The first post of each season:

Sunday, November 26, 2017

Day 44: At Sea

I am starting this post while sitting in the Princess Theater waiting for vocalist Chris Powley’s second show. I’ll likely finish it here, too, because we enjoyed a highly restful but completely unremarkable day, and his will be short tonight. 

Despite moving clocks back an hour last night (as we will again tonight), I slept until 7:30am and woke feeling not at all rested. Luckily, there was nothing I needed to do today, and I even took a day of rest when it came to exercise. I met up with G in the Horizon Court Buffet (cereal, fruit and soy milk) where he announced that he wanted to get at least one suitcase- what we call the ‘common’ or beach suitcase- packed today. I was all for that; I knew that sorting through paperwork and pamphlets and maps would be a time consuming process and it would be nice to get it out of the way today.

By the time we finished packing that first suitcase, it was 12:30pm and we were getting hungry. We first went to the Canaletto Dining Room but I had not special ordered anything for lunch and one look at the menu told me that I’d be limited to a lettuce salad. I was hungrier than that, so we went to the Horizon Court Buffet where I had a multitude of vegan options. 

Still feeling slow, we returned to the cabin where we read and watched TV and I even napped for about 15 minutes. That was all I needed; I woke feeling more rested than I had in days. Tonight was the Captains Circle parties for this cruise, and we were honored to be the most traveled guests. We have been donating our award bottle of Veuve Cliquot champagne back for an additional drawing (after the three bottles of Korbel are given away) at each party, and this time it was won by a couple who live less than a 45 minute drive from us. On this ship with around 150 Americans, who would have thunk it?

I haven’t mentioned the new boxes that are being gifted instead of the crystals now because I haven’t actually seen them yet. There is no way I can take home multiple boxes, and may select one at most before we disembark for good, but I’m waiting until after our return on December 1 to make a decision on that. If I do take one, I’ll post a photo of it. Like I’ve said, I was simply thrilled to get a crystal I didn’t yet have, and that was done on our first cruise. 

A shrimp menu item was adapted for me tonight at dinner, and made into a stir fry served with extra veggies and no white rice. Honestly, it’s better than having a personal chef working in conjunction with a personal nutritionist. I may starve in Melbourne (or eat junk), and will be anxious to return to the variety of nutritious food I get on the Golden Princess. 

And that brings me up to tonight’s show, which will start in a few minutes.

Our weather today was cloudy but mild, and our smooth seas are the talk of the ship. Honestly, if we had thought that Crossing the Ditch could be as pleasant as this, we wouldn’t have waited eleven years to return to this part of the world.