Coral Princess - 5-15 April - Heading South to Aruba - Day 2

My view of cruising has certainly evolved from my first formal cruise in 2002.  While not my first ocean going experience, I’d crossed the Pacific on a passenger liner (SS President Wilson) in 1966, my first cruise out of Civitavecchia was less than stunning.  I remember the herd experience getting on or off the ship, the mass of people ashore in our first port call of Taormina, Sicily, and the sound of anchor chains going up and down in our forward cabin.  Other than proposing to my honey on that trip — ashore in the town of Gaeta, Italy — there weren’t a lot of highlights.  Fast forward 14 years and I continue to re-enforce why I love cruising so much — on a day that we didn’t do anything “special”.

Sea Days - you either love them or you don’t…  Valerie and I love them, especially when you have a couple the first few days out of port.  Why?  Because sea days give you the chance to shut down your normal schedule driven routines and eliminate most of your electronic disruptions in favor of setting your own schedule and objectives.  Feel like sleeping in — just do it — sit down for a formal three course lunch — ditto — work out or nap in the afternoon — check…  

Love the variety of food on Princess...

Dinner was wonderful once again — with the highlight being Valerie’s pork tenderloin — perfectly prepared and presented.  And as we always do on cruise — and hardly ever at home — had dessert for the second night in a row — after all, we are doing about 50 flights of stairs a day…  Pecan ice cream with freshly made Creme Brûlée’ - really???

Oh, and catch up with that activity most often relegated to bed time — reading a good book or two — during the middle of the day; in short, you feel relaxed in a way that is pretty hard to do when you are home, taking a road trip, or touring the 7 Wonders of the World.  Cruising eliminates the “overhead” of daily life — making the bed, cleaning the bathroom, shopping for and preparing food, and leaves it for you to decide how much or how little you’d like to do each day.

So, if you’re catching a theme, we basically relaxed yesterday — Val giving her back a chance to relax and loving her book; I read, blogged, got in a work out, and did a bit of putting practice on the Princess Links green on deck 15.  The golf obsession follows me to sea…

Weather-wise, yesterday was pretty but bouncy as we passed the coast of Cuba all day and snuck through the Windward Passage between Cuba and Haiti last night.  Today is much smoother and the wind calmer.

Later today - after lunch, we are doing a wine tasting — should be a hoot especially since we were accorded a VIP table (thanks to the Maitre D’) and are now being truly spoiled.  Better get all my blogging done before 3 pm or I may be a little (more) ditzy when I next put pen to paper.

Tomorrow morning we pull into our first port, Aruba — 1008 sea miles from Ft Lauderdale.  This will be our third visit to Aruba and first since we became Cruise Planners.  With that in mind, we are heading to Oriental Grand Aruba Resort to learn about the resort and its offerings for our future Aruba visitors.