A Sea Day & Meet and Greet

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After partying all night we didn't even return to our room until 9:30pm. After that, the festivities continued, watching two nature films while I finished yesterday's blog and Karen lay sound asleep beside me on the bed. Many of our co-traveler's, unable to keep up with us, had given up after dinner and returned to their staterooms but not us. Unfortunately, the nightlife we live comes with a price and dawn at 7am is no match for the heavy curtains in our room and so we sleep. It's not until 9:15 that I awake and realize we have a date at 10am, the Cruise Critic Meet & Greet we had promised to attend. No time to lollygag!

Surprisingly, we make it up one floor to the Lido and have a light meal, our usual. While we don't sit back with my coffee and Karen's tea and do some people watching, we have a pleasant breakfast before arriving at the Gallery Bar for the Meet & Greet. These events are set up by a willing member of Cruise Critic and you'll find one scheduled on almost every cruise. Unlike the one which I had helped set up for our South Pacific cruise in 2015 where we had well over a hundred attendees, this time we are greeted by just five members. I'm glad we made the effort to make an appearance. Twenty had committed but Susan, the organizer who we happened to have dinner with our first night, took it all in stride. We all had a nice visit in some big comfy chairs for an hour and a half.

Today is the first of two sea days on this 7 day cruise and a great opportunity for us to catch up on rest. Stopping by the Lido, Mom grabs a salad and I get an egg sandwich and retreat to the sanctity of our stateroom deck where we kick back on our recliners and watch the ocean go by. It's 82F and the water is like glass, our ship's just skimming across the top as we make our way towards Grand Cayman Island, tomorrow's port. Karen spots a few dolphins just off off the port side and they follow us for awhile. Now we watch a couple of episodes of "Game of Thrones", an HBO series we have never seen before. Karen readies herself for tonight's dinner since it's a formal night and we must be presentable. Our reservations are for 5:15pm. I made them last night after noticing a long line outside the dining room and, anticipating another long line for tonight with it being "Gala Night", it was a good idea. We walked past everyone, staying to the right side and arrived at the desk with the sign "Guests with Reservations". That's us. We are escorted directly to our window table that we share with another couple from Texas, near Plano. A retired government employee, he spent a few years in Europe, giving Karen the opportunity to spin her Gypsy story and the train ride through Romania adventure. She loves those tales. For dinner, Karen had the Yellow Fin Sole while I had the Beef Tenderloin. We both had Asparagus Carrot soup and for desert, she had sugar free Black Forest Cake and I had Blueberry Cheesecake. Mmmmm.

Tonight the show in the theater is the BBC presentation, Planet Earth II. It was a nature film with fabulous photography shown on the big screen with the Holland America Orchestra providing the music. It was an entertaining 45 minutes. Again we choose our seats carefully in order to make a quick exit when the show is over. Karen's getting quite good at this so now I follow her to our second venue, the BB King show where we spend another 45 minutes listening to some great songs, mostly hits from Motown. These guys are truly the best act on board.

It's 9:30 again so we make our way back to our room, stopping by the Lido for another batch of fresh cookies. Having secured an ample supply of milk at breakfast and stashing it in our room refrigerator, we are now set for the evening. I continued on today's blog while Karen watched more nature films. There's a wide variety of movies to choose from but it seems like our available time frame fails to allow us the two or more hours necessary to enjoy a full length feature. Tomorrow we have no arrangements on the island so I plan on a leisurely breakfast followed by a stroll through town. Maybe. Maybe not. With at least 3 other cruise ships scheduled to be joining us and almost 13,000 guests hitting the beaches and town, we'll have to see.

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