Fortunately, today was a very busy day, which kept me from feeling desperate very often. We didn’t make it to breakfast again, nor did we order coffee in our cabin, but at 10am I attended Naturalist Daniel’s enrichment lecture on coral, which is one of my favorite topics. From there I fell into the galley tour line, as I haven’t seen the Emerald Princess galley in many years. We did the Chefs Table on the Emerald on its first cruise after COVID (October 2021), but the galley was not included in Chefs Table at that time (heck, we were wearing masks at all times outside our cabins and testing every so often. I don’t miss those days!).
I got a piece of carrot cake from the dessert extravaganza in the World Fresh Marketplace and took it to the Botticelli Dining Room for lunch with G (just lentil soup for me). Yeah, my “I’m giving up sugar for Lent” vow lasted all of two waking hours today, but I did just eat seafood and vegan the rest of the day, so that part was Catholic-compliant. 😉
I had to eat that carrot cake fast, because today at 1pm in Club Fusion was the Aloha ‘Oe Hawaiian Farewell Show. I definitely hid in the back of the ukulele pack but was busy looking for G in the audience. You know those videos you see on social media where a kindergarten is performing and the child is in tears imagining mom and dad didn’t show up but then he see them and his face lights up with a big smile?
G wrote the chords for my songs today on my hand because I knew that music stands were going to be in short supply for today’s show and I thought I could get by as long if I knew the major chord order.
We had prepared three songs (Pearly Shells, You are my Sunshine and I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing) to perform, but I missed yesterday’s class for MTG and- surprise!- they added Tiny Bubbles. Now, I had never played that song, I didn’t even have the music in front of me for Tiny Bubbles, but, fortunately, I learned finger syncing from the best and pretended to strum every chord except C, which I played loud and proud.
The hula dancers were very impressive and G (entirely unbiased, I’m sure) said the entire show was fantastic and he actually stayed afterwards even longer than I did taking photos and talking to other family members in the audience because I raced out to go to the Princess Theater to get our prime seats for the Voice of the Ocean.
One singer (HJ, originally from the Philippines) was a clear winner with 86% of the vote for his rendition of Unchained Melody, but, as always, it was the comedic banter between CD Nathan and the coaches that was most entertaining.
There was just enough time for a clean up before going to the Elite Lounge and then dinner in the Michelangelo Dining Room. I haven’t been hungry in so long that I don’t even remember what that feels line. It is going to be a hard transition going home where there is almost no food in the house and we just might leave it that way for a couple of weeks.
We finally had a sunset tonight!
After Ebony and Ivory’s performance, CD Nathan called up many of the ship’s crews and officers on stage for a final farewell, and that is always fun.
We returned to the Michelangelo Dining Room for coffee and dessert (mandarin sorbet for me). I’ve received a couple of emails asking if that is an acceptable thing to do and, yes, it definitely is. Theoretically we should go to the DaVinci Dining Room (anytime dining) but we know that there are many empty tables in Michelangelo Dining Room for second seating, and, in fact, our unusual wait staff (Richard and Anthony) have an empty table and host Mark always seats us with them. We don’t do this every night but probably every fourth night or so, because we nearly always leave the dining room early in time to get good seats for the 7pm Princess Theater performance.
I am truly wiped out tonight and suspect I will sleep long past our arrival time in Ensenada off 9am. I think it will be another case of the best sleep being that which comes after the ship is docked and stable.
