Of course, we did do a few things today. We ate. We drank (really). We napped on and off. We caught the parts of the movie The Martian that we'd not yet seen (typical cruise movie viewership...we see the middle, then more of the middle, then the ending and finally the beginning of a movie over the course of several cruises). But removing the requirements to do anything and be anywhere at a particular time for even just a portion of a sea day makes all the difference. It's the part of cruising that we don't do often enough and that I like the best.
This kind of day also lends itself to two things: I start a blog post before 10pm (yay!) and I write a GPS-worthy post. All those things that I've been meaning to mention finally get mentioned, in no particular order. It's actually kind of a mentally cleansing experience, like checking items off a to-do list. (I guess I am simply unable to escape my naturally results-oriented mindset even at sea.)
We awakened naturally just before 8am; a wonderful thing in itself. Breakfast in the DaVinci Dining Room was served until 9:30am (the sea day schedule), so we didn't have to fly out of the cabin. Instead, I let G attend to his morning ablutions first, and he left to get his hot chocolate and request a table for two in the dining room. I followed about ten minutes later and first stopped by the International Cafe for a large brewed decaf coffee in a takeaway cup, and immediately took it up one deck to the DaVinci Dining Room. Though G had arrived in the midst of a rush of people, when I arrived there was no one in line.
Hostess Laura had already seated G at a table for two next to a window (how well they know us by now!) and I sat down to see today's Patter already at my place at the table. Thank you G! Even if we aren't feeling participative, it's nice to see what we're missing. Waiter Anthran (I think...I forget the exact spelling) from Thailand brought me a plate of orange segments and mixed strawberries and blueberries. We can always judge what day of a cruise it is by how many blueberries are in the mix, kind of the fruit equivalent of reading a sundial. Blueberry availability decreases daily down to nothing by the 7th day or so. I ordered my usual egg white veggie omelet but today's cook included jalapeño peppers in the mix. That was an eye opening surprise first thing in the morning!
We left breakfast and went directly to Deck 5 for G to check out this cruise's Garage Sale, attendance at which is apparently another tenet of his religion. Speaking of religion, we were at Nachi Cocum yesterday with Father Andy, a young priest on this cruise who looks like any other passenger in his swimsuit and flip flops. G asked me if I thought it would be appropriate to ask Andy to start saying slogans about next weekend's sporting event (note I didn't mention Super Bowl 50...whoops). Not knowing Andy's football allegiance (he is from Michigan), if any, but understanding that he might not even know what a slogan was, I advised against it.
There will be plenty of time for slogans next week. ;-)
While G was browsing the Garage Sale, I continued in my quest to report to you about every item in the new coffee menu. Today I ordered a blended raspberry caramel-y thing (sorry, I don't have the menu in front of me to see what it's called, but it's on the right side of the menu). I was uncertain about the pairing of raspberry and caramel, but since I like them both, thought it might possibly work. It does..if someone likes both raspberry and caramel. I ordered it decaf and skinny (I don't know why, what with all the sugar that is obviously in the flavoring) and it was very good.
By the time I'd finished it, G had also finished his religious practice for today, and we returned to the cabin with every intention of doing our hand laundry. Instead, we watched the beginning of the movie The Martian and quickly fell asleep. Not because the movie isn't good (It's actually quite good, which is a little surprising after the Gravity flop of a year or so ago. We love the McGyver-esque parts of it...and the disco music that Matt Damon's character so disparages is fun, too.), but because we were still recovering from yesterday's partying. Somewhere, in the distance, I heard the ding-ding-ding-ding bells at the start of Captain Forteeze's noon announcement, but we snoozed on.
Speaking of laundry (what a weak segue), I experienced my first real laundry fail today, and, naturally, it was of an item I brought the least of. First, I have already thrown away three pair of undies because the elastic was shot in them. They survived the Pacific Princess dryers but couldn't stand up to the Emerald Princess dryers. But I've learned from my past, and did not bring my best and brightest on this cruise. Instead, I brought the worst and dingiest, lots of them, so tossing them was not a huge loss and not one I would claim.
Still, this morning it was a surprise to reach for my shorts zipper pull when getting dressed...and not find it. My first thought was that I had somehow put this pair of shorts (just back from the laundry) on inside-out, what with this being the morning after a tequila-filled day on Cozumel, but immediately dismissed that idea because the waistband had buttoned correctly. I checked again; no, the zipper pull was definitely not where it should be. I took the shorts off and looked more closely. The zipper appeared in perfect condition, until the bottom, where the zipper pull was gone and in its place was a bit of twisted metal sticking out. How in the world did that happen without the rest of the shorts getting trashed in the process? What damage had that piece of metal caused to others' clothing? I would love to have a tiny camera to record what happens to our clothes from the time we place them in a paper laundry bag until they are returned to us.
