothie. Then she would go back for a pastry, such as a danish or muffin, and another fruit smoothie (they were small). Keith, who normally doesn’t eat breakfast, had worked his way back down to only having a coffee and a croissant with jam. We even sat in about the same place every morning, a window seat on the starboard side near the front half of the buffet. That made it easier to find each other after going through the buffet lines.

Then there was an announcement that the Madiera port of call was cancelled. We were staying south of a storm and going to Santa Cruz de Tenerife in the Canary Islands instead. It is part of Spain instead of Portugal. They put together a set of excursions and information about the port in just a few hours.

Princess automatically refunded the money for our Madiera excursion, then we turned around and booked a new one for Tenerife for about the same amount, the Panoramic Las Canadas National Park. It was a half day bus trip to a large, volcanic crater. That left the afternoon to get a walk in around town before boarding the ship again. We were able to book the excursion through the Princess App on our phones. No need to go to the excursion desk. Our tickets were in our room that evening.

The Princess app can do just about anything. We’ve already mentioned that you can explore the ship map, found a route to a destination, book excursions, browse the ship schedule, bookmark an event, chat with a ship mate, and locate a ship mate. In addition, you can browse the information about a port of call, look at a detailed list of your extra charges so far, order beverages and food to have them delivered to wherever you are, and request an amenity like a bath robe or laundry service.

We didn’t go to any events during the day this time. Keith hung out most of the day in the Quiet Reading Room on Deck 6 until he went to work out in the fitness center in the late afternoon. Ann shot a video in the room, then went for a walk around the jogging track.

We decided to mix it up for dinner and try Alfredo’s Pizzeria. Alfredo’s is not included with the base package, so we had to pay extra to eat there. They did not take reservations, it was walk-in only. However, there were plenty of open tables. Keith had the antipasto, the hot honey pizza (a specialty pizza), and, of course, the Peroni Nastro Azzuro, the Italian lager. Ann ordered the vegetarian pizza. We both had tiramisu for dessert. The pizzas were made to order with a New York style crust, very tasty. We were both charged $17.69 in the Folio section of our Princess App. But the line item said “Alfredo Cover Charge”, so we’re not sure if it was a flat rate to eat there or they just cut our total bill in half and charged us that way. Either way, it seemed like a reasonable price until you consider that we were not eating the included dinner from the dining room.

As we were sitting there enjoying our meal, we noticed a small deck lounge outside the restaurant window. We hadn’t noticed that area before. We’re on Day 7 and still discovering new areas of the ship.

It was our second formal night, and there were photographers everywhere on Decks 5, 6, & 7. It was hard to navigate the elegant staircases around the Piazza because that is where most of the photographers liked to pose the guests for photographs.

After dinner, we headed to the Princess Theater for the evening show. It started a little earlier than usual, at 7 pm instead of 7:30 pm. The entertainment was the vocal duo Ebony & Ivory with their In the Groove show. The duo was Nathan Chester and his fiancee Emily Viancourt. Ann saw Nathan Chester a couple days prior in his solo show. Although she liked his solo show, Ann felt the duo had a stronger and more entertaining show. Maybe it was just that she liked the music better. The tunes of all of the shows seem to be geared toward the generation of the majority of passengers on board, our generation. It was nice to be entertained with the music we grew up with. We ended the day as usual, by watching a couple of downloaded YouTube videos.

The first week of our cruise was under our belts, perhaps more literally than we would have liked, despite getting plenty of exercise. The food was excellent, the entertainment was wonderful, and Keith managed to not get any sea sickness. The week at sea was not boring and we found the days enjoyable so far. But we were looking forward to seeing what the ports of call would be like. We were ready for week two.

Check out our related video: Transatlantic Cruise: Part 1 of 2

(Ann)