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)