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Published: February 16th 2017
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Janet & David
First Formal Night Dinner Hello from somewhere cruising south in the Pacific, off the coast of Chile. We have been sailing south all though the night and throughout the day today. There was a gentle rolling motion to the ship this morning. It was no problem – not seasick – but it feels like we’re really at sea instead of in a lake. The ship may be going a little extra quickly to make up for the late departure and hopefully get us to port on time tomorrow.
We got up and went to the Botticelli Dining Room (where we have dinner too) for the sit-down breakfast. There will be plenty of days when we have the buffet breakfast before an early excursion, but today we had very little to do, so we had time for a leisurely paced breakfast. Janet was able to get Eggs Benedict, just like she’s been looking forward to, ever since our last cruise. Of course there are restaurants elsewhere that she could get this breakfast, but she likes the Princess version best. David had a nice ham & cheese omelet.
Later in the morning, David went down to the Passenger Services desk and found out how the girls could actually call us in our cabin on the ship while at sea if necessary. There is even a way we can call them from the ship if necessary. Preferably we can get International Roaming for our cell phones, but that will only provide service while we are on land (in a port city). He was also able to get a hole punched in our key-cards so they can be attached to a lanyard and hung around our necks.
David’s camera developed a problem yesterday so he took it to the Photo Department to see if they did any repair work. No, but they did offer to sell us another camera at a ridiculous price. For now David will work around the problem and get it checked by a real camera shop when we get back to St Louis. Although there aren’t many pictures in today’s blog, we should resume posting more photos tomorrow.
We had perfect weather all of our previous days here in Chile, but today it was overcast with occasional light showers until midafternoon. The temperature only got up to around 67 degrees. We were indoors all day today, but the forecast is for cloudy skies with a high of only 60 degrees tomorrow. Since we have an excursion then, we will have to get some of our clothing for cooler/wetter weather – not shorts and t-shirts.
We may have neglected to mention that yesterday we had to surrender our passports when we checked into the cruise. They will be returned before the ship gets to the end of the cruise, but in the meantime they have provided a photocopy of the passport for when we go on shore. It’s not what we would want to do, but there were so many other issues yesterday that this item got overlooked in our narrative.
Our guide was trying to think of things to say yesterday while killing time in Vina del Mar and she mentioned a popular drink made from red wine and coca cola. Apparently the percentage of each ingredient is a matter of personal taste, but we’ve never heard of that before. It is most popular with the college students. When we go to the bar on the ship that is probably NOT what we will order. But when we get home David will try to find the name of this concoction.
Back to today’s activities, David went to the Port Lecture about our first destination which we will visit tomorrow. The lecturer is someone we’ve had on a previous cruise – Julio Delgado – who was always interesting. David learned a few interesting things but we will save them for tomorrow’s posting.
We got together again at Noon and had lunch in the Horizon Court. We were able to have a reasonable size lunch instead of a food-eating binge, so we were proud of ourselves. Then David got two bowls with hot brownies and went to the ice cream stand and got vanilla in one and chocolate in the other. It seemed like we had earned it with our restraint during the actual lunch. On previous cruises we have occasionally mentioned our nickname for the ladies working the ice cream booth – Swirl Girls. On this ship they have Swirl Boys, which doesn’t roll off your tongue as easily, but the ice cream still tastes as good.
Janet went to the Book Club meeting after lunch. The bad news is that they ran out of copies of the book before she could get her hands on one. The good news is that the book is not what she was expecting and did not especially want to read anyway. Afterwards she came back to the cabin and worked on one of her needlework projects. They did not have a Knitters & Knatters Meeting on the schedule today but maybe it will be there in the future.
During the afternoon Janet went down to the International Café for one of their fancy coffee drinks. She still had a “coffee card” from a previous cruise, and it was still valid on this trip. Then we got dressed for dinner because it was one of the Formal Dining nights. First we went up to the 18
th deck for appetizers and cocktails in the Stargazer Room. Janet misunderstood the waiter when asking about the special drink of the day. She thought she was ordering a strawberry foo foo drink but actually got a Rob Roy (who knew she was a Scotch drinker?). David got a Heineken beer. By this time the gentle rolling motion had gotten fairly pronounced and no one could walk in a straight line (even if they had not been drinking). We talked to some interesting folks up there until it was time to go to dinner.
Tonight we had 2 other couples joining us as our regular dinner companions. During some of our previous cruises we have had problems with folks not showing up but this evening we had a full table. Well we did for a little while, but one of the ladies started feeling nauseous and she went back to her cabin. The other two couples are Monte & Fay, and Paul & Pauline. We had a delicious dinner with them. David had seafood quiche, French Onion soup, a small order of Fettucine Alfredo, steak medallions, and Banana Foster flambé. Janet had the onion soup, a large order of bow-tie pasta with veal, and the banana flambé.
We got a note from Stephanie saying that she was making good progress and hopes she would be able to go home this weekend. We also got another note from Valerie saying that she and Elizabeth were going to visit Friday. We have not heard anything about Grizabella (our cat), but probably no news is good news.
Rather than going to the Captain’s Champagne Waterfall or the song & dance show in the theater, we decided to stay in our cabin and get ready for tomorrow’s activities. So that pretty much wraps up the news for today. Good night.
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