Life was good.
When I first woke up, though, I wasn’t certain we’d even been getting in to port. The ship’s webcam showed grey sky and fog, but no land. I feared another missed port and lay in bed awaiting an incoming announcement. It wasn’t long, though, before I could start to make out land, though the surrounding mountains were shrouded in clouds. Then, joy of joys, we were at our berth and the world stopped bouncing.
We went to breakfast in the Botticelli Dining Room for the first time in days. When things were so rough, we seemed to do better eating in continuous small amounts throughout the day and spent a lot of time in the World Fresh Marketplace. But today… today we threw caution to the wind and both had that deep fried French toast with orange marmalade for me and extra strawberry puree for G. It was made extra special because our former junior waiter at dinner, Ivy, was our junior waiter for breakfast. It’s hard when these people we’ve enjoyed so much get rotated to a different dining room and we lose track of them. We now know to request table 27 in Botticelli for breakfast.
I had tried- hard- to get a car rental for today from Enterprise, which blog reader Mary told me was within walking distance of the port, and there were a couple of others to consider also, but I couldn’t find any availability at all. If you want to do this (and I highly recommended doing that as your best option), reserve it well in advance. The ship excursions are quite expensive considering we’ve already done and seen all these things, and the one thing I really want to do, travel the northwest road around the coast, is rather sketchy to do on a cruise, especially considering the recent bad weather. It’s a landslide area in good weather.
So we walked off the ship, just to touch terra firma, and over to the Longs Drug Store where I picked up an item I needed and were back on the ship by lunch. I miss tendering into Lahaina so much!!!
It was nice enough on the Terrace Deck to eat our lunch out there, and though clouds hung over the mountains all day, it never rained. Hallelujah!
By late afternoon, the sky over the ocean was blue and sunny.
We didn’t sail until 7pm, and went to the Elite Lounge (my first time in days because it’s been so bouncy up there), and then to the Michelangelo Dining Room. Dinner tonight was the best so far this cruise (mahi mahi for me) and flourless chocolate cake again for dessert, not the macadamia nut version but the standard version and they know how to make it on the Emerald Princess! This pastry chef is fantastic.
Tonight’s Princess Theater show was Disco: Blame it on the Boogie. I ran into dancer Jorge today in the buffet. We’ve known him for years, and I asked him how many years he’s been dancing with Princess: 19! This cast is returning home after this cruise and will next be on the Ruby Princess.
And we finished our evening in Club Fusion listening to party band Third Time Lucky play a Beatles set before calling it a day. I have a feeling we will sleep well tonight. At least for right now it’s not too, too rough and our pool neighbor has quieted down.
