Day 8 - zipline in Kauai

Up early for breakfast on the Lido and stretch class while we came into the harbor at Kauai. I’ve never been here before and it is visually gorgeous. Steep green cliffs coming down into the blue harbor. Kauai is where most of the moves get made and it is easy to see why. Another nice thing this morning was a hi there from Josh on Facebook. Love having the clear spot wireless.

Our tour today was called the zipline trek iki mua, and like all zipline shore excursions we had no idea what to expect. The information said to bring windbreakers and towels and waterproof cameras. Should we wear bathing suits, bring dry clothes? It was unclear. We decided to leave the windbreakers at home, but bring towels and cameras, although neither of ours are waterproof. We’d also talked last night and decided this trip would probably be something of a letdown. We had the most unbelievable time in Mexico when we were there, and there was no way this could measure up – that one had boats and unimogs and burros and a 50 meter rappel from a platform suspended from a tree. The important thing, we decided, was not to do any comparing in a way that would irritate each other – or the other passengers.

So with our expectations well set, we walked down the gangway (gang way! gang way!) and found the sign for our tour, where we got the first pleasant surprise – there would only be 12 of us. Our guide Dina took us out to the van, where we each got a cooler bag with drinks and cookies. We had 5 couples and two singletons, who were made into a couple by being given a single cooler bag to share. (Interestingly, when we finished the excursion they walked back to the ship together – zipline romance?) I stuffed my purse into our cooler bag as well. We left the dock and stopped and picked up our other guide Cory, then headed into the caldera. The drive was just spectacularly pretty. On the way to Kipu ranch, a private cattle ranch owned by the Rice family, we all introduced ourselves and said where we were from. We found we had 2 women named Ronda who both spelled their name without the ‘h’, which caused them both to squeal in delighted amazement. Paula and Parker from Austin were sitting behind us, and it was Paula’s 60th birthday. She asked us not to sing.

We got to the ranch and Cory jumped out to unlock and lock the gates. At that point we were on a dirt road and I was reminded of our tourguide Kana from Hilo’s joke about hula lessons – when we went over a bump he called it hula lessons because all our bodies swayed in unison. We got some good hula today, especially when Cory drove on the way back. Anyway, this is a very different outfit than the Puerta Vallarta adventure place we went to in Mexico, which was large and had a huge compound in the jungle. Dina pulled off onto the side of the road and she and Cory put on our gear. Oh, it was good to hear the clinking of the zipline harness again! I love how they clip your own zipline rope on and then just snap you on and off the lines. We walked a short way through the forest and got rained on a little, which just felt refreshing. When we got to the first zipline Cory did the briefing, and he started by saying, “it’s very important that you listen very carefully to what I’m going to tell you, because I am about to push you off a cliff.” As attention focusing statements go, I have to say that one is right up there. It was a fairly standard briefing and then one at a time he pushed us off a cliff.

In Mexico we’d worn gloves and could use them to slow ourselves down; nothing like that here – you jump off the edge of the platform and go however fast gravity takes you, and facing whatever direction you ended up facing. I have to admit my heart was beating a little faster when it was my turn. But as soon as I felt the harness holding me up and the wind rushing past my face it was all good. One of the reviewers of this excursion had complained that there were only 3 lines, and you did two of them twice, but I loved doing them twice. We walked back up to the top, got clipped on, and jumped again. I could have done it forever. The second time you went off the platform backwards, to prepare you for the Zippel. It was excellent. Because there were only the two guides doing the clipping and unclipping there was plenty of time in between to take pictures and chat. Next we walked over to the zippel, a combination zipline/rappel that was fun but I’d rather have done a straight zip or rappel. It took longer because you had to rappel down a flight of stairs – which is just as awkward as it sounds – so we had plenty of time at the bottom to hang out on a platform built around a giant banyan tree and watch each other. And drink our drinks and eat our cookies.

Last line is the tandem line, where you are encouraged to go upside down. We did that one twice too, which was good because I didn’t figure out how to go upside down the first time. On this one you fly across the river and appear to be about to crash into a tree, but then you get stopped and you fly back halfway across the river again, and then they stop you and you climb down a ladder to get down. Then you go across two awesome bouncy suspension bridges (the second time I made Dave go first and waited until he was off so I could bounce and swing the bridge to my heart’s content). The second time we did the tandem zip Dave went on the line that gets unclipped first. I’d figured out how to go upside down this time, so I did some of it with my legs wrapped around the rope and my head hanging down. While I was waiting to be unclipped I was hanging upside down and Cory was pulling on the top of the line so I was bouncing up and down. It was excellent.

Unfortunately it was also over, so we headed up the trail to the van. One thing is that nothing bonds a group of people like fear, so we were all talking and laughing on the way back to the van and while we got out of our gear. Dina asked Cory if he’d like to drive back, but I’m not sure she’ll ever do that again – it was some serious van hula. Just one more moment of terror to put the cap on a perfect trip. So no, in many ways the adventure wasn’t as good as Mexico. In others – the small size of the group, the more casual attitude of the guides, getting to do some lines twice – it was as good or better.

We got back to the ship around 11:30 and hung out in the room until lunchtime. We ended up at a table for four with Duncan, who will be 94 the day after tomorrow, and his wife Julia. Duncan has no short term memory at all – and not much long term memory either – and is Julia’s second husband. They turned out to be absolutely a blast – Duncan treating his inability to remember with great good humor and Julia taking cheerful care of him while chatting up a storm. I have to admit my heart sank a little as we were led to their table – they looked and sounded old – but they were more fun than many of the younger couples we’ve sat with. I particularly enjoyed the part where Duncan wanted coffee ice cream but Julia kept telling him he’d already ordered cappuccino. Well, you had to be there.

After lunch we got off the ship and walked over to Nawiliwili park. It turns out the park is at the ned of a long pier, so we walked out to the end of the pier, which was full of Hawaiians fishing and having a good time. While we were there a giant tour bus pulled up – apparently it is where the tours go when they get back a few minutes early, since if they just came back to the ship early there would be much complaining. Dave and I had gone to the end of the pier to take a picture of the ship when there came Mama – it was her tour bus! They had gone on the Canyon tour. We got a nice picture of her and me and Merna in front of the ship.

They got back on the bus and we walked off the pier towards the beach. There were many surfers in the cove – both regular and stand-up board surfers. The stand up boards are bigger than regular surf boards and (as you might have guessed) they stand on them rather than lying on them when they’re heading out to catch a wave – they have a paddle that they use to move themselves. I can’t decide if it looks easier or harder than regular surfing. We also saw something I’d never seem before – a little hiobie cat sailboat came into the cove and caught a wave too! It surfed the wave almost all the way into the beach, it practically looked like it was flying. Very cool. At that point we’d had about enough sitting on the wall , so we walked past the park to the Anchor Cove Stores, full of more Hawaiian schlock. Well, it was higher quality than what we saw in Honolulu last night, and we did find a little something for Tim at the ubiquitous ABC store. Then we walked back to the ship. The rain that had cooled us nicely on the shore excursion had completely cleared, and when there was no breeze it was pretty warm.

