We experienced a "first for us" last night, and the funny thing is that I had totally forgotten about it until late this afternoon. At some time during the night (G says it was about 4:30am), an announcement came into our room, stating that passengers who were blood donors with cards stating they had O negative blood were needed immediately to treat a seriously ill patient.
Huh? What? Honestly, until G mentioned it this afternoon, I might have thought it was a dream (like the one I had three weeks ago where I thought those iguanas from Crown Bay were latched on to me and not letting go and pinching harder and harder and harder and I kept yelling "G. G. G!!! to get his attention so he could save me, and he thought I was yelling at him to turn down the TV, and he kept turning it down until finally he said "It's MUTED", and that woke me up...see what happened around here when the seas were rough and we weren't sleeping well?!?). Anyway...
We've had requests twice before already this year requesting blood donors- once on Christmas Eve during dinner and again a couple of weeks later. But we've never before been awakened in the middle of the night by a request. Three requests in less than a month is not the norm. Let's hope things improve. We heard later in the day that the lady in question had been transferred to a hospital in Grenada and was stable, and that 20 or so people had shown up in the middle of the night to donate blood. How heartwarming!
We had an unusual activity this afternoon...or a usual activity on an unusual day. With over 500 Elites on board, a wine tasting was held just for them at 3pm in the Michelangelo Dining Room. This means that there will be no complimentary wine tasting for Elites on one of the final sea days. It wasn't specifically stated, but I strongly suspect that one reason for this was that 500 Elites have all been to multiple wine tastings and didn't need the same color, legs, swirl, nose and taste instructions. It also might have been because a different wine list was used, and we tasted a couple of new wines.
Either way, we were seated with Jacke and Dave from England who we know from last winter and who we sat with at last cruise's MTP party. When they said they hadnt seen us since, because they didn't make the cut, we said we didn't either...and decided to meet for drinks sometime and make it our own NMTP (NOT Most Traveled Passengers!) party. ;-)
We had a short break before dinner, and so escaped to a hot tub before getting ready for the evening. There was no Elite Lounge in Skywalkers (due to the three Captains Circle parties tonight in Club Fusion), so we went directly to Dinner with Darko. Eat. Drink. Eat. Drink. Eat. Drink and eat. Who says we didn't do anything today?!?
There are so many Platinum and Elite passengers on board this cruise (about half the ship) that there were three Captains Circle parties again, and we went to the one held at 7:30pm. Band New Deal has left (I think they went home to Michigan before moving to another ship) and band Accent is back and performed at the party.
I do miss Sol Provider from last year...does anyone know where they are? Anyway, we were pleasantly surprised when the most traveled passengers, Mr. and Mrs. Kerridan, gifted us with their champagne award. Very kind!
And...that's all there is. We have a late (noon) arrival in Bonaire tomorrow. Captain Nick said the weather should be windy (no surprise for Bonaire) but nice. THAT would be a huge change from last time, and we may actually get to stick our heads in the water and see some fish that aren't in an aquarium at Atlantis. ;-)