I was up earlier than G today but didn't get moving until he started to stir (I'm still trying to finish that book!). We went to breakfast in the Club Restaurant which was filled with family groups. This little ship does have a different feel this cruise due to them, and, naturally, also because of the holiday, but it is certainly more understated than on the larger ships. Following breakfast we swung by the boutiques to see if any additional Princess 50th anniversary merchandise had been added. There is a nice tote/beach bag, and a baseball cap, and a $155 (really) sequined woman's sweater, but still no polo shirts for men. We'll keep looking, and since we'll be on at last two more Princess ships in the next two months, if a 50th anniversary polo shirt exists, there's a good chance we'll find one.
G said last night at dinner that I seemed less homesick this winter, and that, despite the fact that I had wanted to be home for Christmas, I seemed totally content with the fact that I won't be. Well, I wouldn't go quite as far as to say that, but I have made my peace with it. Actually, being in French Polynesia for Christmas has been less unsettling for a couple of different reasons. Foremost is that we've been kept so busy in the ports, and there have been so many port days, that I haven't had time to dwell on it. The second is that everything down here has been unsettling in that it has all been so unfamiliar. I'm not spending days watching NFL football on MUTS, I'm not in Fort Lauderdale and St. Thomas every ten days, I haven't had the opportunity to talk with anyone besides Mom, and even her only rarely, since we left home. I'm not in a perpetual state of being "almost home". I'm 1/4 of the way around the world and that is somehow making me less homesick. Go figure.
Still, when we read in today's Princess Patter that the movie "A Christmas Story" with Peter Billingsley and Darren McGavin was going to be shown on our cabin TV at 11am, it didn't need to be said that we'd be planning our morning around it. We first spent a dedicated 30 minutes sorting through paperwork, photos and brochures that have piled up in our cabin over the course of 63 days, a first step in our relocation project. Speaking of that, we have continued to clear one hurdle after another until we now have just about everything in place. It's been a process:
1. Decide to stay on the Pacific Princess back to Los Angeles on January 23rd
2. Waitlist on the December 28th cruise; reserve the Hotel Tiare Tahiti (fully refundable until December 24), after personally checking it out, as a backup
3. Book the December 18th and January 7th cruises
4. Cancel January 8th, 18th and 28th cruises on the Royal Princess in the Caribbean
5. Cancel air reservations to Fort Lauderdale on January 7th
6. Cancel hotel reservation in Fort Lauderdale on January 7th
7. Reserve flights to Fort Lauderdale on February 6th
8. Book hotel in Fort Lauderdale on February 6th (still an issue, but friend Suzan is watching prices)
9. Book flight home from Los Angeles on January 23rd.
10. Decide to join friends on Grand Princess out of Los Angeles on January 24th
11. Book Grand Princess January 24th cruise
12. Book hotel for Los Angeles on January 23rd
13. Cancel flight home from Los Angeles on January 23rd
14. Book flight home from Los Angeles on February 2nd
15. Visit the Hotel Tiare Tahiti every turnaround day in Papeete, getting to know everyone there, and get assigned our preferred room location (and daily breakfast at the hotel thrown in for free!)
16. Work with the Pacific Princess about storing a few things on the ship in our absence.
17. Get the loan of a US to European adaptor from a crew member to charge our electronics while in Papeete (we have this at home but never thought we'd need it and so didn't bring it).
18. Get permission to stay on the Pacific Princess a little longer on turnaround day so we can move our things right into the Hotel Tiare Tahiti.
19. Pack up belongings in such a way that things we don't need in Papeete are stored in two suitcases, and what we do need is stored in our carry ons and one suitcase.
20. Purchase travel insurance to cover ten days in Papeete
It was all a bit overwhelming at first, but, as I've said, one issue du jour, s'il vous plait, and they are eventually all getting done, despite snail-slow internet.
By the time A Christmas Story came on TV, we were settled in for the movie. It's one of our very favorites, referred to in our house as simply 'You'll Shoot Your Eye Out' and, in fact, we've been calling our etched glass Most Traveled Passenger gifts our 'fra-GEE-lay major awards'. It's a classic, and, for an hour and a half, we were not bouncing on a ship in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, but at home in the family room, laughing about the Bumpass' dogs and the Scott Farkus affair and a Red Ryder 200 shot BB Gun with a compass and a stock.
The movie ended just before 1pm, and though G wanted to go to the steakhouse (Deck 10 aft) for British Pub Lunch, I convinced him that the Club Restaurant would be much more stable. I had still not stepped outside yet today, despite the morning being beautifully sunny, and so spent part of the afternoon reading in a lounger on the Promenade Deck. Happily, though the pool deck seems to have been taken over by a few families of chair hogs, the Promenade Deck has not been similarly affected and there was plenty of available seating when I went out there. The skies had clouded over by then, and we sailed through a misty rain but I stayed nice and cozy tucked under the lifeboats suspended above the Promenade.
G went to the veterans get together at 3pm and I returned to the cabin to watch football on ESPN. Yes, we have a Sunday with ESPN coverage! Now, if we just have coverage tomorrow of Monday Night Football... Naturally, the result of all these familiar things meant that I did start to feel a smidge homesick but it did make for a cozy and comfortable day.
At 3:45pm we went to the Cabaret Lounge for this cruise's BIG!!!!!! $500 Treasure Hunt Drawing*!!! (*must be present to win). Now, you might remember that we had a string of bad luck on this note, until last cruise when we won an 8x10 portrait (donated to a friend) and a Reflections DVD. Well, as it turns out, there is no DVD of this cruise, but we instead received a very nice DVD on the Voyages of Captain Cook, which we will certainly enjoy. But today...the stars must have been perfectly aligned today. G won a $50 shopping spree at the boutiques on board and I won a 50 minute massage. Woohoo!! We immediately went first to the Lotus Spa to schedule my massage (tomorrow at 3:45pm) and then to the boutiques where G purchased a newly arrived this cruise yellow Pacific Princess polo shirt AND Pacific Princess t-shirt. Just call it Christmas at our house (cabin)!
Tonight was the first formal night of this cruise and I just...couldn't. G always could- he loves wearing his tux- but, as we were not going to go to tonight's show (soprano Jennifer Fair), there was less a reason to do the formal thing. We dined quickly in the Panorama Buffet and I returned to the cabin with Parmesan cheese chunks to snack on (wish I could send some to the twins!) to watch the last ten minutes of play in the Cardinals-Seahawks game. Suzan, I was cheering for your guys, but I think it was a foregone conclusion how that was going to turn out. I feel your pain, as you well know. G has gone out to listen to music in the Pacific Lounge, up high on the front of the ship. It's calmed down a little tonight, but not enough for me to tolerate more than five minutes up there.
Tomorrow: Rangiroa for our final time this winter...and a massage! Merry Christmas to me!