It looked from the dock as if our verandah would be in full sun, but when we got up to the room it turned out it was mostly in the shade. We sat out there for a while, but eventually I got tired of hunting for the cursor in the bright sunshine and moved into the climate-and-light controlled room. After an hour or so of typing I decided it was time to go to the gym, so I suited up in my halter top bathing suit with the men’s swim trunks and went and did a boot camp workout. Afterwards I was all hot and sweaty and as I passed the midship pool on the lido deck I thought wow, that would feel really good. I got in, and it did feel really good. I swam around and was enjoying myself very much, which is how I caught Dave sneaking over to the taco bar.

By the time I’d gotten showered and dressed we were already pulling out of the harbor, which was too bad because I really like watching us pull out of port. We did get a good look at the mystery ship we’d been seeing at anchor out by the breakwater, but a close up look didn’t leave us any more enlightened than we had been peering at it from various places on the ship and shore. It looked like a giant canoe with an outrigger on either side and a giant blue folding lawn chair in the center. Or something.

Then it was time for dinner, although we stopped at our cabin on the way and may have seen a whale spouting. Dinner was fun as usual – our tablemate from last night wanted to come join our table but we were full tonight. John and Carol had gone on the other zipline adventure, and although Carol had been very nervous about whether it would be too strenuous they had a great time. We shared shore excursion stories and Rita and I had a good laugh at Gus fighting with a long cheese strand from his French onion soup. We were all pretty tired, though – Carol in particular looked like she needed the reclining chair.

After dinner we went down to the cabin and stepped out onto the verandah to see a beautiful crescent moon. It seemed a little windy, so we decided to put on warmer clothes and head topside to see what we could see. We could see a lot – it was beautifully clear. But it was also very, very windy, with an apparent wind speed of over 40 knots! That’s windy enough so that in the front of the ship you could lean way into it and not fall down. It’s windy enough that my hair got completely snarled. And it was windy enough to give me a total fit of the giggles. Also we were watching the lights on the waves when I saw one that didn’t look like the others. It turned out to be some sort of large white bird, apparently able to keep pace with the ships’s 11 knot forward speed. We watched it for a while trying to figure out what it was up to – we’re probably 50 or more miles from land at this point. Maybe it was in training for some sort of bird marathon?

After going back to the cabin to detangle, we went to the crow’s nest for some guitar time with Chris, who is from the south and seems to be a little homesick – many songs both yesterday and today about various points in the south. It was really nice up there, although the ship is rolling and shuddering quite a bit because of the wind. But it was a long day and I was having a hard time staying awake. Tonight’s show was Bernie Fields, virtuoso harmonica player (!) with the HALcats. We went to the 10:00 show and the HALcats were tight, really swinging, but a harmonica is a harmonica, and when it’s miked and amplified it sounds… well, I thought it sounded awful. Dave liked it, but I was alternating between falling asleep and sticking my fingers in my ears, so I left a little early.

Before I reveal tonight’s towel animal I need to mention that our room steward has also been showing his artistic ability in the folding of the toilet paper into a point. The first night it was a very basic fold, which I amused myself by replicating before we left the room. He seemed to take this as a challenge, and has been showing his flexibility and versatility as a virtuoso toilet-paper-point folder. I haven’t had this much fun with a roll of TP since Dave’s dad and I would have the silent but intense struggle over which way it should come off the roll – over or under. Tonight’s towel animal: muscular goose. We think.

Day 7 - Honolululu

One of the interesting things our guide Kana pointed out yesterday was the single high rise building in Hilo. He says that the folks in Hilo took a look at the overbuilt waterfronts of Oahu, said “no thank you”, and put a height limit on the buildings. Sailing in towards Honolulu you can certainly see how that could be. One nice thing about Honolulu, though, is that you dock pretty much right in the middle of town, which is kind of cool. Woke up early as we were pulling into port – the thing is, everybody has to go out on their verandah when we’re pulling into port, and they all let their doors slam when they do, so it’s very loud very early. I got up and headed to stretch class & abs class, and then we had breakfast with a very nice couple from (of all places) Manchester, CT. They were a very nice older couple, so it was a very enjoyable breakfast. You might recall that the comedian had done a song called “Old Coots are out there Walkin’”, and they told about how they’d been shuffling down the hall holding hands and blocking traffic, and heard someone behind them who turned out to be the comedian. But they said he was very nice and they had a nice chat.

Then it was back to the room. This morning was laundry morning, so we stuffed a week’s worth of clothes into the tiny all-you-can-fit laundry bag. Then it turned out you have to fill out the form anyway with how many of each thing you’re sending in, so we took everything out and categorized and counted it. Then we had a little time for some blogging before heading out to our shore excursion, the Atlantis submarine. We did the submarine years ago somewhere in the Caribbean and enjoyed it very much, and today was no different. It is very hot here, so it was nice once we got out on the ship that shuttles you between the shore and the sub. They load two subs worth of people on the boat, and we were on the second smaller sub. They’ve seeded the area with all sorts of things – old airplanes, old ships, Japanese seaweed growing frames- and they basically drive around between them. We saw a spotted eagle ray, two green Hawaiian sea turtles, a black-tipped shark, and numerous fishes. The underwater part is about an hour and I wouldn’t mind if it were twice as long.

Once we got back to the ship it was almost two and we were hungry, so we hopped up to the lido where Dave ate some of the pizza that had looked so good to him yesterday. OK, well, it was probably not the same pizza. I prefer the sit-down dining room but it’s not open that late. After lunch we got back to the room and tried to catch up on some writing – my computer was being very slow and frustrating, so I had a short frustrating time, but it all sorted itself out eventually. Meanwhile down on the dock they were setting up for some sort of concert – check, check, check, one, one, one, hey, check, check… then also some bad singing. The doors to the verandah are pretty sound deadening, but not that sound-deadening. It may be time to go to the other side of the ship.

It was a lazy afternoon aboard the ship. I headed up to the gym around 4 and ran through day 1 of bootcamp on my own – it’s not nearly as much fun by yourself, although I was plenty tired by the end of it. Came back, showered, and headed down for dinner. Only Mama and Merna were there - the rest of our table either ate at the Lido luau or were still ashore. The dining room was about ¾ empty, and we were joined by Gay (Gabrielle) from Tiburon whose table had entirely deserted her. She has one of the big penthouse suites up on deck 7 and gets to go to the Neptune lounge, where peasants like us are not allowed. She was nice and funny and we had a good time. She did comment her towel animal yesterday was a pig, and I had to wonder if maybe ours was too, but Dave says he’s pretty sure it was a cow. Or a dog.

After dinner we went off the ship to the schlocky tourist trap just on the other side of the terminal. They had more junk than you can imagine, and also were having an unusual fashion show made up of prepubescent girls and and adults wearing very strange costumes. We don’t know what it was, but it was not good. We headed back to the ship and walked around outside for a while, discovering a fingernail crescent moon just setting, and Chris the guitarist playing on the Lido deck. He was done at 8, and we walked around a little more and then it was time for me to lie down – I’m exhausted. The ship is supposed to pull out at 11, but I think I may miss it this time, even though leaving port has got to be one of my very favorite things – I love to be at sea! Not that it makes that much difference – lying on the bed with the ship not moving at all I still feel the gentle rocking motion. Tonight’s towel animal: a spectacular elephant.

