When we do these itineraries in this order, we have two sea days at the end of last cruise and two sea days at the beginning of this cruise, interrupted only by the turnaround day in Fort Lauderdale. That's a lot of sea days, almost in a row, and any time this happens, we look at each other and say, "We'll NEVER take the cruise to Hawaii!!". The Hawaii cruise on Princess is round trip from Los Angeles and has four sea days at the start and five at the end, with just four port days in the middle. We're just not that fond of sea days (yes, I know that you know, but it's good that we, too, are occasionally reminded of just how not fond of them we are).
It's much the same as having to change cabins every cruise; it's easy to convince ourselves, when we're home and see a great price for a Hawaii cruise, or huge savings if we'd just accept a different cabin for each of these winter cruises, that we could live with the inconveniences that the low cruise fares would bring. But when we're on a ship...that's the time to take note that we simply aren't sea day cruisers, and also that we really like unpacking just once and being home for the winter.
But I promise you, at least one time during the months that we're home, we'll consider doing just what we know we won't like. Anything, ANYTHING to be on a cruise!! We're hopeless.
And saying all that about sea days, it's 8:30pm on one of them, we're tucked under wool throws watching the Pro Bowl on the MUTS (the big screen), and G just turned to me and said, "This was a pretty good day, wasn't it?" And, you know, it really was. It was a great day. For a sea day.
But before I get into what made it that way, I must first report that the mystery of the missing remote control (RC) has been solved, and you won't be a bit surprised to learn that our Steward Nazi (SN) was involved. As I mentioned last night, it wasn't until I was undressed, and was in my wrinkly birthday suit, that I noticed the RC was not where it had resided every day since we boarded this ship on November 7th. Even when we returned from being away for ten days during dry dock, it was right where it we'd left it. That's why it really threw me last night when it wasn't there. I did look under the TV and in our nightstand drawers, thinking I had thrown it in one of them (but knowing full well I hadn't, because, well, I just wouldn't do that. Doing so would be as unnatural to me as leaving the charging port door on my iPhone case open and then taking it in a pool, or painting my eyebrows green. Oh, wait....never mind).
So, anyway, I'll admit that I did initially suspect I might be responsible for the missing RC, but it didn't turn up during my search. When G returned from the Welcome Aboard show last night, I was smart enough to mention to him BEFORE he undressed that our RC was missing. For some reason, he, too, believed that I was somehow involved (go figure), so he proceeded to check everywhere that I had just checked and then pulled the suitcases out from under the bed and pulled the bed and the nightstands away from the wall.
No, the RC didn't turn up, but we did find a few other things that we knew were missing, and an earring back and two more black beads from that bracelet I'd broke early on that we didn't, and even two pieces of popcorn we'd missed that time that G spilled his popcorn and we raced to pick it all up before our SN saw it. An abundance of riches, but no RC.
While I started restoring our cabin to its pre-search configuration, G opened the door to find Johnathon, whose service cart was in the hallway, indicating he was still somewhere nearby. Within a minute, G came back in the cabin, holding the RC. SN had borrowed it. Borrowed it! When I asked G why, G shrugged and said that, as explanation when he'd asked, SN had also shrugged and then grunted in the direction of the cabin next to ours, an explanation that I guess will have to suffice.
So, at this point, I don't know what's more surprising...that I've managed to write five paragraphs about a missing RC, or that SN borrowed ours and hadn't returned it. But I suspect it's the latter, because written brevity has never been my strong suit.
And, finally, on to today...
We were awake early and in the dining room for breakfast shortly after it opened at 7:00am. Once again, we've had a wide scale headwaiter shake up on turnaround day. Every three cruises or so, the three headwaiters that work in the dining room at breakfast and lunch rotate out, to the buffet, and we get three different ones. We know it happens, but it's still a bit surprising when we walk in and are greeted by different faces. The waiters change out more often, usually every cruise, so we're really not surprised by that anymore. It's just a bit of a PITA that we must, once again, appear to be unreasonably obsessive that the coffee I'm getting is DECAF. Especially G. ("Are you sure that's decaf? Really sure? That's not what the decaf coffee pot looks like. If you give her caffeine, YOU'RE going to have to live with her all day!"). He's really tightly wound about that. I wonder why...
