After a much better night’s sleep- the antibiotics immediately started to knock out my sinus infection, and turning the mattress addressed 75% of that issue- I was up and dressed early and went to breakfast with waiter Marco in Botticelli. Marco is my guy first thing in the morning. He knows exactly what I want without even asking (three orders of orange segments, two rosettes of smoked salmon and orange spice tea).
I listened as I sat there alone to the all coughing going on around me. This cruise has reaffirmed to me that a ship starts to turn sick two weeks into a cruise, and in a perfect world, I would only cruise 14 days or less. Happily, I am well on the way to recovery, and so will be able to hit the ground running when we return home, as my schedule will require me to do.
Still, I spent until dinner in the cabin, finally starting an ebook I had gotten from the library over two weeks ago and which is due back in three days. The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah is set in Alaska in the 1970s and I thought it would be a perfect read on this cruise. However, I don’t easily get around to reading, instead spending most of my free time on blogging, and, on this cruise, uploading pics to the blog. I’ll have to put The Great Alone on hold again. Maybe I’ll finish it during my recovery from surgery.
G went to a second Military and Veterans get together at 3pm, and I’ve took advantage of the time he was out of the cabin too get ready for tonight’s formal night, our third of the cruise. G simply wore a dress shirt and tie, and I would estimate that that was pretty much the most popular way for men to dress. A few wore a sport coat or suit, a few didn’t dress up at all. Alaska cruises are very different than Mediterranean cruises. So don’t stress formal night attire, please.
I was very hungry for dinner. There’s been a lot of light and missed meals the past couple of days. And tonight’s menu was a feast. Those cheesy spiral rolls, G and I split an escargot starter, and he had the surf and turf with no surf and an extra turf. I had salmon again, but got a pic of our neighbor’s surf and turf for your enjoyment. Look at the size of that lobster tail! Yes, lobster is alive and well on the Ruby Princess. No, wait…that’s not quite right. You know what I mean. We completed our dinner with mandarin sorbet for dessert. Perfection.
I’ll confess to two bites
These rolls are like crack!
G’s double filet-no lobster dinner
The standard presentation
The standard presentation
After dinner we went very early to the Princess Theater to get seats for production show Magic To Do. It was extremely popular, and there were no seats available 30 minutes ahead of time. We had not seen this show in years, and sat close to see the costumes and makeup, which I remember being two of my favorite parts. Oh, and Colors of the Wind. I love love love that song and it was beautifully performed last night. Even happier, they hadn’t shortened the show at all; it was 50 minutes long and well worth the 70 minutes we had sat in our seats ahead of time.
Colors of the Wind
My favorite part
If you happen to do this itinerary next year, please don’t be surprised by the fact that there are only three production shows. The usual cruise length for this ship in Alaska is 11 nights, and these same three production shows are performed on those cruises. The cast hasn’t learned, and there are not sets and costumes on board for more than that.
Our entertainment has been nicely filled out by guest entertainers. In fact, G said that he thought the vocalist Todd Adamson who performed Victoria night (and I didn’t see) had the best show of the entire cruise, and that is saying something. Todd also plays the magic man in Magic To Do. We also had an indigenous folkloric show Vancouver night, which we didn’t see.
After the show, we watched dance contest Do You Wanna Dance in the Piazza (you can tell I am feeling so much better) and then went up to the Lido Deck for G to get a slice of pizza and then ice cream while I drank tea in the buffet. It was International Night in the buffet and the buffet stewards were in rare form, wearing aprons of the different countries and some of them were wearing German hats and they were having a good time and posing for pics.
And then we were told by the supervisor that they were putting on a magic show in the back corner of the buffet and we had never heard of anything like this before, so, of course we went to see what it was all about. A Brazilian waiter from (we think, based on his uniform) the Crown Grill was the magician and he had an attentive audience of 30 plus people there to watch. Between his accent and his repeated claims that he was so new at this and was nervous, and then the bags of popcorn that were brought in for our enjoyment, he had us eating out of the palm of his hand and we wildly cheered everything he did. He then took photos of his audience (for his happy memories, he said) and selfies and the whole thing was so unexpected and so innocent and so cute that he could have showed us how an eraser disappears pencil marks and we would have gone wild with excitement.
We have no idea how or why it came to be, but loved it. So glad we just happened to be up there for post-dinner snacks!
It was quite late by then, way past my bedtime, and I was happy to return to the cabin. This southbound route is smooth as can be, and, having had an huge dinner, we can sleep right through breakfast tomorrow.
Life is good. :)
