Cruise 2017: Day 4, At Sea

This day was Canadian Thanksgiving! It was mentioned in the daily guide and at the buffet for lunch there was a turkey dinner available, as well as a large "Canada" cake. Of course, I didn't have my camera.  Edited--while searching for another picture, somehow I found this one. I think Rob might have taken it because it was saved where he automatically saves the pictures from his phone. There were also some shots of the ship leaving Miami!

I have a lot of things circled in the daily planner, and I know we didn't do all of them. At 10:15 was a talk on the music of Aruba, by Cary Ginell. He'd had a couple of other talks about music, but hadn't managed to fit them in. Not knowing anything about the music of Aruba, I thought this might be interesting. It was, though perhaps spending so much time in a university music program left me wanting more details. 

I circled a Hot Glass Show at 11:00, but since I have no pictures, I don't think we made it. The timing on the shows was just not working for us! We must have gone, because while writing the post for our day in Aruba, there's a picture of a sailfish that we saw them make, and the ladies had recommended a Dutch pancake restaurant which we saw while walking around.  I probably had a camera malfunction or something.

After lunch, Rob wanted to see Wonder Woman, but I wasn't interested. That's fine with us. Usually I'll go along to movies just to have that time to relax (and possibly knit) but this time I wanted to enjoy being on a cruise. So I sat up by the pool somewhere. There was a talk about Stargazing that I thought I might go to...but opted to relax. So many evenings are cloudy anyway LOL. I do wish I had remembered to pack our stargazing guide.

At 3:30 there was a Music Trivia Challenge on Canadian Artists. I had to go. I didn't do as well as I would have liked! I'm not sure if it was then, but we also did a Broadway musicals trivia and I didn't do very well with that either. There were a lot of musicals that I haven't played the music from because they're still pretty new. Then there was General Knowledge trivia challenge. Okay. Some of this was not general knowledge!! LOL! It was hard! 

I wish we had taken some of the dance classes, though they were in the Grand Foyer where people could watch...Pirates of the Caribbean was showing at 5:15 but that was too close to dinner. I haven't seen any of the Pirate movies, though I've played some of the music!

 

 We were surprised there wasn't a Thanksgiving dinner on the menu. I think one item had turkey in it, but the more traditional dinner was the next night. This little tomato appetizer was nice, though I would have preferred it warm so the cheese was gooey. I think I picked it because it had buffalo mozzarella and I wanted to try that, and I make a similar appetizer--but I broil them.

 

 I have no idea what this pasta was. I don't normally get pasta, trying to be low carb! I think it was penne with prosciutto and a cream sauce. I mainly ate the meat and the sauce LOL. But did eat some of the pasta.

 Dessert time. There was both Tiramisu and Cherries Jubilee on the menu. I couldn't turn down either, so I got them both. As often happens, there was also tiramisu at the buffet that night or the next. I think the dining room is usually better but I was pleased at how good the buffet desserts were. They didn't have that chemical taste that is often in the whipped cream (a stabilizer?).

 I made this dress after seeing this one when I had been thinking about making a different style of infinity dress. I knew this one would be more versatile for me. Of course, I couldn't remember all the ways to wear it once on the ship. On one hand, I liked how flowy it was--perfect for the hot weather (except that it's usually freezing inside the ship and  the material was a polyester, so perhaps not as cool as possible), but on the other hand, flowy also means shapeless and I felt larger than I am. But it was also good for those fluctuating days on a cruise LOL.

At 7:45 we went to "Destination Highlights: Aruba". I got Rob there only because it wasn't listed as a port shopping talk. It was supposed to be fast and informative talk about all you need to know to have an awesome day in Aruba. Instead of being about port shopping like the other talks, this one was really all about the different excursions, with a little bit of general info. Most questions like "how much would a taxi to the beach cost" were answered with "about ... but I would suggest an excursion so you'll know the cost and timing and safety blah blah blah". I'll mention more about the talk in the next post as it relates to what we did. 

So many excursions looked interesting.  Rob and I discussed what we wanted to do. We hadn't spent any money on excursions yet. We heard how wonderful the sunsets in Aruba are and we love catamaran trips, so we picked two and went to the excursions desk to ask for more info. Like, what exactly do they mean by .... The staff didn't know and their computer didn't tell them anything more than what the booklet said. We picked one of the two sunset cruises and hoped for the best.

On this trip, we weren't getting the folded towel animals in our cabin. No, we were getting hide and seek with my nightgown! After a couple nights of my nightie getting manhandled by a young Filipino cabin steward, I started putting it in the drawer LOL.

At 9:00 we went to the theater for "December '63". Their show the other night had been a little preview, but not really much shorter.  This group is really good, though I gather they are a "manufactured group". One of the members was Canadian. After all the shows, the cast come out to the Entertainment Court. This is neat (though a little awkward as you walk by them just trying to get out). I approached him and said Happy Thanksgiving. He was from Brampton. Never would have known it with a name like Miguel. It was also neat to meet the cast in the buffet and elevators--although the first time I saw one of them, I didn't realize it and thought he was pretty crazy in his sequined and embroidered velvet suit jacket LOL.

After that we had to leave the theater only to wait around a bit for the Adult Game Show: "Frisky Feud". Who would happen to get chosen, but Erica, the woman from the hotel. She was pretty awesome and did not disappoint! These shows are always a hoot though there were a couple contestants that were perhaps out of their element.

We headed back to our cabin. Or back to the buffet, I don't know. Rob really liked the late night pasta bar, with made to order pasta. The pizza was also really good, though he missed getting it custom made like at Sorrentos on Royal ships. We were looking forward to arriving in Aruba in the morning!