San Juan - Day 2

Bob woke up early this morning and hit the gym, good guy that he is. I showered and packed while he was gone. By the time he got back and showered, we were pretty late having breakfast.  We just went to the little cafe downstairs and ran into Jim and Kathy - imagine that!

Before we knew it, it was time to check out of the hotel and check in at the ship. Woohoo!! We had planned to go back into the city after checking our luggage but that just didn't happen. We did, however, pick up some wine for the room and some Orange Truffle Baileys (the only place you can get the stuff). Cari and Matt bought some on their cruise and said it was bubble wrapped and delivered to their cabin before packing up the following Friday. Sounded good to us. Once we got our photos taken for the ship's ID check-in, we headed up to deck 10 (the buffet) for a snack - which led to a beer. Which then led to the decision to hang on the ship since the captain announced we could get into our cabins.

Of course the first thing we did as soon as we opened our balconies was pop a bottle of champagne!

We met our cabin steward, German (pronounced Herman). As of now, 4pm, we still only have 2 out of 3 bags. Crossing our fingers since the last bag has all our snorkel gear in it. (The bag finally showed up around 5pm - thank goodness.) Bob and I tried to go to the sauna since we had some extra time but were told we couldn't get in until 5pm because they're still showing it to new passengers. Bummer! That doesn't work for us since we have 6pm reservations for Qsine tonight. Looking forward to that since the yewts enjoyed it so much!

The plan was to meet outside in the hallway at 5:50 and walk to Qsine together. We were all there ... except Jim and Kathy (we will don't have cruise names for them). We knocked on their door. Then knocked harder on their door. Waited a few more seconds and figured maybe they went on ahead. Well, I guess they did because when we got there they were still missing. They did show up a few minutes later saying they didn't get the memo about meeting in the hallway. Hmmmm, thought we were all out on our decks when we talked about that. Anywaaaaay ...

The restaurant is beautiful. Very classy. The service was impeccable, of course. Percy took excellent care of us tonight. You order on an iPad - how cool is that? There are 20 different categories to order from. Within each category there are from 2-8 different things to try. They say most people don't get past 8. We had a better chance since there are 8 of us. We started off with a shrimp dish that was amazing. Then there was the lava crab cake. Yummmm. M's Favorites is the category that contains the highlights of the menu. I think there were 12 things to taste from that one alone, all of which was superb. I believe the chicken and lamb was next followed by the filet minion (the best I've ever had). There was a kebab in there somewhere and I don't even remember what the last thing we had was, but it was delicious. (ETA: it was different Indian dishes - the shrimp curry and the chicken curry were both wonderful.) We made it through seven.

Stuffed to the gills we couldn't hold any more. So since we were all so full we couldn't force another bite down ... IT WAS TIME FOR DESSERT!!!! Oh. My. God. 

The first thing Percy brought out was a chocolate something. Seriously? It was paired with a frozen bullet filled with gelato. Then these little naked cupcakes appeared with toppings to choose from so you could put what you wanted on them. Little apple dumplings with different sauces to choose from was put in front of us, along with a type of cheesecake dessert with raspberries. And last but not least there was an apple pie/crisp type of dish. Jeez Louise people. For real? Here we go again. Even though we can't possible put another bite in our mouths our hands move independently of our brains and start putting dollops of this and that on our plates. Then those betraying little hands stick forks, or spoons, in said dollops and bring them to our mouths. Of course the mouth opens. Shaking my head I chew, roll my eyes in delight and wonder swallowing yet again. That process was repeated several more times. Cranes anyone?

