Sea Days - Day 13 thru 17

Day 13 – Monday, April 16 ,2012

As we have 5 days at sea before arriving at Hilo, Hawaii much of what we do is the same each day. Evenings are where we find new activities awaiting us. Like tonight, after our dinner, Phil had Marinated Chicken with vegetables and our waitress brought me a requested special order of grilled tofu with a plateful of cooked spinach and other vegetables. Before the main course I have really been enjoying the different chilled soups. Phil says, soup should be hot but I hope that I can make some of these special soups when I get back home. For desert Phil has been enjoying the fancy deserts but this week I have stuck with a dish of sherbet and We have both given up on the bread as we’d rather give it up and have the desert.

Anyway after dinner we went back to our cabin and changed clothes. Tonight was the 50’s & 60’s Rock & Roll Party. In the afternoon Phil had taken one of his white tee shirts and a marker to write on the back “Radiance of the Sea” etc (party information)

We rolled up his sleeves like in the 50’s. A huge crowd was in attendance and the dance floor was full. We took off our tennis shoes and danced to the music in our socks. Doing the Twist, they pulled out 3 couples, of which we were one… I think it was his shirt more than our dancing that got us noticed. Each one of us got to do a special dance by ourselves in the middle of the floor. We did all right, for a couple of old farts. The couple who were a father & daughter who got the most applause/. But it was so much fun and we all won special tee shirts for the evening. Have had several people stop us today and tell us how good we were last night. Am sure that we will be in the video that they made during the evening. Another thing that they did was a hulu hoop contest. Anyone who wanted to could try. A lady of about 65 ending up setting a new world record of 15 hoops at once for at least 3 turns this is being submitted to Guinness Book of Records. Such a fun evening for us.

Today I also found time to post a 3 day blog and download Martha’s blog so that I could share it with Phil at a later time. I have taken so many photos that it’s going to take me awhile to process and share them when we get home. To those who have sent us e-mail. Thanks for sharing but it’s very costly to try and answer individual post for now. I hope that when we get to Hawaii we can find some free air time off the ship. Best of all we should be at least able to make some phone calls home with our cell phone.

Sorry to say that tonight’s show, a singer by the name of Angela Teek, was very disappointing but the Rock & Roll party really put this evening over the top for us.

Day 14 – Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Today they celebrated the Crossing of the Equator with a big ceremony and lots of fun up on the pool deck at noon. But actually we don’t really cross the Equator until between 4 and 5 AM on April 18th. We did a wake up call at 4 AM so we would be sure to be awake and able to take pictures of the TV as the information screen changed from

0.00.01 S to 0.00.01 N on the Position Chart from the Deck…so now we are truly “Trusty Shellbacks” and not just “Slimy Pollywogs”. We even celebrated it with a Dark Chocolate Hershey Bar that I bought back in Sydney, before going back to bed for a couple more hours of sleep. Started the day with a breakfast in the dining room and very quickly discovered that we really liked the Windjammer Buffet or the Park Café better for this meal. Then off to Mass at 9 AM coming back to my cabin for a much needed catch up nap before heading to the cinema to catch the movie “Love. Wedding, Marriage” with James Brolin and Mandy Moore. Good movie that I had not seen yet but being a Chick Flick Phil decided to pass on it.

Later I passed on lunch an instead hit the long neglected scales in the spa. Much to my delight, after passing on the extra goodies for a couple of days, I was back to my starting weight when I left Tampa. Then went for a swim, in a very rough water pool and stayed out on the deck sunning myself for a couple of hours…hey, it’s a tough life, living on a cruise ship. This style of life could so easy become addictive. Seriously we have really been enjoying ourselves. Phil like to play the machines every so often, we have played a lot of cards and trivia games. Have met so many nice people from several different country’s and found time in between to have each finished a book. And this doesn’t include all the wonderful meals and entertainment shows that we have seen. Tonight at dinner we traded in the bottle of champagne that we won on the Love and Marriage show for a good bottle of wine and shared it with our dinner table couples, Bill & Rose and Will & Elsie before going to another great show tonight with a ventriloquist named Mark Merchant. Tonight we were home and in bed by 10:30 after a truly wonderful day.

