This morning we awoke to mostly cloudy skies, wondering if we had seen the last of the sunny, warm weather for our cruise. Tonight is also the last Formal Night of the cruise.
With the time change last night, we actually did not sleep in that late today, waking up about 7:30 AM on the “new” time, equivalent to 6:30 AM on yesterday’s time.
Stephanie went to the coffee bar to get us two specialty coffees on our coffee card while I worked on updating the posts for the last couple of days.
The temperature is predicted to top out at 74 degrees today, so if the sun does not come out, we will probably not spend much time outside today. It is a little windy in addition to the cloudiness, so with those temperatures, it will most likely feel cold outside all day long.
We will just have to find some inside activities to do today and most likely, tomorrow also. We will probably start packing some later today, and continue tomorrow as our journey comes to an end.
Chef’s Cooking Demonstration
After breakfast at the buffet, we decided to attend the Chef’s cooking demonstration in the Princess Theater. The Chef and the Maitre d’ prepared an appetizer, a main course with shrimp, a Caesar salad, and a dessert. All of this was done on stage using a set up similar to a cooking show. It was pretty interesting, and they were funny.
After the presentation, everyone went to the kitchen for a tour. It made us wonder about all of the “concern” shown for health safety when we went to the kitchen as part of the Chef’s Dinner earlier in the cruise. For that tour, we all had to put on white coats, everyone had to wash their hands, and we all had to stay in a small area in the kitchen. For this tour, which went through the same area and more, everyone just paraded in and through the kitchen with no coats and no mandatory hand washing.
Galley Tour
Today’s tour was not during any particular mealtime, which may have been the difference, but we actually saw more food being cooked on this tour than we had on the previous one as part of the Chef’s Dinner, which was, of course, during dinner time.
It made us think that some of that extra sensitivity and the wearing of the white coats was geared toward making us feel like we were doing something “special” for the Chef’s Dinner. I do admit, the Chef’s Dinner was a special event. We took some more photos in the kitchen during this less special tour.
It was interesting that the tour ended in a dining room where there was another big sale going on, it reminded me of being on a Disney ride, they always end in the gift store for that particular attraction.
Cooking in the Galley
There was a big pastry buffet set up on the inside pool deck, so we wandered up there and ate a few items. Even for me, it was a little overpowering to have that many sweet items and chocolate items to eat.
It was nearing time for my Ukulele lesson, so we headed back to the room to get the Ukulele. While I was at my lesson, Stephanie decided to make up an inventory list of items we had purchased in non-US ports of call that we would need to list on the Customs Form when we disembark on Saturday.
It has been overcast, cool and breezy day all day today, no sunshine has appeared at all, causing everyone to find inside areas to congregate. When we went through the line for the pastries, we could not even find a table in the buffet area to sit at to eat, everyone is camped out there playing games and reading. Of course, it was also lunch time, but you could tell that it was more crowded than on the previous sunny days. It has made the ship feel a little crowded again, no one is outside at all due to the weather, making the interior areas more crowded.
We started gathering our stuff together this afternoon, just doing a little bit of preliminary packing, going through paperwork we want to keep, and some we want to dispose of. We also relaxed at the same time, enjoying our efforts to reduce some or our leftover stash of adult beverages.
Our Last Formal Night Dinner
Tonight, as I mentioned earlier, is the last Formal Dress night, and we are having lobster and prawns in the dining room, so there are two good reasons to go to the Dining Room tonight.
We dressed in our formal wear and headed to dinner with a bottle of wine. There was a Captain’s Gala event in the atrium that started at 7:15 PM, so we timed our dinner to be seated before the crowd was finished with that event. We opted not to partake in the ceremony, the last one was too crowded, and the free wine was too cheap to really enjoy. Besides, we had our own wine for dinner, knowing it was much better than the “free” wine.
We were seated at our normal table in Georgina’s area, it is a table with booth seating on one side, and two chairs on the other. We always sit on the more comfortable booth side, next to each other.
The dinner was really good, the lobster tonight was served with two large prawns, also broiled. Of course, I asked for an additional lobster tail, it takes two of these small tails to make one real lobster tail. They brought it with the entire regular serving. The prawns were also good. We took a few pictures while we were at dinner.
Stephanie and Georgina, Our Waiter
After dinner, we headed to the Club Fusion, they were hosting a ballroom dancing session. However, when we got there, there were only a handful of couples in the lounge, and only a couple of those were dancing. We watched a bit, but the music being played was not for the dances we knew. This was probably our last chance to practice our ballroom dancing on the cruise, it was not at all like we had seen on previous cruises where there were several sessions with lots of dancing. We have not been able to put our dancing lessons to use on this cruise like we had expected, either due to timing, or just lack of participation by other passengers to hide us in the crowd.
You could tell the cruise was winding down, there was not a lot of entertainment available tonight. The main show was the same show we had seen the night before with the vibraphonist, and we did not want to see that show again.
With nothing really going on we headed back to our room and called it a night.
We have been able to check the weather on the internet, and the forecast for Los Angeles is for the highs to be in the mid 50’s, so we are certainly done with the nice warm, sunny weather on this cruise. It was nice to see that it will be in the upper 70’s at home this weekend, so all is not lost.