On the Pacific Ocean, 64 hours west of San Francisco : The DrsC are afloat once more.
This time we’re lecturing on the Grand Princess on a round-trip
SF-Hawaii-Ensenada-SF.
We did our first lecture yesterday, in a theater that seats
hundreds, it was maybe 1/3 full. We’ll do another 7 talks this trip, on the sea
days, meaning days we aren’t in port in Hawaii .
The stop in Ensenada , Mexico , is necessitated by the Jones Act which
says only ships of U.S.
registry can carry passengers between two U.S.
ports, including returning to the same U.S. port. Princess ships are
registered in Bermuda and therefore cannot carry U.S.
passengers unless they make a stop at a foreign (non-U.S.) port – in our case
that foreign port is Ensenada , on the Baja California coast. Many
passengers will not bother going ashore in Ensenada , us among them.
The seas are relatively calm, now we are beyond the chop
along the CA coast. The weather to date is overcast gray and cool, but not
actively stormy. We expect warm, humid weather in Hawaii . Sun is optional there, warm humidity
is not.
We’ve talked to a surprising number of passengers who have
never been to Hawaii .
That seems odd to us here on the left coast where we pop over to Hawaii like East Coast folks go to the Caribbean .
The DrsC don’t remember how often we’ve been to Hawaii , at least 10 times I’m sure. We’ve
cruised there repeatedly and also flown there either as a destination or a
stopover on our way to the Orient.
This trip we are housed in a junior officers’ cabin, near
the bow on deck 10. We’ve lectured on many cruises but this is the first time
we’ve been located in crew quarters. Because the two bunks are stacked one atop
the other, there is more floor space in this cabin than in the equivalent
passenger cabin.
We saw the first production show last night, the ship has
six singers and they are all good entertainers, the dancers are great too. They
do their show three times per night, in order to cut down crowding in the big
theater I suppose. The ship’s Cruise Director is the “man in charge of fun” and
Dan Styne who has the job on the Grand Princess is good at it.
