Wanderung 27

Bob:

The Pacific Princess was really pitching although not rolling too badly, probably due to stabilizers being out. The stabilizers are small underwater wings that are used to counteract the rolling effect of the waves, but there is no practical way to steady a ship against pitching other than by building a longer ship! The longer the ship, the more fore-and-aft steady it is in waves of a given size, That's something I knew jolly well from being in small sailboats, which can pitch like the very devil even in rather small waves.

Since the Pacific Princess was relatively short, it seemed more unsteady than the larger and longer ships we were used to. Of course, having only 600 passengers the whole ship was quite a bit smaller than what we are used to, too. Everything felt slightly "miniaturized" compared to the 2,000--3,000 passenger ships we more normally travel on, including things like the "casino" that was directly attached to the lounge and had just a couple of slot machines and card tables.

At 12:30, we started the Princess Pop Choir rehearsals with a small group of 5 men and 4 women. Other folks were surprised that it was an entirely new set of songs from what they had sung in previous Pop Choirs on other Princess ships, but I had heard these new songs on the Crown Princess just a week back, so I wasn't too surprised. Our director, Thalia, said it was controlled by headquarters and while that may be true in general, we also knew that on the crossing of the Pacific Ocean on Sea Princess, Rose Winters had put together her own set of songs for the Pop Choir that were quite distinct from the normal ones (Wanderung 25).

We capped off a much-needed day of relaxation by having dinner with Chris and Tina, and David and Pat, the two other couples at our table. Again we enjoyed a nice conversation; somehow it is a bit easier for us to converse with long-time married couples than it is single folks, and that was true of all three couples. Since it was the first "formal night" of the cruise, we were all dressed to the 9s and looked, I thought, rather spiffy.