The first post of each season:

Thursday, November 15, 2012

Evening at Sea

I forgot to mention (I think) that I also went to line dancing today, sometime midday. So when all was said and done, it was a busy day.

I was mistaken about Breeza Marina night in Skywalkers...it was margarita night, but I was so set on getting a Breeza Marina that I had to have a margarita instead. We didn't spend much time in Skywalkers; the Emerald Princess orchestra was playing Dixieland Jazz in the Piazza and we wanted to listen to them before dinner. We were wondering if we'd ever enjoyed the ship's orchestra/band (I'm not sure what they call themselves) as much as these guys, and I really don't think we ever have. A large part of it is the personality and showmanship of the music director/ saxophonist Gordon Hough (from Cambridge, Ohio!). He really draws in the audience.

Dinner was the second formal night menu, with lobster for me and Beef Wellington for G. We also ordered one serving of escargot between us but nothing else but dessert; we're in and out of the dining room in just over an hour and are getting to the early (7:15pm) show in the Princess Theater. I really wish they'd start it at 7:30pm instead, but we work with what we're given. We really enjoy being able to walk into the theater just minutes before show time and finding lots of available seats. The 8:30pm show is far more crowded and the 10:15pm show is far too late.

We enjoyed the new Disco production show. It didn't bowl us over as older shows once did (Piano Man and Motor City come to mind), but we certainly enjoyed the songs and the costumes. It's always good to see something new.

We caught the juggler's five minute performance in the Piazza at 8pm. He was supposed to perform two nights ago, and we stood waiting for his show to start that night until it was 10 minutes late and someone from the cruise staff finally announced that due to "technical difficulty" the show wouldn't be performed that night. Well, yesterday in St. Thomas, we reboarded the ship as the juggler was just getting on. That was the technical difficulty...he wasn't supposed to be in the ship until yesterday and shouldn't have been scheduled the night before. Oh well. Ship happens, especially on ships. Performers are not a phone call away...often they're an ocean away. A few years ago we had a magician on board whose luggage got lost by his airline. They kept scheduling him in the hopes it would appear in the next port, but it never did. A magician without his bag of tricks doesn't have much of a show. We watched movies instead. It happens.

What also happens is that the laundry loses clothing. I just tonight realized that the laundry we got back this morning was missing a pair of my shorts. I didn't pack a lot of extra pairs...this will definitely put me in a bind (so to speak). I'll report them as missing tomorrow, but we've been through this before (with socks), and the bottom line is that they make some half-hearted effort to find missing items but we never see them again. I'm not very hopeful. I am very peeved. And I'm very, very scared to have to talk with the Steward Nazi about it.

Pray for me.

Photo: my only photo of Disco- Blame it on the Boogie. They announced at the beginning that, not only was videography and flash photography not allowed (this is always the case), but no photography was permitted. That was a first.