Afterwards, we sat on the Terrace Deck for a bit, watching the ship's wake and willing the sun to make it over the top of the ship, because it was a bit chilly back there until it did, probably only in the mid 70s (don't bother throwing things. They can't reach me here).
;-)
I rousted myself to go to line dancing at 10:15am in Club Fusion, where I had my second surprise of the day...cruise staffer Leesh is no longer leading line dancing; Lexi is instead. Now, after seven cruises of line dancing led by Leesh, it's easy to imagine I couldn't adapt, but, honestly, Lexi is great also, and I actually learned a dance I didn't know before (but have already forgotten its name, which is why I must stay on for multiple cruises...I'm a slow learner). But (and this is the bigger news), I suspected that Leesh was busy learning how to be a Zumba instructor. The Emerald Princess has been largely Zumba-less since Ryan left over dry dock. G said that cruise director Lee announced at last night's Welcome Aboard show (when I was in the cabin looking for the RC) that Zumba would be returning to the Emerald starting this cruise. When I saw Leesh later in the day, she said that that was, in fact, the reason for her absence, and that Zumba is starting again TOMORROW!! I also know that Leesh was busy in the gym last cruise, trying to tone muscles in preparation for her new responsibility, because every time I saw her she was groaning and popping aspirins. Any pain in the pursuit of health, don't you know?
I then returned to the cabin for some quiet time alone, since I knew that G would be at a lecture on survival techniques. I probably would have liked that too, but being alone in the cabin held more appeal. People often ask us how we manage to live together in an inside cabin for an entire winter, which, frankly, I think is a harious question. Entire families across the world live in less space than this, plus we have a whole ship to enjoy. A second bathroom I would love, but we do just fine in an inside cabin. At least until the topic of gun control comes up, and Faux News or MSNBC is on TV. Then this ship isn't big enough for the two of us. We've made a pact not to watch anything but BBC news in the cabin, and even that in extreme moderation. It's made for an uneasy truce. But guess what I watch when I'm alone?? ;-)
So I watched MSNBC- er, enjoyed some quiet time in the cabin- until G returned and we headed down to lunch in the dining room. We both had our favorite mozzarella, sliced tomatoes, balsamic vinaigrette and basil salad for lunch, followed by veggie burritos, another favorite.
I had just enough time to wash out my Tilley hat, which was still pretty salt crusted from that walk last cruise down to the southern tip of Eleuthera, before heading up to Skywalkers for a Cruise Critic meet and greet. I'd already seen several people we've cruised with in prior years on the Terrace Deck yesterday at sailaway. Love these January cruises! And It was a lot of fun meeting people who have been reading my blog, and especially dear Pat, who was such a help to me in finding an AT&T store with an iPhone was I was iPhone-less. She saved me!
There was just enough time afterwards to walk for an hour up on Deck 19 (sunny with gorgeous views today!) before getting ready for the first formal night of this cruise. I will admit that I am getting a little tired of formal nights. We've done 14 out of 15 on the Emerald Princess this winter. The upside is that we can now get G into his tux in record speed. It always takes us a few minutes early in our winter season of cruising, but by now we're pros. Studs, cuff links, tie and cummerbund in 60 seconds or less.
We went to the Gold Captains Circle party, which is really intended for those people who have from 1-4 Princess cruises, before dinner. It's held in the Princess Theater and we enjoy listening to the orchestra and the singers so much that somehow G gets us an invitation. Afterwards, we really didn't have enough time to go up to Skywalkers, so we enjoyed our pre-dinner drinks in Crooners Martini Bar. Very nice!
We went to dinner at 5:30pm with the goal of attending the 7:15pm performance of the production show I Got the Music, which is now our favorite but which we've missed the last several cruises due to a conflict with the Most Traveled Passengers party. We felt lucky to see it tonight, and really enjoyed it. In fact, I think we enjoyed it even more because we haven't seen it for awhile.
And now we've changed into shorts and tshirts and are happily watching what is possibly the most contrived NFL game of the season but who cares? The moon is full, the night is beautiful, the lights are reflecting off the Calypso Pool, pizza and cookies and popcorn are being distributed...now THIS is cruising!
Photo 1: production show I Got the Music
Photo 2: deputy cruise director Frenchie closing out the show
Photos 3-5: the Pro Bowl, Peyton, a full moon and us, looking cozy