Day 6 - Hello Hilo!

They added another hour last night, so we were up early again this morning. We turned on nerd TV (a constant display of the ship’s position, speed, heading, weather, time – you get the idea). What’s interesting is we left San Diego 4 days ago, travelled over 2000 nautical miles, and basically went in a straight line that’s going to take us directly into the harbor. For some reason I find that really cool. When I went out on the veranda there appeared to be a big fog bank to the west, but on closer inspection I could see the lights of Hilo twinkling on the side of Mauna Kea. It was a beautiful sunny morning, and it was exciting to see land again – even though I like being at sea better. I went up to the Lido and had some breakfast, then went to stretch class, which is always a nice way to start the day. By the time I got back we were parked in port, our Clear Spot wireless hotspot had connected, and we had free internet again.

We went to the Vista Lounge to get in the group for our tour, which turned out to be 24 people in two 12 passenger vans. They lead us out of the lounge in a line, gave us our appropriately colored stickers (ours were green) and lined us up in the terminal. While we were standing in line I noticed something odd – almost all the passengers were swaying slightly, as if the ground were moving. After 4 days at sea, solid ground just doesn’t seem that way. After a very short wait our tour guide, Kana (you can use his given name of Dan or Daniel if you can’t pronounce Kana… although how you’d pronounce Dan if you can’t say Kana is a little beyond me) came with the waiver for us to sign, then loaded us into our van. He was both funny and informative. We basically drove around the island, stopping at various scenic bits. One interesting thing was driving around through many of the residential neighborhoods – sometimes it’s easy to forget that people actually live here. Two highlights of the tour were the lava tube cave and a short swim in the ocean. The lava tube cave was both fun and frustrating. It was fun because we’ve been in so many of them near home, and this one was the same and yet different – for one thing, because it’s in a tropical rainforest it has wonderful roots hanging down from the ceiling. And it’s very damp inside. The frustrating part is that it’s about two miles long and we only got to go in a hundred feet or so. On the other hand, as Dave pointed out, we’re here in tropical paradise – do we really want to spend the whole day underground?

The swimming was really fun. Where we climbed in there was a freshwater spring, so it was coooold. It took a little talking to get Dave into the water! But once you got more out into the open part the water was a very comfortable temperature, and there were wonderful corals growing everywhere. It made me wish I’d brought my goggles. We’re scheduled to go snorkeling in Maui so that should be a good time. Although later on, chatting as the ship was pulling out of port, we discovered that each of us thought that snorkeling was one of the other’s favorite things – turns out both of us like it, but neither of us is crazy about it.

We got back to the ship and took quick showers, then headed down and got some lunch. We’ve gotten in the bad habit of looking at the dessert menu at lunchtime, and I was about to order the signature chocolate cake when Dave reminded me that we’re eating a 5 course dinner at the ship’s on board high end restaurant, the Pinnacle Grill, tonight. So we left the dining room and took the shuttle to Hilo Hattie’s, a tourist trap of the first magnitude where Dave got two very good looking shirts and I got a packet of instant noni supplement, in case I suddenly feel my noni running low. No, I have no idea what it is, but I couldn’t resist it.

There was a long line waiting for the shuttle van back to the ship, so we walked across the street to the Wal-mart where there was supposed to be a larger shuttle bus going back to the ship. There was a Walgreens there as well, so we stopped in and bought a few necessities, like flip-flops for Dave. We waited for the shuttle bus for a while, but a taxi-van came by offering rides back to the ship for $2 each, which seemed like a good deal, so we jumped in. There was a long line waiting to go through security to get back on the ship, so we were glad we hadn’t waited.

It’s so hard to know where to stand when the ship is leaving port! Here in Hilo we were on the non-dock side, so our cabin was right out. But we were snugged up do tight to the dock that you couldn’t see the front robes form anywhere on deck. We started out in our usual place, which is on the Lido deck in front of the gym, right above the bridge. But then once we’d pushed back from the dock we (I) thought how cool it would be to watch the giant rear engines come online, so we headed aft and watched that for a little (it wasn’t as cool as I thought it would be – they don’t suddenly come on like speedboat engines and churn the water to foam – they ramp up slowly). But then I remembered the antique dry compass outside the crow’s nest, which has been steadily pointing W-SW for 4 days – when the ship turned, would it turn too? So back forward we went, with Dave saying complimentary things about how glad he was he’d married a nerd (I’m taking them as compliments) and sure enough, it was spinning in time with the ship, which we both thought was very cool.

A few photos and a wave from Chris the guitarist later and it was time to go get dressed for dinner at the Pinnacle Grill. The Pinnacle Grill is a small restaurant on board with its own executive chef (they’ve been Indian both times on this ship, although not the same person), kitchen, and menu. The food is comparable to any really good restaurant, and last night they were doing a menu from the famous Le Cirque in New York City – down to the same plates. The food was very, very good – the highlight for me was a roasted butternut squash soup made with maple syrup and browned butter that almost had me licking the bowl. The odd thing was that they had a per-course wine pairing, but it was 3 fixed wines – a prosecco, a chardonnay, and a merlot. The first two really would pair well with any of the soup/salad/appetizer offerings, but the merlot seemed a little heavy for some of the entrees. Anyway, it was a super enjoyable evening. It was nice to have it be just the four of us and get caught up a little – we like to share tables with other cruisers, but usually you don’t get to chat about yourselves that much. So this was fun. Also one of the funny moments was when they were talking about the crops that grew on the 5 acres they were growing up on. Merna mentioned “her” violets, and Mama turned to her and said, “YOUR violets? Since when were they your violets?” It ‘s the second time we’ve seen sibling rivalry and we all had to laugh.

After dinner it was just about time to go to the late showing of the magic show. We’d seen J Neal several times already in his various appearances around the ship, but this was the first full-length show and we had high expectations. When we got to the lounge it was not crowded, which was nice. We sat upstairs to remove any chance of being picked on to come up on stage. They were selling magic cocktails, which had the same light-up ice cubes that John and I got in our magic star drinks at Disneyland last year. Unfortunately we’d had too much wine with dinner to want more alcohol. But that was the only disappointment. The show was brilliantly done, sometimes with very nice patter, sometimes just set to music. No big splashy tricks, but everything done so smoothly and cleanly that you just kept going “how did he do that?” Really top quality illusions. He gave a talk yesterday where he broke down many of the tricks so you could see how they were done, and talked at some length about different types of distractions – but I noticed that every time he did something designed to take my attention off what he was really doing I completely fell for it. It’s my favorite show so far on the ship.

Then it was 11:00 and definitely time to call it a night. Tonight’s towel animal: cow or dog, we’re not sure, but it’s a very good one.

