Second posting today - Days 6 & 7

Day 6 and Day 7 – Both are April 10, 2012

Yes, because we cross the International Dateline we are having 2 April 10th which has messed up my notebook as I made labels for each day… not realizing that they would repeat one day so now I am having to change all my page headings.. oh well

Day 6 - At Sea
It was so nice to sleep in until 8:30 am. I woke up just in time to use the scales in the spa before heading to the opposite end of the ship for morning Mass. Phil meanwhile has been up for hours, off exploring on his own while I enjoyed my sleep in morning.

After Mass I found a light breakfast in the Park Café before a quick dip in the pool and the hot tub. Due to the rock & rolling of the ship there was too much wave action in the pool for me to stay very long. Soon I was back in our cabin and as this is my day to do laundry, we have limited space to dry clothes so we take turns doing our laundry, I was soon up to my elbows with soap in our small sink.

After lunch we waited for them to bring out the Wii Game in the club area. Soon we were enjoying ourselves bowling 3 games and then teaching some other people how to use the Wii. But, with only one Wii set we had to share it for the limited time they had it out.

By 3 we were at the Crown & Anchor Sales area where we signed up for the Crown & Anchor Club. Because of our cruise in 2011, we are now registered Gold members. At the end of these two back to back cruises we will have enough credits to qualify us as Platinum members….this will give us special benefits if and when we book another cruise with Royal Caribbean. Something to think about for the future. Both couples whom we are dining with have done many cruises and are Diamond Level and get many special benefits. .

Tonight’s dinner was dressy casual so we had another picture taken. So far we have found four pictures that we really like but have declined about 10 other photo shots. Figure we will have to make some decisions before the end of the cruise. Dinner again was a really nice meal. After dinner we went to the Colony Club for an hour of very good dance music. We even got out on the floor once but found that we really didn’t have good shoes on for dancing. But we enjoyed the music for about an hour before heading to the theatre to see the headline show of Comedy Hypnotist Mark Anthony. They asked for volunteers and I went up on the stage with about 20 other people. Doing the show was fun and several were really under the spell as he had them doing some really weird things but I just followed along with him and had a good time. Our friends and Phil all thought that I was under his spell…but I don’t think so. A fun night for all before heading back to our cabins.


Day 7 – A second April 10th

Today we had to turn in our passports in preparation for our visit to French Polynesia. They will hold them till after we leave our third island, Bora Bora. Also today we were able to purchase local money so that we will have it to use on the islands.

Up this morning at 7:30 off for a light breakfast before Mass after which I attended an Enrichment Lecture: “Captain Cook comes to Tahiti: the strange case of the Transit of Venus” by Gary Fuller from the University of Hawaii. This Transit of Venus only happens every 250 years and is scheduled to happen in June of this year. Apparently, according to Dr. Fuller, Tahiti is one of the best places on Earth to witness this event.
And that is the reason the Captain Cook traveled to Tahiti all those many years ago.

At about 11 AM we crossed over the International Dateline. As we were in our cabin at this time we did a short video to mark this passing by videotaping the event on our TV screen.

A good lunch and then we were off to the cinema to watch the 2011 movie of The Smurfs. Lots of well behaved children filled the auditorium and much to our surprise we really did enjoy the show.

After a casual dress dinner we all went to see the headline show starring Mentalist: Pheonix. He was very good at his magic and mind bending with his psychological entertainment.

Next up was the Love and Marriage show, hosted by our Cruise Director Bobby.
They asked for volunteer couples from 4 different married groups. We put our hands up for the 25 -39 anniversary range. They gave tickets to all who had their hands up and then drew one couple from each category. Yep, we got to play…and did a terrible job of it by only getting one question right out of I think about 9 questions…really bad, but the audience enjoyed our discomfort and the video is really funny to watch.