Musical discovery is the highlight of our cruise

Though this was our third mother-daughter cruise, we'd never really exploited the amenities on the ship beyond the standard restaurants and the pools. Mom usually tucks in early, so I'd spend evenings reading. This year's circumstances, however, called for a good deal more sucking the marrow out of life, and Mom rose admirably to the challenge. Teaching both of us a lesson: You can have almost as much fun on the ship as you have on shore.

Cruise aficionados will be astounded that it took me three years to get to the blindingly obvious. I shrug and admit guilt. I never really wanted to cruise and, even after being talked into it, never saw the ship as much more than a floating hotel to get me to the "real" holiday. I now appreciate the ship as a destination in itself, especially as an entertainment venue.

My nautical Damascus moment came thanks to a remarkable entertainer named Bryant
Olender, who performed nightly in a sophisticated, Italian-themed lounge high in the aft of the ship. He is your perfect piano bar entertainer: honeyed, resonant voice; a masterful skill at the keys that belied his classical training; an impressive ability to improvise and create lovely transitions between songs; a delightful personality, building a rapport with his regulars and playing your favourite tunes for and to you; a capacious memory that could play most requests without ever referring to the music. He reminded me of Michael Buble with added maturity and a master's piano skills. A logical association, it seems, as I learned post-cruise from his website (www.bryantolender.com, from where I also pinched his photo) that he was Buble's musical director. Which leads you to ask, what the hell is a guy this good doing entertaining on a cruise ship? Because, frankly, he's better than Buble ... and the play record on my iPod would prove how much I like that kid.

Whatever the answer, we reaped the benefit of Bryant's career choices, settling into the lounge on most nights for a show I would have happily paid for. If you're a fan of mellow jazz and old standards, do check out Bryant's web site or download him off iTunes.

We did take in a few other entertainments, including a couple of comics and one of the ship's Broadway-style musical numbers. The quality here wasn't nearly so high. In the musical performances, particularly, you could see why these people were performing here. Very good, but not professional quality yet. Still, there was a lot to keep you engaged, and all of it free, so who's complaining? I was also intrigued, as I paid a bit more attention, to the way the ship seemed to organise tracks of entertainment. While we were indulging in the more classic end of the range, I appreciated that there was a heavy drinker track, a country western route, a pop/nightclub stream, etc. There is, undoubtedly, an art to keeping a few thousand people of diverse background engaged and happy, and the people at Princess seem to have cracked it.

This year we also tried the "added fee" restaurants. I had resisted them on principle the first two years. The included food is supposed to be one of the highlights of a cruise, and I resented the suggestion that you should then have to pay something more. But to someone who lives in a culinary capital and eats out as much as I do, Princess' food isn't that impressive. Good, but beyond its staggering quantity, nothing extraordinary. So we went for the upgrade.
Was the approximately $20 each worth it? In both cases, there was an obvious leap forward in both quality and presentation from the standard dining room food. The Crown Grill offers steak and lobster in a rather strange environment that is half posh American steakhouse and half Aurthurian legend stage set. It was as if the pre-Raphaelite brotherhood had moved to New York and gone into catering. (That's a copy of the famous Round Table from Winchester behind us in the photo.) The service here was a bit spotty ... too slow, mixed up orders, but genial ... but the food was excellent.

The real value for money came from the Italian Sabatini's, where we dined on our last night. The decor here was tasteful, posh Italian, in seamless company with the food. The food was authentic and you were left in the hands of the chef for multiple courses (having to choose only your main and your dessert). A procession of cold antipasti and warm appetisers reminded me of one of my favourite places in Rome, and getting to try two small portions of pasta rather than settling for one was a happy bit of hedonism. The wine list was particularly good, stunning me with the inclusion of a schioppetino. This dry, complex red, made from a grape variety almost driven to extinction and now unique to the Northeast of Italy, was one of the big discoveries of the Northwestern girls' trip to Venice in 2001. The name means "little explosion", and that's exactly what happens to your tastebuds when you drink it. I've only seen it on two winelists since discovering it (Kemoll's in St. Louis, Locanda Locatelli in London), so finding it here was like hitting the jackpot.

We consumed this perfect meal sitting against the windows at the back of the ship, looking out at a full moon gilding the serene sea. Stuffed to the gills, we wandered over to the cocktail lounge next door for a few last requests from maestro Bryant. And then, sadly, it was time to retire and prepare for the return of reality.

I really must find a bottle of schioppettino somewhere. Next full moon, perhaps I can head to the garden, have a glass, put on Bryant's CD and channel myself back to the Caribbean.