Day 5 - last day at sea before Hawaii

Our last day at sea before Hawaii – bittersweet! We woke up early again and I’d planned a different fitness routine for today so that breakfast wouldn’t be so rushed. My stretch class wasn’t until 7, and sunrise was at 6:52, so we went aft on the lido deck to watch the sunrise, since it was still clear. Afterwards I headed up to the gym for stretch class and abs class – the latter proving that Mark is willing to make you hurt for free. Then it was off to the dining room for my first egg breakfast. I had the eggs Florentine, eggs benedict with sautéed spinach and onions and extra hollandaise, and it was perfectly executed. I’ll be going back to my oatmeal, but it was a nice change.

After a leisurely breakfast Dave headed up to the gym to do his workout, while I spent a few minutes writing in the cabin and then headed up to the gym myself for our last boot camp day. Since Dave was up there he took a great picture of Stephanie, Susan, Susie & me with Mark and Matthew. Class was killer, with one particularly nasty exercise called a “get-up”. We did have a mutiny in the middle of class where Mark told us all to stand up and no-one did. I was tired out at the end, but hurt less than I had on previous days.

My plan had been to take a shower up at the gym and meet Dave at the Indian cooking demo at 11, but we ended up sitting in a “hoodle” (that’s how they say huddle in England) while Mark went over the poster that’s supposed to let us do bootcamp at home on our own. I would have to say that is not happening. Anyway, it was about 10:55 when we got done, so I just put clean clothes on my sweaty body and went down to the Queen’s lounge. I’d forgotten to grab my true moo on the way in to class and I did miss it. The cooking class was Indian food, and I was almost falling asleep through most of it, I’m sorry to say. One weird thing was that the chef put cheese – mozzarella or cream cheese – in both dishes – not something I normally associate with Indian food. We did get a sample of the chicken and it was super yummy.

Today was the second day of mariner lunches – we missed ours yesterday because of the cooking class – so lunch was upstairs and sparse. I made it through lunch, just barely, but could not stay awake for dessert, so I left early and went back to the room and completely crashed. I don’t eat dessert at lunch anyway – can you image two weeks of dessert twice a day? I had planned on going to a class on getting a good night’s sleep, but I slept through it. It makes a good story at least.

Once I woke up it was time for the blind wine tasting. It’s a little disappointing because they don’t blindfold you or the wine – they just cover the labels. It was a little too much talking for my taste, and the wines were good, but not great, so to me it was something of a letdown. Last time we went they didn’t give any hints, so you just had to guess. Well, I just guessed, Dave actually recognized the wines. Also last time they had an interesting wine we’d never tasted – the Carmeniere. This time you had 3 choices of what each wine could be, and of the 6 wines we tasted I really only liked 2 of them. I think it’s not necessary on our next cruise.

Also because the wine tasting had too much talking (including a completely incomprehensible bit about German wines) we missed the first 25 minutes or so of the magic talk, in which magician J. Neal showed how some of the tricks he does are done. He’s very entertaining, very funny, and it was surprising to see how even after he’d shown how the trick was done it was still easy to be fooled. We’re very much looking forward to seeing his show tomorrow night.

After his talk was done I went up to the gym (yes, again) where Mark showed me some exercises to help re-align my feet and knees. He was demonstrating them while I took pictures so I’d remember them. At one point he had gotten into one of the intermediate positions of one of the exercises that looked (1) uncomfortable and (2) like it would make your abs really hurt. I seemed to have some trouble getting the camera to focus at that point… well, he deserved it. Then it was down to the cabin for my long delayed shower and off to the second formal night. Our table all cleaned up nicely, although I found the sequins and glitter on the ladies’ outfits quite distracting – “oooo, shiny!” It was king crab leg night which is always a favorite of mine – John and I ended up splitting a second helping. We also had a really delightful Cloudy Day Sauvignon Blanc – probably the best wine we’ve had on the ship so far.

After dinner it was the usual trip up to the crow’s nest, where we discovered that Chris’s guitar can play by itself. After an enjoyable 45 minute set we moved down to the Queen’s lounge for Liar’s club, where DJ Brett showed off his fantastic, infectious laugh. The idea is that 3 funny people (Elliot Max the comedian, J. Neal the funny magician, and Dave the 12 year old cruise director) make up definitions for words you’ve never heard of and you have to guess which one is telling the truth. It was pretty funny, but as I’ve said the funniest part is Brett’s laugh.

Even with my nap this afternoon, I am pretty tired tonight, so it’s a short blog and an early bedtime, especially since we’ve turned the clocks back again. Tomorrow we’ll see if we can get our land legs back after 4 days of constant rocking. Tonight’s towel animal: well, we’re not sure. Dave says it’s an airplane, but I don’t think so – an airplane is not an animal. On the other hand, I don’t have a plausible alternative. (Update: talked to our cabin steward Sulhan. He says it was a lobster. I’ve looked at the photos and I don’t quite see it.) (Update 2: I notice that on the first night I also have the towel animal as a lobster, but it looked nothing like this. So I’m not sure what’s up)

Day 4 - also still at sea!

Up at 6 after 8 hours of sleep, and out to the veranda to do some blogging. It’s much warmer, although still very cloudy and a little more humid than I’d like. It’s till cool enough that the terrycloth HAL bathrobe is a nice touch, but if it keeps getting warmer at the same rate I might not want it tomorrow.

After a pleasant slow morning on the verandah it was time to hop to it. We headed down to breakfast a little early in the hopes of getting the food a little faster. We ended up at a table for 6 with two other couples, one of whom had a timeshare in Mexico. After spending the first 20 minutes telling us how Mexico was a war zone, and going in to some detail about the local sheriff and the well organized and equipped cartels, he moved into another 20 minutes of his career in the military. It’s the first time on this cruise we’ve been seated with someone I hope to never be seated with again.

I did get my oatmeal in time to eat it in a leisurely fashion, then it was off to Zumba. The class was about twice as big as it was last time, and all the dancing tablemates were there. It had completely cleared up and was nice and sunny – maybe a bit too warm. I was planning to take it easy and use it as a gentle warmup for boot camp, but once the music started all that went out the window and I just had fun. I sure do enjoy Zumba.

I wasn’t sure what to do in the half hour between Zumba and boot camp. I ended up hanging out in the crow’s nest, just watching the world go by. The explorations café was very crowded with people using the computers and doing Sudoku and crossword puzzles. It was a pleasant interlude. Then I headed down to the gym to stretch a little before class. Susan came not long after, but Stephanie was not coming – she wanted to not be all sweaty for the Mariner’s lunch at 11. We were not going to be able to go to the Mariner’s lunch, and I figured they could deal with me being all sweaty at the cooking demo. Susie was late as usual. Susan and I got our weights and went and sat on our mats and asked each other the boot camp question – is there any part of you that doesn’t hurt? Today we were pretty much down to our fingers and toes. But surprisingly, class was easier than yesterday, and we made it through with flying colors. After the first set of 16 reps of the 4 exercises Susie and Susan collapsed on their mats and just lay there like noodles – it made me laugh and laugh.

