Canada/New England Cruise 2025 - Sea Day #2 (09/13/25)

 

Another sea day, and I wish we could be in port today.  However, we were still at sea, and it'd be another day before we would reach Saint John, NB.

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The day started out with us going downstairs for breakfast, where we encountered lackluster service.  Both of us ordered blueberry pancakes with sides of bacon and sausages.  When breakfast was delivered, the waiter brought the pancakes to our table first (without syrup), then served the table next to us, and finally served us the syrup, with the two servings of sausage and bacon on the same plate. If we had to pay for this service at a local diner, we'd never eat there again. Yet, I'd rather eat here, than in the buffet.

After we rested, we went to the pop-up pizza place for lunch.  This time, I decided to have a non-alcoholic beer with the meal - and I was surprised at how good Heineken Zero tastes.  (It's far from a perfect flavor for beer, but it's close enough to enjoy with a pizza.)  This time, we shared a table with 2 other couples and had a good conversation.  I held back a little on one of my opinions, as it was better to make one's key point in a non-challenging way.

When we finished lunch, it was back to the room again to rest some more.  (Both RQS and I seem to need a bit more rest than usual on this cruise.) Around 6:40, we went down stairs to eat, and had to wait a little bit before being shown to our table.  Again, we struck up a good conversation with the couple at the next table, and we wished we had more time with them.

 

Canada/New England Cruise 2025 - Charlottetown, PE (09/12/25)

 

Today was a big disappointment.  This would be the second cruise we've taken to this port, and we had to skip this port again due to weather conditions.  The last time we were supposed to be here, it was on the heels of a hurricane.  This time, strong winds coming from the wrong direction made it unsafe to make port. (It seems strange that the waters weren't choppy from where we were.  But that's another story.)  So, we had an unexpected sea day, and more time to spend money on the ship's onboard activities.

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We decided to go to the MDR for breakfast today, and service was sloppy.  Although the food was good, I couldn't wait to leave and get back to our cabin to relax.  About 2 hours later I woke up after napping, and then it was time for lunch.  (There often isn't that much to do on sea days, save to relax and eat.) 

Even though this was a sea day and the main dining room was open for lunch, we didn't go there.  Instead, we went to one of the casual dining restaurants staged for lunch in the premises of the evening specialty restaurants.  During the day, Princess's pizza restaurant, Alfredo's, uses Sabbatini's space for its meals - and if one wants a custom personal pizza, this is the place to go at lunch time. Both RQS and I enjoyed our pizzas and wondered whether we'd have enough room in our stomachs to eat at the Crab Shack pop up later in the evening.  Although we could have dessert there, neither of us wanted Tiramisu. (Alfredo's on other ships usually has its own space, as well as O'Malley's gastropub.)  So, it was back to our cabin to rest.

Around 4:00 RQS decided to do laundry.  We still had tokens from our last laundry run on the Ruby Princess, so we hoped that the same tokens would work - they did.  About 90 minutes later, we retrieved our laundry from the dryer, and then proceeded to Crab Shack for dinner.

On the Island Princess, Crab Shack is not a lunch time pop up.  Instead, it is a dinner time venue in a cordoned off section of the buffet.  Other than that, it is the same pop up venue in a different area of the ship than on most Princess ships.  On our last cruise, we ordered the seafood bucket for two.  This time, we both ordered the seafood pots which contained clams, mussels, shrimp and crab (claws and legs).  It was tasty as expected.  Next time, we'll try the seafood boil for comparison.  

Once done with our meal, it was back to the cabin to rest while the food digested....