Prepared Wednesday night, February 19th, but I was too tired to wait to publish it on Internet
It was a rough night last night, and I lay awake until nearly 3:30am before I fell asleep. The Emerald Princess is once again pretty bouncy. Now, when I say it's bouncy up high on the back of the ship, someone down on Deck 8 midship might not even be noticing it. But we were rolling around in bed like marbles in a box last night. The bounciness then continued throughout today, but, luckily, I did not have that condition known as being "sick of the sea". I think that, when I was troubled with that, I had some congestion in my ears that affected my balance. Without that, I'm fine. Just unable to sleep. For hour after hour after hour.
After all that, I slept until nearly 10am. G had gone to the DaVinci Dining Room for breakfast, but I was not particularly hungry when I got up. Instead I went down to the International Cafe and had a cappuccino while I observed the fruit and vegetable carving taking place in the Piazza. G spotted me when he was leaving the junk sale...er, Bijou Terner "everything's worth $1 but is for sale for $10" sale in the Michelangelo Dining Room. People love that stuff; it makes me itch.
We went together to lunch in the DaVinci Dining Room (Chicken Korma for me), and then returned to the cabin to open a box of mail we received yesterday (thank you, Martha). The timing couldn't have been better; I have to make two phone calls tomorow in St. Thomas and remotely deposit a check while I have 4G Internet (Mom, we received our $40 lottery winnings! Thank YOU!).
G spent some time in a hot tub; I spent some time walking and in the little round splash pool on Deck 17. I love that pool. When there's no one in it, I can water jog in a circle in one direction, and then reverse in the other direction and I basically have created a current channel. I plugged in my waterproof earbuds and was happy, happy up there, going around in circles. I will miss that on the Royal Princess next winter.
We cleaned up early for formal night, and went to the 4pm Gold and Ruby Captains Circle party in the Princess Theater. We sat close this time, just to watch the Emerald Princess orchestra. G's dad was a professional musician, and we have both played a musical instrument. While I could watch a pianist perform forever, G could do the same with the sax and bass players. During the party, we got our first glimpse of Captain Martin Stenzel, who will be here for the remainder of our winter on the Emerald Princess.
We returned to the cabin to dress formally (we REALLY get our money's worth out of our formal attire!), and then went early to Dinner with Darko and Komang (always an event) so that we could fit everything in this evening: 6:45pm production show What a Swell Party in the Princess Theater (I think this might have been the last time we see these singers and dancers perform it), the 7:15pm Captain's Welcome Aboard Party and Champagne Waterfall, and comedy magician Christopher James at 8pm in the Explorers Lounge. He really wasn't bad for a comedy magician (and our evening was compromise in action, if you hadn't noticed).
Yochin from Thailand, Evelyn from Philippines and Charlotte from England building the champagne waterfall. They can build it small, medium or large based on how rough the sea it. Tonight's was medium-sized. They then pour fuzzy water over it to kind of stick it together until the Maitre d' and Captain start the champagne waterfall.
We made a brief pass through the buffet for cheeses and grapes as a snack, then got fuzzy water and called it a night. As for sleep...that's another matter. It may be another sleepless night tonight. As G said at dinner, that's something to look forward to on the Royal Princess; she sailed so smoothly that we didn't even know we were on a ship. And at this point, that's a pretty attractive attribute.