Once class was over – I had to skip the stretching – it was rush rush down 4 flights of stairs and all the way to the other end of the ship for my shower, then rush rush down 3 more flights of stairs and back to the front of the ship for Culinary class. But when we got there we discovered that they had accidentally double-booked the room – the “super Mariners”, guests with over 200 cruise days with Holland America (200! Can you imagine?) were having their party. They finally moved them out, since we needed the stoves and ovens, and we went in to wait around for awhile. Eventually JC and our chef Tournant, Pablo, appeared. Unfortunately there was not electricity for the kitchen area, but we started on the chopping and stuff anyway.

At first I found the class a little frustrating, because the chef would come and say very fast what he wanted and then disappear, and then the other class members would do it wrong. I finally figured out to just back off and watch Pablo teach, and it was a very enjoyable time. We made creamy 5 onion soup, steak Diane, and bread pudding. There was lots of tasting and Chef Pablo is very entertaining. Eventually we finished making the food and then went and ate it in the Pinnacle Grill.

I had a break after that, which was nice – went down to the cabin and did some writing on the Verandah, and then took a nice hot bath before my massage. Mark, the merciless boot camp instructor, is also a physical therapist & had suggested a massage. Since at this point I could hardly walk or get in and out of chairs it seemed like a good idea. Oh man was it a good idea. It was an hour and a half and while some of it was the kind of painful deep tissue massage, I have not felt so good in years. I did point out that Mark has quite a self-perpetuating money maker going – first we pay him money to make us hurt in boot camp, then we pay him money to make it better with a massage. Now I am addicted and want to have one every day, but I’d have to win a lot more bingo.

After massage it was time to join our friends at table 7. I really do enjoy our tablemates this cruise, which makes dinnertimes something of a highlight. Tonight the talk of the table was that John was going to do some karaoke in the Queen’s lounge at 9, so we made that our one “to-do” of the evening. But the first thing to do after dinner was to take advantage of the clear skies! It was our first night where we could see the stars, and it is always fun to see them from a different perspective – for example, we’re far enough south that the big dipper was invisible in the haze just above the horizon. We walked all over the ship looking for some good places to see the sky, and always the most fun part was watching Dave excitedly finding old and new friends in the sky. He spent quite some time figuring out what a very bright reddish-yellow star was and we both felt the thrill of victory when he identified it as Capella.

First musical stop, of course, was the crow’s nest with Chris for 45 minutes of guitar and laughs. Next up, down to the Queen’s lounge. Our usual seats were taken, so we took the seats next to them, but if we’d had any idea what was coming next we would have sat in the front row! We got there just as John was starting his song, and while he didn’t knock our socks off he has a very pleasant voice and was fun to listen to. Our DJ Brett was the host, and he was very good – managing to make fun of the folks in a way that helped them to relax and helped the audience to have a great time. He’d introduce each performer by saying, “Let’s give a big hand to so-and-so, singing one of my favorite songs…” By the end of the night we’d all say “one of my favorite songs” together. After each person sang he’d say. “So, how did so-and-so do” and we’d all yell faaaaaaantastic! (Even if they didn’t). There were some hits and misses (as Brett said, it’s scary to get up and sing in front of a bunch of people you’ll never see again), but overall it was a hugely good time. Personal favorites of mine were the two women who sang the B-52’s Love Shack with much attitude and giggling, Mark who sang Magic Carpet ride and used his mane of silver hair to good advantage, and Joe, who actually was great to listen to and sang the song that goes “you’re sixteen, you’re beautiful, and you’re mine”. There was a moment where the lyrics, combined with his apparent age of over 60, combined in a slightly creepy way, but we got over it. We’ve never gone to karaoke night before and we’re grateful to John for introducing us to it.

We’ve been promising ourselves we’d try out the piano bar, despite a bad experience the first day of walking by and hearing the singer not sounding very good. So after karaoke we went over there, where we sat by Boot Camp Susie. It was fun singing along and John the piano man played some nice instrumental pieces he’d written himself, but it didn’t really push my button. We’ll give it another try sometime. When he decided to take a break, he decided to call it a night. Tonight’s towel animal: peacock.

Day 3 - Still at sea!

We crossed into a new time zone, so we got an extra hour of sleep – we didn’t wake up until about quarter of eight, which was really quarter of 9! It was still gray and cloudy out, but noticeably warmer than yesterday. We headed down to breakfast where we sat with a nice couple named Dennis and Dorothy, who told us the exciting story of getting to their first cruise – broken planes, no available gates, and coming on at the last minute via the gangway where they load the last of the cargo. Needless to say, they arrive early the day before now. Service was unusually slow, and unfortunately my oatmeal didn’t arrive before I needed to leave for water aerobics. My stewed prunes (yes, I love stewed prunes – do you have a problem with that?) had come, and it was quite a serving – maybe 10-12 of them. I decided that restraint would be wise and only ate a couple – our room is nice but I don’t want to spend all day in there! I did eat half of Dave’s bagel and a piece of his salmon, then it was off to the midship pool on the Lido deck to meet with lifestylist Louise. It was not the best water aerobics I’ve ever done – certainly not as good as Bubby’s tape – but it did have one unusual feature. The ship has a wonderful slow side to side roll that’s great for sleeping, but it means that the water in the pool is very active. At one point we were resting our arms on the deck and lifting ourselves up and down, and I got a hit in the face with a big wave! Note to self: don’t close your eyes while you’re doing the aerobics.

After aerobics I sped back to the cabin to get changed, then up to the gym for boot camp, stopping at the lido restaurant for a carton of true moo chocolate milk for after. Yesterday all of us were kind of quiet and the two thin ladies were very serious, but this morning we were a team with one objective: make it through the next half hour. I moved my mat over next to Stephanie. It was harder today than yesterday, and we made the mistake of telling our instructor Mark (who used to be a fitness trainer for the British Army) that the only parts that weren’t sore were our calves and obliques. Let’s just say he took care of that over the next brutal 30 minutes. It was harder today (and is supposed to keep getting harder for the next 2 sessions), but it was more fun as we were doing much more laughing and complaining. I liked the part where he said “are you having fun?” and we all said “NO!” While we were in class it also started to rain.

By now I was completely exhausted but I had nagged Dave into a Cha-Cha class. When I’d gotten to the gym he was working out on the machines (look at that cute guy working on the machines, I told my boot camp buddies) and he’d gone back to the room to shower and change. I slammed down my True Moo (the first sip seemed awfully sweet, but my body was so thrilled for the protein and carbs it went down real easy) and headed upstairs. I got there a little late and had to separate Dave from his partner, a nice looking woman. Men are a little in short supply at cha-cha class. The lesson was half an hour and at the very end we started to feel like we might get it. It’s particularly hard given that neither of us likes to do things we’re not good at in public, so the big thing for us is to refuse to just give up. It turned out that our tablemates John and Carol were right next to us on the dance floor – they already know how to do it, they’d just come to dance. John gave me some very helpful pointers. Our tablemate Gus was there too, but we didn’t see Rita. By the end of class it had cleared up and was sunny and warm and beautiful, so we walked outside to the back of the ship, enjoying the beautiful day.

