G was up and out early today, and had his main breakfast in the Panorama Buffet, but I was slower to get moving. Finally, around 8:45am he returned to the cabin and then joined me at breakfast in the Club Restaurant. I splurged and had banana walnut pancakes, because I knew that lunch was a sure thing and there would be plentiful opportunities for more nutritious meals today. Eggnog was served in the Panorama Buffet but not in the Club Restaurant but our waiter ran up and got me a small cup of it. Nothing says Christmas like a little egg nog. Except stollen. :-)
G and I went only as far as the sunny side of the Promenade Dexk where we sat in loungers and watched the sun dance on the swells and saw hundreds of flying fish. It was still windy, but not as much as we saw on those first two days out of Fort Lauderdale, so we were covered with salt spray but not as much or as quickly. G fell asleep and I plugged in ear buds and listened to an audiobook (Winter Solstice, which I could recite by heart) and quickly fell asleep myself. We awoke in just enough time to go to an activity of interest we had seen in the Princess Patter: Christmas cookie decorating.
Have I mentioned how much we love cruising on the Pacific Princess at Christmas? I know I have, but have I mentioned it lately? On the larger ships, these sorts of activities are pretty much limited to families with kids, which is fine and right, but with only five kids on the Pacific Princess (and at least two of them too young to participate), all of these things truly are open to everyone. We went up to Sabatinis where we found stacks of huge sugar cookies (about 7" in diameter) with a hanging hole and a loop of ribbon at the top. Three members of the cruise staff were there to help us fill decorating bags with different colors of frosting and there were all sorts of decorations to be applied: candied cherries, Froot Loops, marshmallows and rainbow sprinkles.
I took two cookies, one for each of us, and basically decorated both of them because G was too busy getting email addresses to send photos and videos from last night's caroling to the cruise staff's families. Several fellow passengers remarked how wonderful it was on this ship to have this laid backed atmosphere and ability to truly participate in all these sorts of things. We could have decorated gingerbread houses three days ago but I couldn't find anyone to do it with, though Johnny said later that he'd have joined me. So maybe next year... Not wanting to take our cookies back to our cabin, G and I took them to lunch in the Club Restaurant. I had a chicken Caesar salad and he had four cheese pasta and we both had a few bites of our cookies for dessert. And left them there. That sort of thing gets kind of gamey in the cabin after a day or so.
G finished in time to go to Goofy Golf in the Atrium where he tied for first place and won a nifty Princess neck wallet filled with candy that we'll give to a 10 year old on board named Charlie who tells the best jokes. I went to the cabin and caught the movie White Christmas on the cabin TV from the beginning, but fell asleep (again!) and missed part of it. No worries; it looped over and over again the rest of the day so I eventually saw the middle and just now watched the very end. It's not like I haven't seen it before!
We stopped by the PES Lounge for a few shrimp, and then went to dinner at exactly 5:30pm. I took photos of the Christmas menus but we went with the traditional: salad and turkey dinner for me and fruit and a Virginia ham for G. The waiters all sang two Christmas carols in a language not their native one, and it was very sweet and much appreciated. We skipped all the wonderful desserts; we were full by then and, frankly, have had each of them at least once in the past.
The big entertainment tonight was a much anticipated Christmas Variety show. The Pacific Princess showband started it off with some Christmas tunes, and then vocalists Simon Breen and Deana Julian from the production show casts each sang two songs and comedian/juggler Thien Fu did a funny bit and guitarist Duncan Tuck played some wonderful Christmas folk songs and finally the dancers came out in those darling Christmas costumers we've seen before (looking very Rockettes do Dickens) and danced and it was all just perfect and fun. We went right into the Casino Lounge to listen to Jere Ring for an hour but then called it a day. I said yesterday that we have have five upcoming port days in a row, but I was wrong. It's six. And only one of them (Martinique) is not as exciting to us as all the others, so we may use that day to slow down a bit.
The Pacific Princess dancers (and cruise staff)
Officially today we must now say that we are going home next week, and although there are many wonderful things about that (I received a new photo of the boys and their older sisters today that made me a tad homesick), this will not be a happy disembarkation. They may have to pry my fingers off the ship's hull when it's time to leave. We've had the BEST time!