We had another relaxing day at sea, with spectacular weather and a perfectly calm ocean. Sea days really don’t get any better than this.
It was also a rather aimless day, and we are ready to have three busy upcoming ports in a row. We slept until 9am, lingered over stollen in the Horizon Court Buffet, and I walked for an hour on the Promenade Deck listening to audiobook Winter Solstice. It’s time for that annual read through; it’s been a Christmas tradition for me since 2001. And, speaking of Christmas, we are still decoration-less, though there is a Hanukkah menorah by the Guest Services Desk. But we do have stollen, so all’s well. ;-)
We skipped lunch altogether (still full from last night’s Most Traveled Guest party, I think), and I spent two hours watching the destination lecture for the port of Penang, and re-watching the one for Port Kelung, tomorrow’s port for Kuala Lumpur. These lectures are all an hour long, and packed with so much valuable information that they need and deserve to be seen more than once.
G went to the Veterans get together and the Grapevine wine tasting while I was watching TV, and we started getting ready for tonight’s formal night by 3:30pm. Before dinner we attended the first of two Captains Circle parties. We asked JoJo and Tony to be our guests, and were honored to be this cruise’s Most Traveled Passengers. After dinner (veggie spring rolls in rice paper, salmon and steamed veggies and tonight’s dairy-free dessert, coconut cream cake), we walked out on the Promenade Deck to watch the huge amount of marine traffic surrounding the Sapphire Princess. We are currently between Singapore and Malaysia, and there are a hundred ships within view. It’s rather like a large flotilla. These are among the busiest waters in the world and I imagine the officers on the bridge are getting quite a workout.
We also had a temporary cell phone signal from Malaysia (exciting), but gave it up to go to the Princess Theater to claim seats for tonight’s production show, Bravo. This is one of our new favorites. The diva’s role is being filled with a soprano from Australia who flies in for two days, does a preview in the Piazza (last night) and two shows tonight and leaves the ship until next cruise. The show received another very deserved standing O. Love it!
And that was our day. Our alarm is set for 6am tomorrow morning. We have booked an all day tour to Kuala Lumpur that has us off the ship as soon as it is cleared by the Malaysian authorities and not returning until 5:30pm. Given what I’ve heard about the traffic in KL, I suspect we might be later than that.
The day bag is packed. The clothes are laid out. We’re rested. We’re excited. We’re ready to go.