I was awakened by a hard rap on the door at exactly 6:30am. Unbeknownst to me, G had ordered room service coffee again. Damn, I wish he'd quit doing that. It scares the bejeebers out of me to be jarred out of a deep sleep that way. I think we both went back to sleep- well, I know I did- and it was much, much later when I awoke again to find G gone and the clock reading nearly 9:30am. I had completely missed breakfast in the DaVinci Dining Room, but that was okay; I wasn't really hungry enough to eat breakfast at all.
I took a few minutes to read over my blog post from last night, published while I was in a near zombie-like state. I needed to make too many corrections to count, and republished a clearer, more readable post (so if you read the original version, my apologies!).
I gathered up my iDevices and went down to the International Cafe for my morning coffee (brewed decaf with Half and Half. Heaven!). I was not surprised to find Suzan and Greg there, but was delighted to see G there, too. He pulled over another chair for me but then soon left us. He is not a man to spend contented hours sipping coffee and reading and chatting. Must. Keep. Moving.
Still, the three of us sat and sipped and read and chatted. I went online to download emails, and found another one of these gems in my inbox, the dreaded Emergency Notification from Princess Cruises. I receive way too many of these while I am on a cruise, an unsurprising hazard of cruising as much as we do. I simply didn't have enough wifi speed to be able to download the email content, and with many, many future Princess cruises currently booked, had no idea about which cruise I was receiving this Emergency Notification. I didn't know if our cruise starting in a week had been cancelled or if we'll be leaving St. Thomas 30 minutes earlier over a year from now. Or something else. I later found out that it was a CYA email about the Zeka viruse or Zeba virus or whatever it is called. Very helpful. :-|
The dreaded Loading... It just keeps spinning and spinning and...
G and I met in the DaVinci Dining Room for lunch right at noon. I was hungry by then, and had delicious calamari, gazpacho and my usual stuffed roasted yellow bell pepper...and a glass of wine, a nice sea day bonus. I wasn't going to have dessert, but when G ordered one, I asked waiter Joseph from the Philippines if the cheese plates available at dinner were available for lunch. He brought me one, but, since the walnut bread that is usually served with them wasn't baked yet, brought me crackers instead.
We followed up lunch with a soak in the hot tub on Deck 17 aft. Captain Fabreeze had told us, in his noon update from the bridge, that the weather would be turning ugly this afternoon, and in one sense he was right. It was raining when we went outside, but armed with our 'umbrellas' (our Tilley hats) to keep the water off our faces, we sat happily in a hot tub in the pouring rain with a couple of other like-minded passengers.
Eventually, I left the hot tub and went to the Splash Pool next to it and ran in the water for 45 minutes and then followed up with some exercise time in the Terrace Pool, two decks below. I loved the solitude of it, something I would not have found had the weather been bright and sunny.
While I was still soaking wet, I walked all the way forward on the ship to the Lotus Spa and used the steam room to warm up (a lot). I was hoping to run into Suzan there, and almost did, missing her by minutes. It was our last opportunity to enjoy a steam and a chat, as she and G are disembarking tomorrow morning.
:-( Times 100.
I was showered and dressed for dinner by the time G returned from the Grapevine Wine Tasting (I had skipped it. I'm having my own wine tastings everyday!). I took my iPad down to Vines Wine Bar to enjoy a glass of wine and some sushi while listening to Ryszard Sulek playing the piano in the Piazza.
G came down to find me when he was showered for dinner, and we went to the Michelangelo Dining Room early enough to get to the 7pm variety show in the Princess Theater. I had a seafood starter and watermelon and feta cheese appetizer and the tamarind salmon as my entree. Not that many would be similarly affected, but I wish that Princess wouldn't offer salmon on both its embarkation and disembarkation menus, as we salmon lovers get it two days in a row and seldomly in between, at least in the dining room.
The variety show in the Princess Theater featured comedian Al Katz and impressionist Tyler Bryce. He is really spectacular, and did Ray Charles singing America the Beauitful and Elvis singing the Battle Hymn of the Republic. I spoke with him last night and he said he is staying on for our next cruise, which is fantastic news.
We had an entertainment windfall tonight, and left the Princess Theater to go to Explorers Lounge for the 8:15pm performance by production show vocalist Matthew Tyler (not to be confused with Tyler Bryce, whose show we had just seen). Matthew was backed by the Emerald Princess orchestra (did I tell you that musical director David Pitchfork from Australia is back on board? We have cruised with him for years it seems, and he was so funny in last night's production show when he waved at us sitting in the front row as the curtain went down.) Matthew performed mostly Rat Pack songs, but also sang Bring Him Home from Les Miserables, and that was beautiful. His wife, Rachel, who is performing in Las Vegas, was on board visiting him this cruise and sang a few songs with him, including The Rose. What a talented couple!
We finished out the evening by joining Suzan and Greg in the Horizon Court Buffet for- wait for it- red velvet cheesecake. I think we can say it's official: red velvet cheesecake is as synonymous with the night before disembarkation as flourless chocolate cake is with embarkation night dinner. Well, yay!!!
And that was our day, our last with friends Suzan and Greg on board. And all I can say about that is WWWWWWWWWAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH.
We will miss them. Times 1000.