I'm not sure anyone has ever considered a mandatory muster call saved by the bell before. Tonight we did. If we didn't get out of there when we did I'm not sure we'd have been able to move at all tomorrow. What a magical, wonderful experience!! Thanks to Cari and Matt for recommending this. We thoroughly enjoyed every miserable minute. Hahaha

The announcement was made and the bells were going off telling us to report directly to our muster station. Good little rule followers that we are, we did just that. Trust me, there's always a naughty list and we had a pretty long one of cabins that weren't accounted for. It's a necessary evil but wasn't too painful. Finally we got to head to the Lido deck to hang out and watch the ship leave. Or so we thought. It appeared we weren't the only ones with that bright idea and it was full! How dare they! So we went another deck up and lounged there for a while. The Adventures of the Seas, docked right behind us, was gearing up to leave and it was pretty cool watching them pull out of port. It's a beautiful ship all lit up at night. And that's the one we'll be on for our cruise next January!!

After a few more drinks, it was getting closer to 10:00 and we were thinking about going to see the show. Tonight was scheduled to be a comedian. The gang moseyed that way. We grabbed seats in the back just in case it was corny so we could leave without attracting too much attention. Thankfully, we didn't have too. But boy did it start out slow. There was a band. And they were ok. Did I mention they were ok? Next a couple of singers came out and serenaded us. Aaaannnd we're still rolling our eyes and wondering if we're in the right place or wrong night. Finally the comedian took the stage.

Jay Lamont loves music. He started out talking about different singers. And he can do some damn fine impressions! Whitney Houston, Barry White, James Brown, Kenny Rodgers, the Bee Gees and I don't remember who else. But he had us all in stitches. He has another show tomorrow night at 10:30 we're planning to catch. 

Walking through the Emporium on our way to the Lido deck again, we tasted some more liquor. (We're all full now and can't hold another anything ... Right?) Apparently not!!! Mmmmm, it was fine!!! We think we need some of that stuff. You know I don't remember what it was called. Will have to go back and take a picture of it. Gigi wanted to check out the Apple Store and damn if they hadn't just closed minutes ago. Bummer!!! She'll be there bright and early in the morning no doubt. 

Now hold on to your hat for this one. You are not gonna even believe this. Jim or Rick one wants some pizza. Whaaaaat? We just stuffed ourselves a couple of hours ago!! Smh again. Off we go to follow. The girls got waylaid fixing some tea. By the time we found the guys they were all eating pizza! ?? How can they be hungry? Ricky sniffed out some cookies so we were all nibbling on them before it was over. DE and Sarah apparently said good night and hauled butt back to their cabin. Guess they had their fill of us for the day (and night). LOL Then the guys disappear. Completely. We eventually find them back there on the Lido deck again ... Drinking!! Of course we joined them. I don't even know what time it is at this point. But it's getting late. Like midnight or something. 

We sat there and one conversation led to another one that led to yet another one. Long pregnancies were brought up and the question was how long an elephant is pregnant. You know none of us have a clue. But we all had an opinion!! LOL That reminded me of a skit I'd just recently seen with Tim Conway, Harvey Korman, Carole Burnett and Vicki Lawrence. Tim was telling this story about Siamese elephants as only he can. Of course he had them all on the floor by the end. How I wish we still had programs like that to look forward to. Hands down the best show ever. 

We finished the evening off with a discussion about the north and the south and how Virginia is not considered the south - at least according to Gigi. That conversation went south. Hahaha. But during that conversation, the pronunciations of different cities came up. Norfolk is always the first one. Some people say Nor-fuk, others say Nor-fork (Gigi), and still other locals say Naw-fuk (locals). And that just isn't kosher. Ok so what about Suffolk, and Portsmouth ... Oh that was a big one. Because people pronounce Portsmouth, Porchmuth, or Porchmuff - you should've seen Gigi trying to say that. We were crying. I'm not sure others around us were as entertained as we were with ourselves. But isn't that usually the way it is? We threw around all kinds of places that aren't pronounced by locals the way they're spelled (New Orleans, Staunton, Louisville, etc.) 

At 1am it was time to take these tired bones to bed. It's 2:15 and I'm just finishing this journaling. Sleeping late tomorrow. Breakfast at Blu. Something to dream about. :) So night night 😴😴😴