Time for a quick shower and off to lunch! We met Mama and Merna in the explorer’s lounge and went in. We got a table just the four of us and enjoyed catching up. Unfortunately the service was very slow again – we’re not sure why – and it was made worse because I was starving! It’s the first time I’d been hungry since before Ruth Chris in San Diego. After lunch I remembered that I wanted to go to the memory tips class, so Dave left me at the explorer’s lounge. The class was very well attended – lifestylist Louise was very pleased. She showed us a way of remembering lists of items by associating them with a list of other words that you’re supposed to memorize – it seems a little strange, like wouldn’t it just be easier to memorize the things you want to remember, rather than memorizing a random list of words (developed by Brian Tracy) and then memorizing things in relation to that list? But it actually seemed to work (Fay likes cauliflower, Ray eats potato chips) and it was a fun class. I told my joke about the woman who wanted ice cream with strawberries and it was very well received. Then back to the cabin and time for some relaxing before bingo at 4 and dinner.

Now we take a short break for some comments. The first is about lines. When I got to the Vista lounge where bingo is held, there was quite a line to buy cards (no, they’re not free – what were you thinking? The jackpot is made up of the income from selling the cards). When the dining rooms open, there’s quite a line to get in. One of the things we really liked about Holland America after our first cruise on Carnival is that there weren’t any lines – you don’t want the older folks having to stand in line, especially with the ship rolling from side to side. But I guess this ship is just so big and so full of older folks there’s no way to avoid it. And that leads to another musing on the demographics of this trip, so very different from our Christmas trip two years ago. We ran into the Club Hal coordinator on one of the decks, and she told us there were under 20 kids between the ages of 5-17 on board – contrast that with the 200 or so they regularly have on the Christmas cruise. And there aren’t that many middle-aged folks either. So you can easily get reservations with a personal trainer, or at the hands-on cooking demos, or for a massage, but the breakfast and lunch in the sit-down dining room are packed. And speaking of sit-down dining, the ship can be kind of confusing to get around – yesterday I thought I was on the right (aka starboard or odd numbered stateroom) side of the ship, but it turned out I was on the port side, and I walked half the length of the ship before I figured out that I was never going to get to my cabin if I kept going in that direction. Anyway, it makes me laugh that on the two floors where the dining room is in the very back of the ship, there are signs all the way forward directing you to it. These HAL folks know what’s important. And finally, a note about carpeting. When we were last on the ship, I had made some comments on the satisfaction survey about the ship looking run down, particularly the carpeting which was stained and old looking (and ugly, too, but I think I didn’t put that in there. If you’ve been to Las Vegas you know what I’m talking about). So as they were loading the ship we saw rolls of stuff that we could only imagine were carpeting , and in our stateroom there was a letter saying that last time we’d been on board we’d had some issues and they hoped we’d find they’d been addressed. Sure enough they are replacing the carpeting in the forward elevator lobbies. Every time we go by I feel like I should tell them I’m the one who asked for the new carpet.

OK, so, back to Bingo. I got in line to buy a card and was soon joined by the M sisters. The line moved fairly quickly – they all do, except the one for high tea – and soon we had our cards. It took a while to figure out how this worked – they play 4 games, so you get packs of 4 different colored cards – blue, orange, green, yellow. You can get as many sets as you want – they come in singles, threes, and sixes. Mama and I each bought a 3-pack. The cards are very clever, you just punch out the number as they’re called. They’re attached at the bottom, so you end up with a bunch of what the your DJ Brett, who is from Florida, delightedly called hanging chads. The games are more complicated than the bingo I played as a child – two of them involved making patterns, rather than just the lines we grew up with. They call the numbers, you make your chads, and when you only need 1 more number for a bingo you stand up and everybody moans. They take a very, very long time between numbers, so they have to fill it with bad jokes (why is N44 the star wars bingo ball? May the fours be with you). It made me long for the subway bingo of my childhood birthday parties. So I did get to stand up on the first card, but after that it was all downhill, especially the 4th card, where you had to have the entire card covered (or chadded) for a bingo. I didn’t have any of the first 3 or 4 numbers they called, and Mama was down to 5 on a card and I still had 7 or 8 on each. Then I started doing better, but my best card still had 4 on it when the first person stood up. Then I had 3, but more people stood up. They called the last 3 numbers and I had all of them… I stood up… I won!!! Well, I tied, so we split the $580 pot between us, but I cleared $260 counting what I paid for the card, and that wasn’t bad at all for a first timer. I’m calling it beginner’s luck and don’t think I’ll go again, but it was fun to win.

After giving them my room number so they put the money into our room account (you can get it as cash, but why? They don’t accept cash anywhere on the ship) I was a little late getting to sunset Tai Chi with your lifestylist Louise, and then I had to leave it a little early to get down to dinner, but that was ok because it wasn’t nearly as much fun as the Chair Chi we did at Passover a couple years ago. It was funny because I ended up standing next to Susan from boot camp, and at one point she leaned over and said “this is a little easier than boot camp, isn’t it?” and we both laughed. Or groaned, it was hard to tell. I am very, very sore.

Ok, off to dinner. We had a very spirited but ultimately useless discussion with our tablemates about how you tell if a song is a cha-cha. Dave is very musical, so I figured he’d get it, but he’s just as much at sea (if you’ll pardon the expression) as I am. Cha-cha is a 4 count: 1,2, 3 and 4; 1,2, 3 and 4, and he and I are able to make any song in 4/4 time a cha cha (yes, we can recognize a waltz). But our tablemates say that’s not so, and spent some time naming songs (Jimmy Buffets’ Margaritaville) that were cha chas and humming and drumming on the table, but then they brought in the rhumba, and honestly we were just as lost as when we started. But we made plans to meet in the Queen’s lounge at 9 and they said they’d come get us if there was a cha-cha. There was Notable Food at dinner – my appetizer, a seared ahi tuna carpaccio, would be a stand-out in any setting. We had a very pleasant dinner and headed out for our usual musical evening.

We started in the crow’s nest with Chris as we have every night, and tonight we did some singing along as he was playing some of our favorite Paul Simon tunes. On the other hand, there aren’t really any Paul Simon tunes that we aren’t favorites. He commented that he liked songs that tell stories, and we talked about how he mostly liked ones that told sad stories. So he said, “here’s one with a happy ending”, that ended up with a dead policeman, the male protagonist in the electric chair, and the female protagonist back at her old dead-end life, but now driving a Mercedes. “I realized about halfway through that it wasn’t really a happy ending,” Chris said.

At 8:45 we had to head down to the Queen’s lounge because that’s where all the dancer were going to be and we wanted to get good seats. We did get to see lots of dancing – I especially enjoyed watching Gus and Rita, who are wonderful dancing couple even though they move very slowly. Unfortunately the “lady in red” and her partner who danced so well last night weren’t there, and Vivienne continued to have issues with her high notes, so it wasn’t as much fun as it could have been – although John did come over and repeat his threat, I mean offer, to dance with us if they played a cha-cha. Fortunately they didn’t. When Viv & her HALcats took their break we moved forward to the Vista lounge for the show, Elliott Max, billed as “silly songs and jokes”.

