May 24, 2013

We were confident we could sleep in this morning so Carol requested room service coffee at 7:30. Unfortunately Martin, who has delivered our coffee every morning at 7:00 a.m. didn’t notice the change. We both awoke with his gentle rap on the door at 7:00. As always, the best laid plans of mice and men gang aft a’gley. We leaped out of bed and had our coffee.

It was bright and sunny at 7:00 a.m. with 10 foot waves rolling. By the time we decided to head up to Beach Blanket Buffet for breakfast at 8:30 it had clouded over and skies remained overcast all day. It was a cool and dreary day at sea!

After breakfast we headed to the Outlook Café on Deck 10. I took the laptop and did some work on our trip report while Carol did some people watching. There were waves sloshing in the pool below us but the sun deck was empty. There were a few hearty swimmers and a steady procession of folks in and out of the hot tub, but no one stayed to bask, they all dried off and scurried away.

I almost finished preparing four days worth of trip report updates when the laptop battery ran down. I headed back to our stateroom and plugged it in to finish the last little bit and at 11:30 I headed down to the Internet Café on Deck 3. We have not been able to get a reliable connection in our stateroom this trip. Would you believe that there is nowhere in the Internet Café to plug in a laptop? Yup, it surprised me too. I dragged a table and chair from the Promenade Lounge over to a receptacle near the portholes across from the lounge and managed to get everything uploaded by noon. The folks back home must be getting frantic, some of them get quite cranky when I’m late with updates!

Shortly after noon we headed down to Parrot Cay and lined up for lunch. As we waited our dinner tablemates Loren and Linda, from California, came along and joined us. Our buddy Frano was assigning tables so he made sure we had a nice window seat looking out toward the Pacific. We had a nice leisurely lunch and a few laughs with Loren and Linda. As we were eating dessert Carol spotted a whale spouting and we were all able to turn in time to see it breach. Soon several more followed suit.

Carol dashed off to the Vista Spa where she enjoyed the Pamper Package and I took my book to the Outlook Café where I sat reading for over an hour. Soon the sandman was overpowering me so I headed back for a nap.

Carol arrived back, totally relaxed, at 3:30. She really enjoyed her spa time!

We headed to the Promenade Lounge for a trivia competition. We scored a respectable 21 out of 25 but the winner had 23.

It was a fun half hour and an interesting way to waste time until we had to dress for dinner.

Tonight’s dinner was a brand new menu and this was the first night it was served. They cannot set off fireworks on the Alaska cruise so they will have a Pixar Pals Party rather than the traditional Pirates in the Caribbean Party. Tonight we sampled the new “Toy Story Dinner” menu and then dashed off to the Atrium to join the Pixar Party.

The Atrium was a madhouse. People were standing 10 or 12 rows deep and many adults had children sitting on their shoulders. The Pixar characters paraded down the staircase from the 4th floor into the 3rd floor atrium, danced in pairs near the Ariel statue in front of Triton’s. Once their dance segment was over they walked into the audience and danced with the children while another Pixar pair took their place on stage.

It was so crowded and so chaotic that I went off to a corner and sat on a couch while the music rattled my grey matter. Carol fought the crowd long enough to get a few pictures, then we fled for the quiet of the Deck 4 foyer outside the Walt Disney Theatre. Carol traded a few pins while we tried to decide whether we wanted to see Michael Holly perform again.

We decided to skip the show so we headed to the stateroom, changed into our comfy clothes and went to the Promenade Deck to watch the sunset. It looked a few minutes earlier like a gap in the clouds might give us a peek at the setting sun but by the time we got to the Promenade the gap had closed – no sunset tonight! We stood out enjoying some fresh air until the chill drove us back inside.

We returned to the stateroom and Carol took advantage of a few minutes downtime to pack up one of our suitcases.

Soon we headed up to Deck 10 for the 10:15 fireworks show and dance party, the last one for a few months.

Tomorrow will be another laid-back at-sea day.

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