Wandering around doing nothing on day 2

So today was a, to quote Mary Poppins, a practically perfect day.

Our first event of the day was the Cruise Critic Meet and Mingle, hosted by Celebrity. On our gatherings over the years on Princess, we've never had one hosted by them, although occasionally some officers show up to say hello. Sara, the cruise director introduced all the officers with a brief description of what they do to help us. We spent some time with the Guest Services director, who hails from Glasgow Scotland. He was most impressed that my sister and I have been to the Ubiquitous Chip in Glasgow.

Right after that, we noticed that there were tables set up for cooking demos. There was on station for each specialty restaurant and of course plenty of staff around to take your reservation. We watched a chef from Silk Harvest make Orange Chicken, Sushi on 5 guy demo'ed making a shrimp tempura roll, watched a pasta maker from Tuscan Grill and finally a Murano chef make their special lobster (the preparation looked wonderful, but since I don't like lobster, maybe they'd make it with chicken. Somehow, I don't think it would be same.

After a break in the room to check email, we decided to try the buffet for lunch. We arrived at the pool deck just before 1:30, just in time for poolside line dancing! We joined in and did about 5 dances. There were two guys from the cruise staff kind of leading them, but not really teaching them - just follow them. Fortunately, I've done enough of this that I know the Electric Slide, and their line dance to "Happy" used a cha-cha basic, which I know well. It was a bit challenging in part, but fun.

From there, it was our first buffet meal. The buffet has many stations, and honestly, it was a bit overwhelming to decide. I finally settled on Indian Papadam with a beef fajita burrito like thing. Also some salad.

After lunch, time to go to the "not to be missed" Corning Hot Glass show. It's up on the lawn, and sailing through the Eastern Caribbean in August is very hot. The three young glass blower ladies must have been sweltering up there. Apparently, they make both pieces such as vases and also what they call cane (think of Venetian glass) that will be used later. And I guess, to have it all make sense, you need to go to all shows. It was interesting, and what they make is gorgeous, but about an hour and a quarter is pretty much all I need to know. Most interesting to me was that one of the blowers has her fine arts masters from Chico State, which I attended remotely a while ago. Yay.

After that, we went to what is now Beth's favorite place- Cafe Bocio for tea and coffee. Tonight was Smart Casual night, and we decided to go see Elyseum, the production show, before dressing for dinner. It was entertaining - a cruise ship broadway style show with some Cirque du Soleil type stuff thrown in. There was apparently a story line that neither of us got, but it was still fun to watch.

After that, down to dinner - all of us showed up and we had a nice dinner. We'd been given a bottle of sparkling wine (pretty sure the house stuff is not actual champagne) so we decided to share it with our table. The dining room staff also gave us a rum punch thing, so lots of not drunk alcohol.

Tonight was the first silent disco, but we weren't going to make the start time. After dinner, we walked over to it with our table mates, and it was a very crowded area with people with headphones. Maybe we'll try the next one. We did head to the Celebrity Central, a smallish theater used mostly for lectures and watched Alone in Berlin, a movie based on a real couple fighting Nazism by writing cards suggesting overthrowing Hitler. Here's a bit of trivia for you - it starred Emma Thompson and Brendan Gleeson. A couple of trivia questions for you - what movie franchise did they also do together? Question 2 - what blockbuster franchise does Brendan's son appear in?

After that, up to bed - but wait, on my nightly step out on to the balcony, I noticed we were having a fantastic thunderstorm. We don't get them in California, so it was pretty spectacular. We watched that for about an hour, then decided to get some ginger ale. We went up to the 14 deck to the lounge, it was too loud and busy so decided to walk across the open deck to the buffet. Uh, no - pouring. Went down, got the ginger ale, had it and finally went to sleep around 2 am.