Saturday, September 26, 2009

Up early this morning and got to breakfast by 8:30am. We have decided that we will not go to the buffet again as we like being served our food. Mike is enjoying lots of seafood but Sue is sticking to traditional foods (pancakes and yogurt for breakfast.

First on the list of things to do this day was a port talk about Hilo, Hawaii which is our first stop on the cruise. We had been told at breakfast that the fellow who gives the talks is very knowledgeable but not interesting when giving the talks. They were right - he told us lots of stuff to see and do there, but it was tough to stay awake. :-)

Our next activity sure woke us up and also gave us a good workout. I managed to get Mike to do line dancing with me today and again we had a great time learning new dances and can’t wait to use our knowledge when they have theme nights on the cruise. The class today went about 45 minutes and it went by so fast as we were having so much fun.

We attended the maritime historian’s lecture again and it was the second part to “The Only Way to Cross” which was a lecture about North Atlantic ocean liners. He had us in the palm of his hands - he is a great speaker and I remember thinking while he was talking to us that Princess Cruises were very smart in having him onboard to talk about maritime things. His lecture was again filled to the rafters. We are looking forward to hearing him talk more tomorrow.

Lunch came next and so we headed up to the Portofino restaurant. Sue had chicken stew which was more like chicken soup, but as always it was delicious. Mike had a seafood platter which consisted of whitefish, shrimp, calamari and scallops. He is really enjoying all this seafood he can have on the cruise.

Sue convinced Mike to go for a class in ballroom dancing. It was quite the workout. The dance today was the cha cha and it was quite interesting as we tried to keep up with the instructor (Romeo). There were a few moves where we just did our best. At one point, a ballroom instructor was watching us and I’m sure he got a few laughs.

We decided to forego any more activities today in exchange for a couple of hours on the pool deck. We both brought our book club books along and read by the pool - actually, Mike did a lot of reading and Sue did a little reading and a lot of napping. :-)  We did finally get in the pool and did a few lengths (so that we didn’t feel guilty about the cookie we had as a snack :-).  It was so relaxing sitting by the pool in a chaise lounge and enjoying the lovely weather and the good book we are reading.

Our dinner companions tonight were delightful. We were sitting with a couple from Ottawa, a couple from New Zealand and a couple from New York City. Sue got into a ‘discussion’ about the Maple Leafs vs. the Senators with the fellow from Ottawa, but it was all in good fun. The woman from New York City is a retired teacher and so she and Sue spent a lot of time talking about teaching.

We really enjoyed hearing the music of Lisa Donovan the other day and so we decided to go back and enjoy her singing once again. She did not disappoint us - I can see why she is such a draw in Las Vegas - I would love to hear her again. She sang a variety of songs including one that she just recorded which was quite lovely.

There was a trivia quiz (50s and 60s music) in the Explorer’s Lounge so we went there even though we don’t know much about that era. People were seated in groups of 6, but we decided that we would be more of a detriment to a group and so we just watched. We did know some of the answers, but no mean anywhere what we needed to win. After the trivia quiz, there was a 50’s/60’s dance which was so much fun. We both love that kind of music and so very much enjoyed listening to the band Liquid Blue as they played and sang classics from that era. The entertainment crew put on a good show too holding a hula hoop contest, an Elvis contest and a jive contest. We were laughing so hard at some of the contestants and it was so much fun we wish it had gone on longer than the hour it did.