First, though, I slept in, and, after seven port days in a row, it was a glorious thing. G caught up with me for his second breakfast of the day in the Club Restaurant, and we finished up there just after 9am. I turned in some tour tickets we had for the Tahaa drift snorkel in Raiatea on Monday (honestly, we keep putting it off from one cruise to the next because we already have so much snorkeling on the schedule) and then went to scope out the only passenger laundry on the Pacific Princess, on Deck 7. We have had phenomenally good luck with sending our clothes out to be laundered a couple of times per cruise using our Elite benefit, but while we're convinced our day wear is in good hands, we still won't send anything valuable. Our "dinner" clothes were needing to be washed and so I used a Purex laundry tablet I'd brought from home, swiped my ship's card to get a $3 laundry token ($3 for a wash, $3 for a dry, and how convenient is that to be able to just charge it to our shipboard account?!?) and sat in the laundry room for the 23 minutes it took to do a gentle load. I brought everything back to the cabin damp, and we hung things up in the cabin to air dry. This serves the dual purpose of putting some much needed moisture in the cabin and is also gentler on our clothes. Sure, it looks like a laundry in the cabin for the remainder of the day, but we're just a step above the Clampetts in here on a good day, so it's not too different.
As part of my morning travels, I happened to walk by the Passenger Services Desk, and Anish spotted me, telling me he had something for me. I wasn't too surprised, but was very pleased, to be handed a bar of Whole Foods coconut soap from the US. And there's a story behind that (surprise !)...I was floating in that gorgeous blue water yesterday after enjoying the motu BBQ when I struck up a conversation with fellow passenger Kathy. In answering a question (about weather, I think), I revealed that we had been on the last cruise. Kathy then told me that there was a lady on the ship for six cruises. In one of my "dimmer bulb" moments, I asked if this lady had just come on the Pacific Princess this cruise, because I had not yet met anyone on for six cruises. (Seriously, it hadn't clicked yet. D'ya suppose the four rum punches I'd already had might have been, at least in part, to blame??) No, Kathy said, this lady had been on for a while and her name was Judy. Finally I started connected the glaring neon dots flashing in front of me, but hadn't yet said anything when Kathy said this woman's husband's name was G. It was a funny moment, and when I told Kathy who I was, she said she had been hoping to meet up with us because she had- joy of joys- SOAP from home. SOAP, not in the shape of a soup can. SOAP, large enough to not slip between the slats in the soap holder in the shower. SOAP!!! She said she'd leave it at the Passenger Services Desk for me, so when Anish said he had something for me, that's why surprise was secondary to pleasure. However, Kathy didn't leave her cabin number, and I know she won't be reading this until after she returns home (because, in case I've let you forget for even one second, Internet is NOT good), but when she does get home, I want to say THANK YOU Kathy. My own soap had just reached that "fall through the soap holder" size, and it was a real pleasure to shower for formal night using your kind gift.
G went to Pub Lunch in the steakhouse, but I was just not in the mood for fried fish. In fact, I was not in the mood for anything fried...these sea days take a bit of a toll on my stomach. I may have to be drugged to get through 10 sea days between here and Los Angeles, but I'll cross that bridge when I get to it. Instead, I sat for awhile in a lounger on the Promenade Deck and watched the horizon (we sailed past the sea cliffs of Makatea again, off our port side) as I listened to an audio book I'd downloaded from the library using Overdrive when I had fast wifi in Papeete (because, there has been nothing fast enough anywhere else to do that!). Just before the dining room closed at 1:30pm, I went in for a bowl of chicken tortilla soup and felt much better from then on, well enough to take care of the above mentioned personal grooming activities in preparation for tonight's formal night. Nothing says "winter cruising season" to me as much as spending 45 minutes sitting on the toilet seat in a tiny bathroom so as not to fling dark blonde (golden) hair color around the cabin.
And speaking of that, I have an interesting nugget of knowledge to share. You know that hair color on hair fades over time, but did you know that hair color on bathroom walls does, too? I am an authority on this because a year ago I dropped my loaded hair color brush in the master bath at home, and thought I had thoroughly cleaned up the resulting mess until later that day when I discovered a big blob of dark blonde (golden) goo on the bathroom wall. Well, this was more disappointing that you might even imagine because I had gone to great pains to paint the master bathroom walls in a faux stone technique that required about five layers of four different colors of paint and glaze and the prospect of having to patch that one discolored spot was so discouraging that I simply hung a towel over it and forgot I ever saw it. I didn't think about it again until a year later when, shock of shocks, I realized that the hair color had faded on the wall, and, in fact, blended perfectly with the veining color in the faux stone. So, just in case this ever happens to you, that you fling dark blonde (golden) permanent hair color onto faux painted bathroom walls...relax. Permanent hair color is not permanent unless it gets on a silk Aubusson rug, in which case gasoline and a match is the only way to improve that situation (don't ask me how I know).
So, anyway...45 minutes. Tiny bathroom. Toilet seat. It's the safest way.
G attended this cruise's veterans get together at 3pm, and then rushed back to the cabin to collect me. He had completed the rounds collecting the required stamps from the various departments on board (spa, casino, photography, etc.) on behalf of both of us, to be entered in the BIG!!!!!! $500 Treasure Hunt Drawing*!!! in the Cabaret Lounge (*must be present to win). In the remotest of remote chances that my name was pulled at the BIG!!!!!! $500 Treasure Hunt Drawing*!!! (*must be present to win), I needed to be present to win that $200 off a $1000 Lotus Spa Beautification and Relaxation package. G is so darn cute when he's optimistic like that that I didn't have the heart to tell him there was no way in hell either one of our names was going to be pulled. I mean, you'd think that, on a ship with 80% fewer passengers, our odds would improve by 80% (or is it 1 minus the inverse of 80%? Oh, good grief, this is another of those currency exchange rabbit holes...) But it makes no difference. There could be six people in the Cabaret Lounge for the BIG!!!!!! $500 Treasure Hunt Drawing*!!! (*must be present to win) and four prizes given away and our names would not be drawn.
When the champagne waterfall and introduction of the ship's officers is held at sailaway from Papeete, as it has been for two cruises now, there is no party on the first formal night, and I rather like that whole thing. I like having the formal nights mean nothing more than a nicer menu and a production show, and then those passengers who choose not to dress up don't feel excluded from activities like the waterfall and the welcome aboard speech by the captain that used to be standard formal night fare. It's especially appropriate on these more laid back itineraries.
Dressed for the evening, we went first to the Elite lounge, then to dinner (beef tenderloins for both of us), dessert and coffee. G got up to check out the bananas foster flambé being prepared by headwaiter Gabriel from Romania and our waiter, Jose roped him into singing Happy Birthday with the other waiters. Well, he was dressed like one of them, and it was absolutely harious. Luckily, they know G well enough to know that he would think so, too.
We finished the evening by attending production show Do You Wanna Dance. I am never more amazed by the dancers than in this show. Since they are part of the cruise director's entertainment staff when they're not performing, and we've gotten to know them well, I forget how incredibly talented they are. Then I see them dancing and I forget how very nice they are. They are the total package, the real deal, and they really add to passenger enjoyment on this cruise.
It was time then for blog and bed. Tomorrow we arrive in Rangiroa and I'm certain the dolphins have set their alarms for their usual bow wake surfing. Can't miss that!