Today was a really good day, wonderful in its simplicity. Relaxing but fun, with delicious meals and great entertainment. Unsurprisingly, given the combination of a drink-y MTP party, my late night at Magic To Do; and the 'clocks ahead an hour' thing, we didn't get going today until after 9am. We could have made it to the DaVinci Dining Room for breakfast before it closed at 9:30am, but I didn't want to feel rushed nor hold up the waitstaff by having a leisurely breakfast. Therefore, for the second time since boarding the Emerald Princess on January 4, I had a full meal in the Horizon Court Buffet. So new was I to all this that I had to ask where to go for the omelet station, but still had my familiar mixed fruit and an egg white veggie omelet.
We sat there discussing plans for the rest of today, for tomorrow on Grand Turk, and for potential additional cruises this season (we are hopelessly addicted), until I left to go to the Deck 6 Conference Room for today's 10:15am craft session with Lucy. While the events listing on Princess@Sea stated that the craft of the day would be quilling, once I got there I saw that it was origami, which was what was listed in the Patter. Discrepancies do occur.
Not in the mood to make paper penguins, I moved on to the International Cafe, where I found Greg and Suzan enjoying their morning coffee. Suzan and I quickly decided to go to the 10:30am line dancing class in Club Fusion. Assistant Cruise Director Yazmin has moved on, and her replacement is Megan from South Africa. We started with the familiar (and my personal favorite) Cupid Shuffle, then learned a new dance to a rap song, next a dance to Donna Summer's Hot Stuff (love that one), and we finished up with the Electric Slide. It was a fun session that injected some mild exercise into our morning.
Suzan and I returned to find Greg still in the International Cafe, and noticed that the Outlet Sale (G calls it the Garage Sale) was taking place right next door in the Michelangelo Dining Room. The black purse I use for formal nights broke a few days ago, and G told me he had seen some in last cruise's Garage Sale. We walked in there and (shocker) spotted G looking for T-shirts, because the 1132 he already has are simply not enough. He had been right; there were plenty of dressy black purses for $10 each, but only one was really large enough to hold my iPhone and reading glasses. With my Elite 10% off, I paid a whopping $9 for a purse that should last for a few years (and subsequently threw the old one away. This is me in a nutshell. Something breaks. I replace it. I toss the old and buy very few non-replacement things.)
I had time to squeeze in another coffee drink, the Black Forest Freeze and wasn't certain at first that I liked it, but finally reached another layer of it that was definitely cherry tasting and quite yummy. G and I went to lunch in the DaVinci Dining Room for my favorite chicken korma (on top of that recent coffee!), so I had just that and a glass of Gewurtztraminer and nothing else- no appetizer, no dessert- and vowed to spend some time running in the splash pool this afternoon.
G headed off to the 1:15pm Veterans get together in the Adagio Lounge, but I returned to the cabin to see if our minibar items had been exchanged yet. No, they hadn't, so I phoned Room Service for a third time and vowed to stay in the cabin until they arrived, which they did shortly thereafter. Finally! I still have to call again to exchange this cruise's minibar for two coffee cards. Fingers crossed that I'll get that to happen in the next two days.
G returned from the Veterans get together and reported that there were 26 Air Force veterans from Colorado Springs on board for a reunion. What a great idea, and typical of some of the things we see on these shorter cruises. It was formal night haircut time for G, so we took care of that and then didn't really mean to, but fell asleep for an hour. Me too! Actually, the timing was good. We awoke about 3:30pm and I was able to go to the Deck 17 Splash pool for 45 minutes for a water workout just before getting ready for tonight's formal night.
Our dinner menu was not at all a typical formal night one, but did feature my favorite Caribbean fruit (mango and papaya) with coconut and macadamia nuts, and seafood skewers with a mango salsa. Paired with another glass of Gewurtztraminer, it was perfect. We left the Michelangelo Dining Room in time to find two seats on Deck 5 of the Piazza for the Captain's Welcome Aboard Party and Champagne Waterfall. Party band Soul Rocker is slowly growing on me, but still does not compare to some of the party bands we enjoyed just a few years ago.
We left before the introduction of the ship's senior officers to get good seats for tonight's 8pm show in the Princess Theater. Tonight's entertainer was impressionist Tyler Bryce, and this was the best non-production show entertainment we've had so far on the Emerald Princess. In fact, he was among the best we've ever had on any cruise. He has been selected to appear on this year's America's Got Talent, and I can see why. He received a standing O at the end, and not too many impressionists can say that. Also interesting...his performance was 45 minutes long. It seems like Princess is quietly abandoning the Anytime Entertainment concept of three shorter performances each evening. We haven't once this year seen a show offered three times in one evening on the Emerald Princess (at least not that I can quickly recall). It is certainly no longer the norm.
We still had a little energy left, and went up to the Adagio Lounge to listen to pianist Ryszard Sulek. The Adagio Lounge is another reason we are not on the Royal or Regal Princess right now. We really love the subdued entertainment that is offered there.
Magician Erik Bryan from Magic To Do also performed twice tonight in the Explorers Lounge. It's nice to have a second major entertainment option, but, as Erik does this show every cruise, and we didn't want to stay up for his 10:15pm show, we opted to see Tyler Bryce tonight instead. We'll get to Erik's 'Magic through the Ages' show eventually. As I've said many times before, it simply takes us longer to see and do what others manage in a single cruise. And regardless of how much fun we've had, the highlight of every day is going to sleep on these comfy new beds. They go a long way to ensuring that, as per Princess' tag line, we will come back new.