Mama had told us at dinner that she wasn’t going to go to the show as they were often a little raunchy. Elliott wasn’t raunchy, but he did have a higher percentage of poop and fart jokes than I thought strictly necessary, although I did like the one about the 7 short blasts and the one long one. But much of what he did was not raunchy and very funny – he did a takeoff on “these boots are made for walking” which was about getting stuck behind a group of slow-moving folks in shorts and black socks that is in my head. I’ll be singing “old coots are out there walking” for some time.

When the show ended we were ready to call it a night. We’re cruising mostly to the west (and a little south), so in addition to it getting warmer, we hit a new time zone every day. So we gain another hour tonight (Don’t worry, says cruise director Dave, we’ll take them all back on the trip home). I’m loving the days at sea, even if I am still cramming way too much into them and am so sore from boot camp that sitting down is an adventure and standing up is a workout. Tonight’s towel animal: Octopus (or maybe a squid – it only has 4 tentacles, so we’re not sure).

Day 2 - At Sea

We both slept well – we’re in 3-6 foot swells, so the ship rolls gently from side to side – but we were a little chilly. I woke up a little after 7 and went to see if anyone had turned in my camera – no dice. We headed over to breakfast and had a nice table. I was wearing my Red Sox sweatshirt – it just has a big ‘B’ on the front. One of the couples at the table were from Mystic, CT, and when I got up to leave they commented on the sweatshirt – apparently they’re fans too.

Off to Zumba! Zumba is always a blast, but out on the Lido deck with the wind blowing and the ship rolling it was a whole new ballgame! We had 9 stalwarts zumboids, and I enjoyed it very much. It’s only a half hour class, and she spent about 10 minutes of it going over the moves, so it wasn’t quite as much of a workout as I’d hoped, but I still managed to get pretty sweaty. One interesting thing is it’s not called a Zumba class – it’s called latin dance class, or some such. Apparently Princess cruises are doing a big promotion with Zumba, and since they are part of the same cruiseline the decision was made not to call it Zumba. But it is.

Then I had half an hour until body sculpting class, so I went to the shop and checked out various warm things. Unfortunately the weather is not good – it’s cloudy and in the low 60s – and I just didn’t bring the right clothes for that (come on – we’re going to Hawaii!). I was too sweaty to try anything on, but I made some mental notes.

Then it was time for body sculpting class. There are only 4 of us in the class, all women. Two of the women are named Susan and are very thin. They have tiny little tushes and tiny little senses of humor. The other lady is named Stephanie and has a normal body and a normal sense of humor. I’m going to put my mat next to hers tomorrow. It’s basically aerobics with weights – we did a set of 4 exercises (upper body, lower body, upper body, lower body) with diminishing reps but increased speed (16 to 6 reps, descending by 2s). Mark the instructor and his assistant Matthew are both British, which is more fun to listen to. After the sets we did a descending set of crunches, then cooldown. I was good and tired by then. We used some leg muscles I don’t usually use, and I can tell I’m going to be pretty sore tomorrow.

Then I had ½ hour to get cleaned up and ready for the Pinnacle/le Cirque cooking demo with our executive chef Pablo. He is from Columbia (the only Colombian on board, so he’s special, as he told us). He demonstrated crème brulee and lobster salad, and was very funny. For the lobster salad he laid a bunch of lettuce leaves in a pile and cut out a big circle, then wondered out loud what to do with the scraps. He told us at home he keeps a bunny to eat all the leftover vegetables. Then when the bunny is nice and fat… it got a good laugh. We had samples of the crème brulee end it was fantastic.

Then it was time for lunch. We tried to find Mama and Merna but couldn’t, so we headed to the dining room without them. But when we were being seated we saw them waving, so we were able to join them. We ended up at the same table as we’d had for dinner last night. Overall the food was continuing to be very good, but I did have a very strange appetizer of oranges and sliced bananas seasoned with mint and red chili flakes. I’m not sure it was entirely successful. One thing I’ve noticed is about how the shape of the table affects conversation. When the four of us we’ve been seated at the standard rectangular 8 person table, we usually great the other folks but don’t talk with them much. At the oval 8 person table, there’s much more cross chatter. The oval tables can’t be squished in as much, though, so there aren’t as many of them.

After lunch it was time for more go go go. First we stopped at the shop to buy some warm things – we each got a sweatshirt and I got a very nice gray/silver/gold dressy jacket. Our saleslady was VERY determined – there was no way we were getting out of there without a sweatshirt for each of us. She was also very nice and very homesick, coming to the end of her first six month assignment and missing her family in Jamaica. Would she come back? She wasn’t sure. We took our purchases back to our room and headed out for our next adventure, but on the way we stopped at the front desk to ask about my camera. The woman we asked looked through her book and shook her head, but then she said she’d go in the back to double check. I thought that meant no but when she came out she had found it! I have to say I got a little teary-eyed, and my faith in HAL cruisers was restored.

Then it was time for our first wine tasting – the Navigator wine tasting, a tasting of 4 of the wines available in the navigator package. We had two whites - a Riesling that was crisp and acidic and barely sweet that we both liked, and a chardonnay that was bitter and oaky that neither of us liked. Bernie, the cellar master on board and a certified master sommelier, led the tasting and was funny and informative at once, although we are not sure about his assertion that Rieslings aren’t meant to age. Not all, surely, but as Dave says, what about the great Mosels? We finished with two reds – a simple pinot noir from Burgundy and a simple Cab Sauv from California. Both nice enough wines, but we preferred the Willamette Valley Vineyards Pinot we’d had with dinner the night before.

We had to rush off from the wine tasting to get to our next event, the High Tea. We’re not doing too well with following our mantra of “the ship goes so we don’t have to”! This was probably the first thing we’ve done on the ship that we could have skipped – there was a long, slow-moving line, and although the pastries were yummy I wasn’t particularly hungry, and also the thought that dinner was only 2 hours away was a little quelling. It’s done in the vista dining room and just isn’t that much fun, so I don’t think it’s something I’ll need to do again. But it was worth going because of what happened as we were leaving. A man looked at Dave, then stopped him and said, “excuse me, did you lose a camera?” He was the one who had found it, and he’d turned it on to see whose it was – and the picture he saw was Dave about to board the ship. Out of the almost 2,000 passengers on the ship, he’d recognized him! Now there’s a memory for faces.

Then it was time for a little relaxing before our first formal dinner. We’d made reservations for dinner at the Pinnacle Grill, but found out there was a special Le Cirque dinner at the Pinnacle later in the cruise, so we’d changed our reservation to that night. Also, beside the happy event of getting my camera back, we also got a card in our mailbox that we’d been assigned a table for first seating. Yay! So we thought it would be a good idea to go there and start getting to know our tablemates. And they turned out to be fun people – all “orphans” – people who’d been waitlisted for first seating. There were two other couples at one of the conversation-encouraging oval tables – John and Carol, from southern California, and Gus and Rita, from Florida (although Gus is originally from Holland). They’re very nice, and they all love to dance.

