At around 7 a.m. this morning, we passed through the Strait of Messina — a narrow passage between the eastern tip of Sicily and the western tip of Calabria in southern Italy. It connects the Tyrrhenian Sea to the north with the Ionian Sea to the south, right in the heart of the Mediterranean. We’re now continuing our journey toward Montenegro and are scheduled to arrive in the city of Bar tomorrow morning.
It continues to be cloudy and cool, with today’s high only reaching 65°F. It’s been raining on and off all day, making it the perfect excuse for another Netflix day in our stateroom. We actually love these lazy sea days — no stress, just pure relaxation while catching up on our favorite shows.
This ship features the new “smart” elevators, and we have to say, they work great! They seem to do a good job of keeping the elevators from getting overcrowded — a nice improvement over the older systems. Tonight, before dinner, we attended the Captain’s Circle Party, hosted by the Captain in the Arena venue. The Captain’s Circle is Princess Cruises’ loyalty program for repeat guests, with five levels of membership:
Blue
Gold
Ruby
Platinum
Elite
We usually skip these events, but the Loyalty and Events Manager convinced us to attend and “help him out,” since we happen to be the second most traveled guests on this segment. The Captain recognizes the top three most traveled guests at each event — so we were happy to oblige!
We sat with the most traveled guests, a lovely couple from Virginia who have 300 more sea days than we do.
For dinner tonight, there was a new dish on the menu — a soft-shelled crab salad with a spicy Thai curry dressing. It was excellent! The tableside trolley feature was Salmon Wellington, which was absolutely delicious! Viktor, our Restaurant Manager, did the honors.
And, gave me a double portion. Our crew...
Our Sommelier, Stephan, surprised us tonight with a Napa Bordeaux blend that we were not familiar with, a very nice wine. Stephan is the head Sommelier onboard and truly knows wine!
