Eat your greens....don't forget the beans and celery... (F Zappa)

It's on lazy sea days with the ship gliding along on calm waters that you can find yourself watching men carving fruit and vegetables for your delight and amazement. It's a very 1st World thing to do. Vegetables are plentiful-some people think they grow on trees, but that would be fruit. The guys from the Philippines who have the carving skills would probably  put the vegetables in a pot and feed their family a delicious soup if in their home country but here we like to look at them and marvel at the artist's skill. We'll have soup later too so it's win-win on the cruise.

Although I spend most of my time on a ship on deck enjoying the sun/cloud/rain (we are on an Alaskan cruise after all) I do walk inside to get from point A to B from time to time and certainly most of my meals are taken indoors (most, but not all as you may see later).

The social hub of the ship is the Piazza where entertainments are almost non-stop. You may walk through and see a juggler, a unicyclist, some strongmen, balancers, magicians, dance lessons, a band and such and stop for a moment or two to enjoy.

The circular Piazza on Princess ships can be three decks high and there are shops and cafes, Passenger Services counters, wine or martini bars, Future Cruise Sales offices and the like branching off from it.
There are comfy chairs on the lower level (deck 5 usually) and above people stand at the safety railing to look down upon whatever is happening below-in this case I was on the third level, using zoom to get close-ups of the carvers.

(video)

We'd be doing our own vegetable carving-but with a knife and fork sometime later as we had booked an Ultimate Balcony Dinner while we were sailing what I anticipated would be calm waters. I booked it soon after boarding and discussed timing and menu with Alexandra (from Ukraine) from Room Service the day before.
Although there is boundless tasty food included in the price of your ticket we opted to spend the $100 tariff for a private meal on our balcony. Not an everyday experience.

More on that later!

In the meantime on a lazy day we retreated to our reserved loungers in The Sanctuary which is an adults-only restful place up high near the front of the ship. Serenity Stewards were there to pamper us or leave us alone-the choice being ours. Naps can (and will) be taken there.  Some photos to follow no doubt.....