After dinner it was time to head up to listen to Chris play guitar in the Crow’s Nest – our favorite after dinner spot. Dave discovered that asking for a club soda gets you the can of fizzy water that he’s been trying to get, and we spent an enjoyable hour listening to Chris play. He came over and chatted for a while, and is the first employee we’ve met who actually enjoys his job. The Crow’s nest is not a very hopping joint, so it was pretty much just us – very relaxing. At 9 he took another break, and we figured we’d head down and listen to the Neptunes do Elvis Hour in the Ocean Bar. Well, it turns out Elvis hour was totally the “in” spot that night, and we couldn’t even get a seat! We stood and watched the dancers for most of the hour, enjoying the music and the sight of the piano player in hi elvis wig and sunglasses.

We finished up the night listening to Vivienne and the HALcats in the queen’s lounge. There was good dancing and the HALcats were really swinging, but Vivienne was having an off night and Dave said she was about a quarter tone flat all the time. I didn’t mind because there was a couple who were just fantastic to watch on the dance floor – he was wearing a red vest and she was wearing a floor length sequined red dress. When the musicians took their break at 10:45, we decided to take our break too and headed to our cabin. Tonight’s towel animal: stingray.

Hawaii Cruise Day 1

Leading up, I spent a week on the East Coast and got back on a Thursday night – we were scheduled to leave the following Friday. When I made the plans it felt like plenty of time, but of course when it actually came down to doing it I was overwhelmed. In addition we were having our first fundraiser for Phil Miller on the Tuesday in between, and that night Kepler got hit by a car & had t be taken to the emergency vet and then boarded. But everything got done, as it always does, and by 9:30 on Thursday night we were packed and ready to go, with rather less stress than usual.

We had an early-ish flight to San Diego, a relic of the Christmas several years ago when we had a huge snowstorm and almost didn’t make it to San Gabriel. So we were at the hotel by 1, and went to the hotel restaurant for lunch. I had a pulled pork sandwich with sweet potato fries that was pretty good, but Dave’s bangers & mash were mediocre at best – well, the bangers and mash were good, but the gravy and beans were both from a can. About the time we finished lunch Mama arrived, so we sat with her while she ate her bowl of onion soup, then headed up to the room for some relaxing before dinner. When we got to the room it wasn’t done, even though they’d said it was, so we hung out in Mama & Aunt Merna’s room until it was ready. Dave helped Merna set up her new iPad. IT to go!

For dinner we went to Ruth Chris, which was just as overpriced and oversized as ever. But mama and I split a filet (we should have split the petit filet, but who knew?) and we only got two sides – creamed spinach (yummy! Get 2!) and shoestring fried (also yummy, but 1 is sufficient). Then we went back to the room and pretty much went right to bed. Why Ruth Chris again, you might wonder, since I’m not in love with it? I had spend quite some time on yelp looking for better choices, and honestly didn’t find any – all the reviews had the word “overpriced” in them somewhere. And Ruth Chris is right in the hotel. So it is a good choice.
Dave had gotten us rooms in the South tower, which is quite literally across the street from the ship. It was very foggy, so we all heard the ship come in at about 6:30 in the morning, blowing its horn. I went back to sleep until about 7:30, and then we got up and after dealing with a shampoo leak disaster in my bathbag had some breakfast at the restaurant downstairs. I had realized the night before that I forgot to bring earplugs for the snorkeling, so we walked over to the Rite-Aid and got some, and also an economy pack of earplugs for Dave in case our room was noisy. When we got back it was about 10:15, so we made a plan for getting on the ship that ended up working very well. Dave and I went at 11 and dropped off our luggage (2 garment bags, 1 large suitcase, 1 carry-on), then went back to the hotel and got Mama and Merna and their bags. Our boarding process was very quick and smooth, theirs not as much as they had to wait about an hour in the wheelchair line.
Once on the ship we knew what we had to do. This is a big ship – 1,900 passengers – and the activities are only scaled up so far. So we headed to the front office and signed up for the hands-on cooking class – only 12 spots per class. Then we went to the explorer lounge to try to change out dinner seating – we had not been able to reserve a slot in the early fixed seating, and we got on a wait list for it. Then we headed up to the spa to sign up for personal trainer time, but instead I signed up for a body sculpting class. Well, it turned out that none of this was necessary. When we were last on this ship, two year ago at Christmas, the demographic was very different – much younger. Lots of kids, lots of families, lots of folks our age. Because this is a longer cruise, it’s a much, much older crowd. As a result there were still spaces available for personal trainers and in the culinary classes the next day and maybe even after that.

We found Mama and Merna in the Lido (we still had cell service), and went down to the dining room for lunch. It was good to be back, and the food was better than we remembered – difficult to tell if we’d just set our expectations lower or if it’s actually better. Either way, we had a very enjoyable lunch. After lunch we watched them loading the ship. It’s always fun to watch them load the ship – they have two forklifts with long extendable booms. One of them was loading luggage and large white rolls of what looked like carpeting, while the other was loading food. When we got there one of the forklift drivers – the one loading food – was munching on what looked like half a watermelon that had been split open. Later was saw the same guy loading a pallet of food that had three watermelons balanced on top… but this time they none fell off. Our luggage came and we unpacked, and then it was pretty much hanging out until time for the lifeboat drill. We had gone to see our lifeboat, which is on the other side of the ship, and wondered how we’d get to it since the galley is between us and the lifeboat. Turns out you can go through crew-only doors in an emergency, which was a relief – it was unclear if we’d be able to get to our lifeboat otherwise.

After lifeboat drill we went topside to watch departure, but we ended up leaving late – Dave said they were looking for the missing watermelon. So we went down to dinner. There are two big disadvantages to not having fixed seating - first, we need to go in to dinner with Mama and Merna to make sure we’d be at the same table, and second, you don’t get to know your waitstaff. But we did get a very nice table with a view out the back and side windows, and had an enjoyable dinner.
After dinner it was off to Foodie Trivia. You may recall that last cruise I was undefeated in food trivia. Not so anymore – we lost by 1 point. To help recover from our disappointment we headed up to the Crow’s Nest, where Chris was playing guitar and singing. He has a very nice voice, but interesting styling – on many songs he sings the words double time, so he has lots of time left at the end of each line to do fancy guitar playing. It was very peaceful and enjoyable, and we had each had a perrier with lime. Chris was done at 9, so our next stop was Vivenne and the HALcats in the Queen’s lounge. Also enjoyable – although these HALcats are not quite as tight as last time’s. Then it was off to the show, where they introduced the Oosterdam dancers and singers. I was interested to see them as my cousin Nate had been one for 6 months not very long ago. The show was fun, and I especially enjoyed the magician. It turned out to be a very good thing we went, because I found out there is both Zumba and water aerobics on the ship. Yay!

After the show we went back to the Queens lounge for a little more V&THC, and then we were both ready for bed. Unfortunately when we got back to the room I found that I’d lost my camera sometime during the night. I went back to the Queen’s lounge, because we thought I might have lost it there, but it wasn’t there. So that was sad. Tonight’s towel animal: Lobster.