Today we woke up to a smooth sea, however it was a bit cloudy and no sunrise! As we are now heading south west-ish and we are on the port (left) side of the ship (boat for my dad just to tease him) it was kind of strange to experience no sunrise! All good though! Up bright and early as we are now 1 hour behind PST and does our body know that? NOPE! Wide awake before sunrise! Currently Honolulu where we are headed is 3 hours behind PST so I expect we will go back and hour every 2 nights so our arrival in Honolulu will be on Hawaiian Time.
Today, breakfast in the room was a bit of a disaster. I normally pre-order my breakfast as I have the same thing everyday. Then when Andrew figures out at night what he wants to have the next morning, we put it on the Room Service door hanger and add to please send my pre-ordered meal. Somehow the wires got crossed in the kitchen and they sent a double meal to me which was quite amusing – so I had two frittatas (one that I had ordered and one regular one with onions and chili flakes I do not care for), two bowls of cottage cheese and two bowls of fruit! I dislike getting extra food as it goes to waste! I really like the frittata on Holland America – it is an egg with spinach and asparagus and a little bit of goat cheese! The one good thing is that we moved from the little fruit plate and tiny square (about 1 tsp) of cottage cheese to now a small bowl of each – about 1/2 cup which is exactly what I like and I was able to tell the waiter that amount was perfect – but just one serving of each please!
Now, it was off to some arts and crafts for me and Andrew was going for his walk. The weather has warmed up a degree or two, however we have still not entered the “warm” zone yet. As we are traveling to warmer climates Andrew did not bring his sweatshirt with him so his thin rain jacket is all he has to protect him from the wind.
The crafts on deck for this morning are: Origami, crochet and then doodling! Then lunch and relaxing and some computer work this afternoon. Today is the day of the butterfly. So we did a butterfly Origami (mine really did not work out very well), and then we moved onto basic crochet. The class was VERY full – over 40 ladies attended! The instructor ran out of balls of yarn and had to scramble to find some left overs to share. Luckily there were about 10 people in the class like myself who knew how to crochet, so we were paired with at least one other new to crochet person as this class was to learn the fundamental stitches of chain, single and half double crochet. I helped a lady named Rose to learn how to crochet! We had lots of fun! Then the class area was turned over to a new instructor named Mailyn and she was in charge of Doodling. As it was butterfly day, we doodled a butterfly! She provided some examples on the overheard to start (I have never been to this kind of class before but know how to doodle), so I drew out one of the shapes and started. Then she sat down and drew a different shape and most of the class followed her and her design. I was on my own at that point! I have not completed my doodle as there was only time to do one wing (Mailyn’s had a butterfly at rest with just one wing displayed) were my butterfly was in flight with both wings open! It is a work in progress. I was unprepared for both the crochet and doodle classes as there was a problem with the Navigator app in the morning and the classes I had signed up for got switched to tomorrow and the ones that I had planned to take tomorrow ended up being today – so my crochet hooks and pens were down in the cabin and not with me. I can catch up later 🙂
We had a nice quick lunch in the Dining Room and met some new waiters who were lovely and well versed on serving someone with Celiac Disease. I must say that Holland America has the ordering and production of the meals as smooth process now and I am not that concerned about cross contamination as every time I ask a question, they get back to me with what I deem is a valid answer.
After lunch we took it easy and as it was cloudy out, we decided to check out the movies available on the nice 40 or larger TV in our stateroom. What better movie to play? Top Gun! Nothing like watching some planes land on air craft carriers at sea, similar to where we are presently cruising (no pun intended there)! We then started watching the sequel – Top Gun – Mavrick, however as tonight is a Formal(ish) night on the ship, we had to also get ready for dinner, so we put the end on pause and went to dinner first! Also tonight was the introduction of the key managers on the ship in the World Theatre,, which towers 3 decks high, below us in the bow of the ship. The Cruise Director is on the left and that is the Captain speaking, with his 2nd in command next to the Cruise Director and then the Hotel/Guest Manager, Chief Engineer and Environmental Officer. Lastly is the Future Cruise Specialists who wants us to all book another cruise with him! The Captain was fairly funny, joking around on stage. There are actually 800 staff on board from over 35 countries! He thought they should all join us in the theatre until the Cruise Director pointed out that some had pretty important jobs such as currently steering the ship and serving the guests!
Here is a sample of the food that I ate today – the GF “Farmers” soup at lunch with my bagel with provolone cheese was EXCELLENT! We each had a jumbo shrimp cocktail for dinner and then I had chicken and crème brûlée for dessert. My dessert was nothing to write home about as it was a salted caramel and I do not particularly like salted food, however Andrew partook in dessert too and ordered the GF Chocolate Ganache cake and it was WONDERFUL! I did not get a picture of it though!
Back in our stateroom we arrived to be greeted with our first towel animal – a pig or a dog – not sure which! It was really cute and had two Lindt chocolates at its hoofs/paws. We then watched the rest of the Top Gun – Maverick movie, filled out our Room Service card and hoped for a smooth breakfast service in the morning!
The seas tonight were quite calm and getting to sleep was very easy – too easy actually! We also set our clocks back another hour, so at 2am tomorrow morning, we will now be 2 hours earlier than Vancouver Daylight Savings time. Honolulu is currently 3 hours ahead of Vancouver Daylight Savings time. So it looks like we have another hour to go back yet before we arrive in Hawaii!
Catch you all tomorrow!