G had a pre-breakfast with Douglas in the Panorama Buffet, but still joined me in the Club Restaurant when it opened at 7:30am. His first words to me: "Your buddies are looking for you to play ping pong". Yep, I sure did start something. I'm the on board BFF of two eight-year-old boys. ;-)
Instead of ping pong, I went from breakfast to Douglas Pearson's 9am talk on Kauai in the Cabaret Lounge. Like the other Hawaiian islands we'll be visiting, we've been there before on both a cruise and land trip, but unlike the others we've only been to Kauai twice. My sightseeing expectations are a bit higher than the highlights of the Kauai WalMart. We are currently booked on a ship's excursion to visit the several places on the island where famous movies have been filmed, and it's an excellent one. It is not an inexpensive one, however, and we are still making plans for later in our cruise that are also not cheap. Since we haven't decided with certainty just where to spend our money, Douglas' lecture was very helpful.
From there I raced to the atrium (actually, on this little ship, it's so small that it's called the Reception Hall) to join dancers/cruise staff Alex and Megan in today's craft: quilling. I had never even heard of this, let alone done it, and that shows in my finished product, but, as always, it was extremely relaxing and fun to sit there twirling paper while various officers and crew walked by and took a few minutes to chat and remark favorably on our efforts.
I had a bit of time before lunch, and G was at ukulele lesson #3, and so I went up on Deck 10 to Miracle Walk for 45 minutes and it was then that I first removed the fleece pullover I've been wearing every minute of the day since we left home. It was comfortably warm- not hot- on deck and a sure sign that we are making progress in our journey. In fact, this morning, the map on TV showed us at a northern latitude somewhere between San Franciso and Los Angeles, though much further west, of course.
I returned to the cabin to see a bottle of cheap champagne (Duo de Paris) on the vanity and knew that G had been busy playing ring toss after his ukulele class. Sure enough...we can almost count on mimosas for breakfast the day after a ring toss session. (It's really not drinkable without copious amounts of OJ).
In his noon update from the navigational bridge, Captain D informed us that we have passed the halfway point of our voyage from Vancouver to Hilo, on the Big Island of Hawaii (1248 miles behind us: 1169 miles to go). We continue to travel on a 220 degree southwesterly course, and the ocean floor is 17000 feet below us. Stay afloat, Pacific Princess!
G and I went to lunch together in the Club Restaurant (chicken tortilla soup and a Greek salad for me), and then sat together on the Promenade Deck watching the waves go by. I was worried we would fall sleep (G did), and so kept one eye on the clock; I had the Maitre de Wine Club at 2pm. What an enjoyable way to spend over an hour on a sea day. We tasted six different wines paired with hors doerves and I learned several new things about the production of wine (and I've been to a few of these on ships and on land over the years).
I was not feeling particularly lively after that, and so took an hour or so to read in the cabin before getting ready for the evening. BTW, I had said previously that our MTP lunch was to be held today, but it's not until tomorrow. Thank God my social director keeps track of my calendar. Tell me where to go and what to wear and I'll oblige, but do not put me in charge of the calendar when I'm on a cruise!
It was Breeza Marina night in the Elite Lounge. Sunshine on an endless blue sea, Breeza Marinas and fitted, black-slacked Mr. Tango. What more can a woman ask for? (Well, Maksim Chmerkovsky, but this is the middle of the Pacific Ocean after all.) The live music and dancing has added a whole new element to the Elite Lounge on this cruise.
Dinner was small and simple tonight, and short as a result. Salad, seafood skewer and one scoop of red currant sorbet accompanied by the last of the Reisling. We were back on the Promenade Deck (again! It's our favorite place to be on these sea days) almost an hour before sunset at 7:37pm, and we were gifted with a good one tonight. We slipped into production show Cinematastic in the Cabaret Lounge just before it began at 7:45pm. It's fun to see it with a different cast this year.
There is much to do around the ship tonight but we are tucked into bed watching Blue Hawaii on TV. We move clocks back an hour for the second time tonight, which would certainly give us an excuse to stay up late, but we will be trying to heed Douglas Pearson's insistence that we be up on Deck 11 at the front of the ship for every island arrival, and it seems prudent to keep with our 'early to bed, early to rise' ways.
Just two more sea days until we reach Hilo. We have felt quite disconnected from the real world (and except for publishing these blog posts, I haven't even been on the Internet or watched the news on TV). Knowing that Mom is well settled has made all the difference in our ability to comfortably exist in the parallel universe that is a cruise, and G said exactly that while we were sitting in loungers on the Promenade Deck this evening. "World Cruise someday?" I asked him, and he didn't say no...
Have we changed, or just gotten older?