Vitamin Sea Day

1/14/26

It almost boggles my mind that back when we were hesitantly considering the WC23, one of my biggest concerns was the # of sea days.  55 of them scheduled on that cruise and with port cancellations, it turned out to be 58 of 111 days.  I thought I’d be bored to death on sea days. Let me be the first to admit, I was wro…..(try that again) I was wron……Ok, the concern was not only inaccurate, it’s quite the opposite.  I LOVE sea days.  So does my wife.  And today was no exception.

As typical, I got up early to workout so I’d be done by 8:30, when pickleball started.  What an amazing fun group of people.  Picklers, as we’re called, are generally a great group of people and this cruise is no different.  It was such a fun crowd, poking fun at each other as we attempted to adjust for the wind when taking a swing at the wiffle ball.  And that just opened the door for other fun-spirited jokes and ribbing.  2 hrs passed so quickly and it was only when I realized I hadn’t eaten anything that I decided to head to the buffet for breakfast.

I planned to skip lunch because I knew we had our first specialty dinner scheduled at the Crown Grill, an outstanding steak venue that charges $55 pp but as with everything else, it’s included in our package.  We’ve got like 20 of them scheduled over the 4.5 months…..pretty much 1x per week, just to break things up.  And as promised, there are pics.  So I ate a pretty substantial breakfast, since it was a 2-meal day. 

By this point it’s almost noon and I was behind on the blog, so I banged out the Puntarenas blog between several pleasant diversions of folks stopping by to chat.  I was wearing my shirt that says “I don’t need a good doctor, I raised one”, and people often stop me to tell me about their doctor child.  We’re so proud of her literally saving lives in the Pediatric ER of a Virginia Hospital; but we’re also so proud of our teacher daughter who is also improving the lives of the next generation of leaders.  They just don’t make shirts that say, “I don’t need a good teacher, I raised one”.  Maybe they should.

My wife and I played some cards in a pleasant area around the outdoor pool where a live Caribbean band was playing.  Along with a couple of libations we were perfectly content playing, talking and listening to the band in the background in a breezy shaded part of the Lido deck.  Then, knowing it was going to be a LATE night (11pm – don’t judge), I needed a power nap, and so in advance of our 5pm reservation at the Crown, we headed to the room for a nap, which also flew by.

Dinner was a HUGE success.   We’d been to the Crown many times on Island Princess so we knew what to expect and it didn’t disappoint.  We always request a table by the window so we can watch the sunset, which is icing on the cake.  I’ll let the pictures tell you the rest of the story, except to say the shellfish bisque was sinful it was so good. I almost had a "When Harry Met Sally" moment. In case you're wondering, I didn't finish my 20 oz T-bone, which was perfectly medium rare. Broke my heart. We took dessert to go. 

Menu

Wine and Sunset

The meal

We also split an amazing crab cake that we devoured before I took a pic. Sorry 😉

The first of 2 shows tonight was a production show in the Universe Lounge.  I can’t say enough good about it.  Broadway quality singing, dancing, costumes and set design.  Through some weird stroke of luck, we ended up with front row seats.  I knew I would love that lounge and I was right (see how easy typing “I was right” flowed from the keyboard).

Then off to the second show in the theater, a high energy comedy team that performed my favorite type of comedy, a mixture of prepared skits along with HIGH energy audience involvement and poking fun at them (us).  Because it was the 10pm show, it didn’t have to be family-friendly, which I prefer.  I don’t remember laughing so hard in a long time. 

By the time we made it back to the stateroom, I fell asleep almost immediately and slept until 7:15 the next morning….unheard of.  My favorite sea day so far.   Tomorrow is Puerto Chiapas, which is said to be a lot like Puntarenas, so we’ll see how the day unfolds.