First, though, I must touch on something I wrote last night, about the sun being in different positions, but always in our eyes, as we watched the Broncos game yesterday. Based on where it was, I figured we had to be heading north, but that made no sense to me, as I thought we should be sailing south to St. Thomas. When I looked at the map today, it all more sense. We were heading north, around the northern end of Eleuthera, then east, before we turned to the southeast. Since we were facing the back of the ship, it's no wonder we had the sun in our eyes. I guess I just haven't been to Nassau often enough to really know where it is.
We awoke early today, despite having spent two days on EST and moving ahead one hour to AST last night. Breakfast was in the DaVinci Dining Room with Joel from the Philippines as our waiter and Erika from Mexico as his assistant. At 10am, we were in the Princess Theater for another back stage tour (we learn more every time). I was touched to see a letter I had written to the singers and dancers a few cruises ago posted on their bulletin board. One evening I had been feeling a bit homesick and their performance was so happy and energetic that night and cheered me so completely that I had to let them know about it.
A costume from What a Swell Party
A wig from Boogie Shoes
Back in the cabin, we did some administrative tasks, mainly backing up iPhone photos onto my laptop. We took a lot yesterday, and we know all too well from last winter that backups are imperative. By that time, it was lunchtime, so, of course, we had to eat again (Joel and Erika, same table :-)). Then it was time for the hot tub and...you know, now that I'm typing this, it doesn't sound like we did much, but, honestly, between chatting with people and taking some time to look at the Princess cruise atlas to continue to consider our options for next year, and checking emails and things at home, it really does fill in those empty minutes throughout the day.
G went to the veterans' get together at 3pm in the Wheelhouse Bar and so was ready for the evening already by the time he left. I stayed in the hot tub a bit longer (part of that sharing one bathroom strategy) and got showered and dressed for formal night while he was gone. We met up in the Princess Theater for the Captains Circle party for Gold and Platinum members, solely because we enjoy the Emerald Princess orchestra and the singers performing a few songs from the old production show Motor City, which has been retired. Captain Nick made a big point of telling everyone in the audience how lucky we all were because the weather was being so kind after being really nasty for the past six weeks. See...it was NOT my imagination; we've had some really crappy weather since about the end of the first week in December. I'm glad that's behind us!
Then we walked to the complete opposite end of the ship to the Elite Lounge in Skywalkers to meet friends Janet and Bob and Ross and Claudette. We had missed them last night due to the football games. In fact, during Dinner with Darko with Jim and Marcia, I realized just how much we are going to miss all our friends when they disembark after 20 days on January 28th. (Suzan and Greg- in case you missed it, you are the target of today's hint! ;-)).
Dinner with Darko is always a treat. Sometimes (like tonight) I shock him by ordering all his recommendations for dinner. Usually it would be way too much food, but I'd eaten lightly for both breakfast and lunch, and had no hors doerves in Skywalkers, so it seemed the right thing to do. I had oysters, then the pheasant soup and then the barramundi and Darko was right on all counts.
From there we walked right out to the Captain's Welcome Aboard Party and Champagne Waterfall (Wow, I'm loving that "cwap" shortcut!!). Several glasses of champagne later (it really does taste better in quantity), we stumb...er, walked to the Princess Theater to get seats for the 8:45pm performance of production show I've Got the Music. Wow. We don't usually go to the middle of the three performances each evening...we usually try to get to the early one. When we arrived 45 minutes early, the theater was already considerably full. I guess one advantage of Princess going to three shortened shows each evening instead of two longer ones is that we no longer have to deal with that. We walk in at 7:10pm for a 7:15pm show and have plenty of seats to choose from. Tonight we sat in the front row, but on the opposite side and several of the performers (who can see the front row) seemed shocked to see us there. But our view of the show, and, specifically the performers, was quite different sitting just 15 or so seats to the right.
Finally, it was time for fuzzy water, popcorn, blog and bed. We arrive in St. Thomas tomorrow without a firm plan. Nothing different about that!