The holiday that we ignore and Hooray for Google

Feb 14

Valentine's Day, and we slept in a bit. For the first time 4 days we didn't have an early event.

Breakfast started at Sabatini's again. Pretty much the usual great service. I left at 10:20 to go to line dance class. It turns out that Melissa, the teacher, is teaching her own line dances, rather than the ones that the cruise line gives her. That's all well and good, but her dances tend to be a lot of small footwork movement (heels and toes, stomps and jazz squares), and not a lot of the big moves such as grapevines and walks. Her logic is that people who do a lot of cruises tend to get bored with the same old dances. I can, on the one hand, see that logic, but on the other, it would be nice to have dances that are familiar and that would be useful for future cruises. Oh well, still fun.

After line dance I chatted with some CC friends, and then hung out until 1pm for the ballroom class. It was a review of jive, which is single step swing. We did that, and then, after some more time chatting with friends, headed to the Pub Lunch. This time it was a Scottish type theme - Scotch Eggs, prawns and chips, chicken curry and Sherry trifle. By the time we sat down they were out of both the trifle and chicken curry. So we had Prawns and Chips and then left. We stopped at the store to buy Joan and Rich some chocolate for their anniversary.

At 4pm, they were doing a mass vow renewal. We didn't sign up, but I wanted a coffee around that time, so I went down for it. and watched the renewal. The captain read a poem, had them all recite vows. He finished with "now the grooms may kiss the brides". A little Universal Life Churchish for my taste, but people participating seemed to like it. Our group was of two minds on it. They either loved the idea or thought it was the silliest thing ever. Some of the comments from the silly camp: "I haven't broken my vows, so I don't need to renew" "I didn't know they expired" and (Glen's) "I'm not renewing my vowel til Vanna White does it".

After that, trivia. It was romance themed and we didn't do very well.

When I got back to the room, I found that our "swag" bag from the Ultimate Ship's tour had arrived. In it (for each of us) was a deluxe robe, chef's jacket and laundry bag. There were also copies of all the pictures they took, including the one with us and the captain, and a personalized note pad. Nice souvenir - it's good thing I brought folding suitcases.

Following that was the usual get ready for dinner, relax have dinner. There was a special dessert tonight for us - on the previous set of menus, before the last overhaul, there was a dessert on Italian night that was peach halves stuffed with almond souffle. It got removed a year or so ago. I'd asked the head waiter about it, and he said he'd asked some pastry chefs and nobody remembered. He told me if I could get the exact title they might be able to make it. I googled, and found it, and had given it to him the day before. He had it made for us tonight. In addition, our waiter had a Love Boat Dream dessert with a candle for Joan and Rich. Since Rich doesn't like that dessert he wanted a menu and it took quite a while to get. So, when the headwaiter came over, Rich complained about our assistant waiter. I think he's a nice kid, just inexperienced. I don't know what will come of that, hopefully they'll work with Johnathan. He's very nice, so I think he'll eventually learn. Wolfgang (headwaiter) just felt bad that Rich had waited til the end of the cruise to tell him.

We did a couple of Argentine Tangos after dinner. Glen told me that while we were dancing, one of the Argentinian couples watched one of our moves and said "muy bien". I guess we're doing OK.

Then it was back to the room and bed. Another relatively early day tomorrow.