Day 15 – Wednesday, April 18, 2012

This morning Mass and then met Phil at the Aurora Theatre for another Enrichment Lecture by Dr. Fuller about the rise and fall of the Sugar Cane crop in Hilo. Sugar Cane was King and made a profound change in the way of life in the islands of Hawaii.
I even carried my breakfast into the lecture hall with me as I was running late.
Later we played some cards and then it was a trivia game in the Colony Club. One of our team members looked so much like brother Gary that we just had to take a picture of him.

After lunch it was off to the Hula Lessons…. Problem was the floor was so full it was hard to dance, .but again it was fun and that’s the name of the game. By then it was time for the Captains Corner in the Aurora Theatre. We elected to go for a high balcony seat away from all the people who are hacking and coughing. Am afraid that I have picked up a cold but am trying hard to nip it in the bud with regular doses of airborne and today, Friday, I broke down and took a Dayquil.

Dinner tonight was another fun time with our table mates. They offered Kangaroo on the menu tonight but nobody was brave enough to order it so our waiter brought us a plate full of sliced kangaroo that everybody could taste… not to bad was the final decision. I had trouble making a decision between hot Asparagus soup and a cold peach soup so I had one of each. Both were delicious and desert was Cherry Jubilee….
The entertainment tonight was a Pianist by the name of Ryan Ahearn. He was okay but not great so we left and caught the last half of the movie “Rango” (it was good enough
that we will have to watch the whole movie later.) Another full day.

Day 16 – Thursday, April 19, 2012

It’s a new day, and a new chance to make it your own…. This is what our Daily Cruise Compass is telling us. We are up at 7 and ready for a new day. First, daily Mass after an early breakfast. Then we were off to Dr. Fullers last lecture, Wai as in Waikiki or Water:

How an abundance of fresh water led ultimately to American defeat at the Battle of Pearl Harbor. He talked about a book by David Standard called “Before the Horror”. In the 1790’s before Captain Cook came their was over 1,300,000 million people living on the Hawaiian Islands. The decline of this population began with the arrival of big ships carrying the sailors and missionaries. Sorry to see the end of his talks as we have enjoyed them all immensely.

An early lunch then we were off for the Guest Talent Show Rehearsal at the Colony Club. Phil has signed up to play his ukulele and sing a song at the talent show on Friday. Think is has some tough acts to follow as he will be on last. Following this we went to the theatre to watch the new Dolly Parton movie “Joyful Noise” good movie which we enjoyed but I did wear my face mask as so many people of coughing and sneezing. Back to the cabin it was time for me to refill our pill container for the balance of our trip. But once done we will do fine until we reach home.
Tonight was our last, for this part of our cruise, formal dress night. So it was time to bring out the tux and my dressy clothes again. This time I wore white pants with my black top instead of the long skirt. We went up and had more pictures taken before heading to the dining room. Tonight we ate alone at our table as the others elected to eat elsewhere and not do the formal dress up. But, since we were a table of only 2 we were able to finish our meal soon enough to make the 7 PM show. This was a production called “City of Dreams” done by the Royal Caribbean Singers and Dancers. After a great show. I went off to the room to work on my computer while Phil stayed upstairs and played the machines for awhile. By 10 we had both changed clothes and went back upstairs to the Park Café to find some hot chocolate before bedtime. We knew that at 11PM they were having a big spread in the Windjammer called “sweet temptations buffet” but much to Phil’s dismay we made a joint decision to forgo all the chocolate goodies they were going to put out and settle down for the night.

Day 17 – Friday, April 20, 2012

Our final day at sea, as we head towards Hilo Hawaii. Up at 8 AM that my time anyway. Phil was up about 4 and went upstairs for a cup of tea before coming down and catching a few more hours of sleep. We are excited that the large scrap area on his leg is finally beginning to heal. It really looked bad last night but is much better this morning. I do think I have a cold. After 4 days using airborne I broke down this morning and took a Dayquil pill to keep myself from sneezing and coughing. After Mass, where Father had a large crowd, because he had announced that today he would do a blessing of the sick, we have been having a regular crowd of about 20 each morning. I found a beautiful place in the open air on the fantail to sit an eat my breakfast. Then waited in line to get a printout of our ship charge account. Went to find Phil in the Casino before going to look at the Photo’s that were taken last night.
This will be a busy afternoon for us as Phil has his talent show at 2:30 and we have a reception for all the “Consecutive Cruisers (those continuing on to Vancouver) just Before dinner. Will come back and finish this later so that I can post just before we get into to Hilo. Think this will be it and I will finish this later as I would like to post this tonight.