You may recall that, in my zeal to bring only three suitcases on these cruises, before my wishes were overridden and we brought four (grrr...), I had reduced my already skinny packing list even further. I brought four pair of shorts, one of which was workout shorts. Why, oh why couldn't those have been the ones that were ruined (maybe because they so seldomly need to be washed)? I am now down to two pair of 'regular' shorts, and I am a little afraid to send either of them to the ship's laundry. Meanwhile, the ship's tailor is examining the shorts to see if they can be repaired. Stay tuned...
On a more positive note, laundry turnaround times have been excellent. Laundry turned over to our steward in the evening is returned the next evening: morning submissions are returned the next evening. I've been sending laundry just once or twice a cruise, always in the evening. I don't want to be kept in suspense about the condition it will be in upon its return. :-| Okay, that was uncalled for. Really, the fail rate has been somewhere around 3%. Maybe 5%. Not too bad, considering the magnitude of laundry that is done every day. And not too dissimilar from my laundry fail rate at home, though that's usually a result of a forever lost sock or too hot iron. As a result, I try not to often wear socks at home, (cruising all winter definitely helps) and have sworn off irons entirely.
Back to our napping status today...
We slept on, at some point asking each other if we wanted to go to lunch. No, we decided that we needed to feel real hunger pains before we ate again. Eventually, I gathered up the three washcloths and two hand towels we'd used since our cabin was serviced last night and dumped them in Awesome Ambrish's dirty towel bag. He, in turn, handed me clean replacements and was done with us until the evening. It's hard to make a bed if we don't get out of it. :-)
At 2:55pm, we decided to attend this cruise's Grapevine Wine Tasting in the Michelangelo Dining Room. I hadn't yet attended it on the Emerald Princess this season but G had, last cruise I think. He had brought the list of wines back to the cabin and they have been changed up enough to motivate me to go this cruise. G quickly polished off the plate of crackers and cheese...I guess the skipped lunch was catching up with him.
Wine tasting always puts me in a better frame of mind for dressing formally. Besides, I owed it to my husband. We had missed the first formal night this cruise, last Sunday night, due to...a prior engagement. ;-)
Speaking of formal nights (that seque was much better), we have resumed filling out the Elite canapé request form. After the travesty that was the discontinuation of the chocolate covered strawberries on the menu, we had abandoned the practice of ordering anything on formal nights, but have since rethought that. If we order nothing, if all Elites order nothing, the perk will eventually be discontinued because of disuse. So we looked over our options and chose the prosciutto wrapped breadsticks. Our criterion was simple: we picked the least stinkiest item. Really. We leave our cabin early on formal nights. We didn't want the canapés to be delivered when we were half-naked, getting ready for the evening, so we always elected to have them delivered around 7pm so they'd be in the cabin when we returned. We quickly learned that pâté and smoked salmon and shrimp don't smell so good after sitting out for a few hours. Prosciutto handles the room temperature much better.
Note to Princess: a few chocolate chip cookies would handle it even better. ;-)
We were nicely hungry tonight for the lobster and beef Wellington that is served on the second formal night on the 7-night cruises. In fact, I think the 4-night cruise is the only one that lacked lobster in the dining room; probably because it doesn't have a formal night.
On a semi-related subject, breadsticks are no longer included in the bread baskets in the dining rooms unless specifically requested. I, of course, requested breadsticks and they are happily provided alongside G's soft brioche rolls in our bread basket every night. I mean, I would never consume a white-flour roll (lacking any nutritious value) with dinner, but breadsticks as a medium for lifting butter to my mouth...I'm completely cool with that.
We were honored to join Phyllis at tonight's Captain Circle party at 7:15pm in Club Fusion. She was the #3 MTP again this cruise.
#1-1486 Princess days
#2-1390 Princess days
#3-923 Princess days
MTP Cutoff-384 Princess days
#1 (Sue and Gus) and 2 (Joyce) were also the same as last cruise, but they are leaving on turnaround day, and things will change next cruise. Apparently, the Emerald Princess has been chosen to trial the elimination of hors doerves at the party (oh goody!), but we still enjoyed the party- and seeing friends- very much.
Do you get the impression we're starving here? We're not, of course, but in the interest of full disclosure, I must mention the bad as well as the good. Luckily there is still plenty of the latter to make up for the former.
We hurried down to the Princess Theater for the 8:15pm performance by comedian Carl Banks. We got there at 8:10pm to find it SRO...so we stood. It's hard to believe that we had never before seen Carl perform, but I'm certain I would have remembered his joke about writing tuition checks for his daughter's Catholic school education making him a more religious man...it's harious.
The weather had detiorated a great deal throughout the day, starting out bright and sunny this morning but looking ominously cloudy by 4pm and pouring rain shortly after that. I asked Captain Forteeze tonight about going to Princess Cays tomorrow. And he slyly answered that we would definitely be going...it was the tendering to the island part that was in question. We have not yet had great luck with Princess Cays this year, with three visits down and less than stellar weather on all three (though it improved just in time for our sailaway last cruise). Such a disappointment...G has been making noises about us doing the 6-mile round trip down hike down to the lighthouse on the southernmost end of Eleuthera.
I'm saying slogans tonight for a rain of biblical proportions.