March 17 - Sea Day #17

Tuesday, March 17, 2026

Happy St. Patrick's Day! 

Bob took off to go walk as soon as he got out of bed and was gone before I had a chance to text Jon and Michelle. They were up and ready so the three of us went to breakfast without him. 

Bob and Jon wanted to go to one more of Dale Erhart's lectures on jet pilots and I wanted to get started on the packing so that worked out well. It's hard to pack when both of us are in the room. Bob came back to the cabin just long enough to tell me that he and Jon were going to another talk by the naturalist. Michelle stopped by to see if I wanted to go walk through the shops, but I was on a mission to get the packing DONE. 

Holland America lets you put out bags on the last night as late as midnight. That makes is so much easier to decide what you will and won't need on the last morning. The letter we received from Princess instructed us to put our bags out in the hallway by 9 pm. That means unless we want to go to bed REALLY early, the clothes we are wearing today must be able to fit in the carryon bags tomorrow morning. 

Everyone has to be out of their cabin by 8:00 am tomorrow morning but our disembarkation time isn't until 9:20. We will have to find some place to hang out on the ship during that gap in time. Our flight isn't until 4 pm so at least we won't be in any hurry. Jon and Michelle have an 11:30 am flight which is risky in my mind. They will carry off their own luggage and try and leave the ship ASAP when the ship is cleared. The TV news is filled with stories about how the government shutdown has been affecting TSA agents and the lines to get through airport security are taking hours. Just getting to SFO from Pier 27 once we dock is no short trip!

When checking the lunch menu online I noticed that they were serving a "pub lunch" in the MDR. I texted the others and everyone agreed it sounded like a good plan. Pretty (the hostess at the Botticelli Dining Room) was all decked out in her green glasses for St. Patrick's Day when we arrived. She is always so cheerful! We were seated at a table right next to our usual dinner table (#51) but the wait staff was different at lunch. Our waitress was an especially fun gal...I think she was from Hungary.

Dining room hostess, Pretty. She definitely lived up to her name!

Fish & chips.

The dining room lunch took much longer than eating in the buffet, but it was also so much more relaxed. (I think I have mentioned that more than once on this cruise! 😄) We were finished just in time to get to the theater for the Voice of the Ocean singing competition. After attending both of the auditions, we knew there was one gal that had an outstanding voice. When she performed on stage during the competition, it was clear that the audience also agreed. BUT...she didn't win. The winner was probably the weakest of all the singers and made us even more convinced that the contest was somehow rigged and the winner was determined in advance. 

At dinner, we decided to skip dessert so we could get seats for the evening show in the theater. Canadian, Donna Lajeunesse, was performing her "She-Ha" show that we thought was so outstanding on the previous cruise and we didn't want to miss it. Taking back to back cruises often means we have entertainment re-runs but in some cases (like this!) seeing a show twice is a treat. Donna is one of the regular Princess singers, but has developed her own show featuring music from some of country music's greatest females. I wouldn't be surprised to see her go much further in her career than just being a cruise ship entertainer.

Bob really wanted to see the Emotions Duo (cello and violin) perform one more time. They were scheduled for a couple of sets in the Wheelhouse Bar so Jon, Michelle and I went ahead to get seats while Bob ran back to the cabin to set our luggage out in the hallway. There were only a few others in the bar so seating wasn't an issue.

The last night. 😞

Our respiratory troubles (cruise ship crud!) meant none of us were feeling 100% so we called it a night relatively early. After getting into the habit of sleeping later and later, I knew it would be hard to wake up to an alarm tomorrow morning. And Jon and Michelle would need to be up even earlier than us!