Author: happyhoursahoy_1

As soon as we arrived, we were greeted by this view from our ship 👇

Table mountain, one of world 7 wonders of nature framing Cape Town

Once again we lucked out with a beautiful weather today, people told us it was raining and foggy last couple of days… Also  we lucked out with our pick of a 9 hour small group tour on TripAdvisor

Boulders beach Penguin colony

Lunch at Simon Town

Cape of good hope

Bo-kaap houses

Dinner at V and A waterfront

By the end of the day we both logged 20000 steps and completely exhausted after sightseeing for 10 hours straight….. Cape Town is gorgeous!! Glad we had another day to check it out….. Cant wait….

Jessica our lovely destination specialist did a special at the Theatre and invited 6 crew members from South africa to talk about their country, what to see and what to eat, giving the next port we are visiting a lot of immersive texture… Cant wait to arrive in Cape Town tomorrow

Meanwhile, today is the day that guests presents the results of their endeavors during sea days… There’s painting, there’s pop choirs, there’s harmonica, there’s ukelele… Busy day….

Today is the day we “flash mob dance” the unsuspecting audiences at their nightly Princess Theatre performance….. There are about 40 people participating and every one is excited…. To me it’s the process that is most fun.. The practices, the rehearsing, the chit chats…. Like minded people get together to dance and exercise and have fun….

Last night’s production show was especially more exhilarated as it is their last performance on this ship and everyone gave them a standing ovation… P was able to snap a selfie with them as they line up to say goodbye at the exit..

We really appreciate every single crew and entertainer on this ship doing their best to make this cruise magical

The risk of piracy…. Horn of Africa is considered as high risk area for piracy… But someone in the know told  us that pirates had no interest capturing cruise ships since they do not want to be in charge of feeding so many people 😆… They rather deal with cargo ships… That surely makes us feel very safe… So the eating goes on since it is our biggest defense against piracy.

A passenger on the ship drew pictures and put a limerick/poem at the back and send it to the cruise director who shares it with us almost daily…. Cheers to creativity!!

Woke up to this gloriousness….

The ship is turning southwest towards Cape Town…we had circumvented half of the globe now, but few stops on this 1st half with many sea days…. The second half will be different, once we hit the Mediterranean it will be port stops almost every day, we will be yearning for sea days in between just to give ourselves room to digest what we had experience….

We got a new captain in Mauritius, the old captain’s contract is up…kind of miss the old Captain Cataldi who is from Italy…. He is relatively young and we always see him around, at the plaza or the buffet, very unassuming and amicable…

I am sure the new captain Paul Slight from Wale is going to be great as well…. Princess hires amazing people who always seem to enjoy work and make sure passengers had a great time…

Speaking of that, Ladies and Gentlemen.. The King is alive!! Elvis is in the building 😎…..tonight’s performance at the theater is by a talented young man name Dan Middleditch whose rendition of Elvis and his songs is spot on, his charisma and energy mirrors Elvis’s and he brings the house down…. I actually saw him at the buffet this morning saying hello to everyone and thought why is Elvis at the morning buffet, am I awake ?!

After 7 sea days across the Indian ocean, we are excited to be on solid ground today. … Because after this, 5 more sea days…

We decided to take it very easy, not join any excursions, just be on our own and explore….

First stop is a beach called Mont Choisy…. There are many beaches but our taxi driver helped us pick one and it’s a beautiful one…. Not too commercial not too touristy

People here mostly speaks French and then English… Lots of soft spoken people and a lot of Indian, Chinese and creole influence… When we pulled in the Port we were surprised to see many Taiwanese fishing boats at the harbor flying Taiwanese flag! Apparently Mauritius is an important international seaport base for Taiwan… Traffic is very congested in the city area

Fresh seafood meal and mojito for lunch….. There are many sugar plantation on the island and the major ingredient of Mojito is rum which is made from sugar molasses… Thus mojito is big here 

We checked out their central market and lots of fruits look familiar….. Love how they carve mini pineapples that are palm size into a swirl

Now we cannot visit Mauritius without mentioning the dodo bird… It went extinct since 1681 due to over harvestation but somehow the memory of these adorable birds lives on and grew strong…. Now it’s the national mascot and ambassadors of Mauritius… In the city, almost Every where you turn there’s either a statue of it or a merchandise of it….

Goodbye Mauritius…

Thankfully no cabin fevers yet…. How can one get bored when nature puts out  spectacular shows daily …

We managed to know 45 fellow passengers name out of around 2000 on day 41…already a record for us and for someone who are both really not very sociable… Cant help to seek comradity and connections with others, after all we are “on the same boat”!!… That said. So today is especially ” chatty” for us.  In the morning, ran into  Tiara ( one of the amazing resident singer on the production show), thanking her for her great performance.. And later chat with our cabin attendant Grandeur from Philippines about bats (apparently our encounter with one the other day excites him), and then while we are at the stairs we met Grant the Royal butler from England  that we mentioned from 3 days ago and chat even more, from his busy schedules to the Queen’s coogis, and then while we are at the excursion desk, Jessica the amazing ship destination expert (she’s from Australia) praise the shirt P bought in Figi… And all these before lunch and they are either crew or entertainers… We did not even add in fellow passengers that we ran in and talk to and wave to….. Cruise ship living put you into a special laboratory situation where you can experiment with different sides of you. Super fun!

In order to keep us busy, many activities has been arranged and R had selected to do ukelele and flash mob dance practices and performance, yes, they want to schedule performances for everything you learn on ship… Many hours were spent on rehearsing and practice…. Although quite exhausting but fun for sure…..we need a vacation from our vacation….

Looks like we passed through stormy seas and the sun and humidity is out in full force

And then we were told that we might cross path with space debris within the next 24 hours… How exciting 😜