9:00am PST – We awaken a little behind our planned schedule from the night before. We want to be at a Port Shopping Guide presentation in the theater at 9:30, so we hit snooze one more time then scramble to get up and dressed and head down to Deck 5. Colleen still isn’t feeling 100% and we are still moving at a real good clip. We are now well ahead in the race to Juneau as the other two ships are beginning to look quite small in the distance, but we think it would be better to slow it up a bit to ease the motion sickness starting to creep through our bodies. The presentation has already begun by the time we arrive, but there are supposed to be “prizes” thrown out which is why we are here. Maybe by the end of the trip we will figure out that the “free” items are basically worthless, maybe. About half way through, I have to head back to the room or vomit on the person in front of us because I just can’t handle being there any longer. I think it is a combination of motion sickness and the annoyed feeling I have from listening to Chad tell us all how important it is to go diamond shopping. He seems to have lots of valuable information for those in here who have money, but he is coming off as arrogant which has me rolling my eyes and combined with a rolling stomach means I am now speed walking up the stairs to plop on the bed. 11:00am PST – Colleen arrives back with notes, coupons galore for us to sift through before porting in Juneau. Right now though, it is nap time because we are both struggling to keep down our dinner from last night.
1:30pm PST – We awaken from our nap feeling a little better, so we decide to head up to the Windjammer to grab a bite to eat. The food is decent enough and it seems that sitting by a window is really helping the seasickness. We decide to lounge around the Windjammer as I type a little bit on the blog. Once we have had time to let our food settle, we head back to our room and find that it has been made up and we finally have the itinerary for the day. Ricardo, our housekeeper, couldn’t get in earlier because we were sleeping, but he has made the bed wonderfully and refilled our ice bucket for us. After a review of the itinerary, we find that there is a ring toss competition on the 9th Deck by the pool area. We head that direction and find that we are the first to arrive. We sign up along with six or seven other people for the first round. I am the first to throw and I go 0 for 3, although I did at least hit the board on all three tosses. Colleen goes next and rings a three pointer on her first throw; welcome to first place CJ! The next several people throw with the highest score a 1, so Colleen is looking to be in good shape. However, by this time, another 30 or so people have shown up and are allowed to jump in on the first round. About 10 throwers later, Colleen is out of the top three in points, and since we are poor losers, we leave to find something else to do! That “something” turns out to be changing into our bathing suits and heading to the outdoor hot tubs! I’ve never been accused of being a genius, so just in case anyone has become uncomfortable not being able to witness me being an idiot, I’ll try to be as graphic as possible in my explanation here. It is COLD outside, lower 50’s in temperature. It is WINDY outside, we are moving at 24 miles an hour into a wind straight out of the north. The hot tubs are not really near a shelter, they are right out in the middle where the wind is whipping across them taking all the steam with it in a hurry. Colleen and I are both wearing out swimsuits, pants, shirts, and jackets as we walk out toward the hot tubs before we are instructed to head to the Solarium where we get our towels. The Solarium is an indoor room, with a pool and hot tubs (which are also inside), so we make the logical choice of picking up our towels and heading right back outside! We change and leave our clothing and towels down the stairs about 10 feet away at one of the chairs. We have to put the chair leg on top of it all or else everything will blow away. We head in and our feet are so cold by the time we get to the water, it literally feels like our feet are being set on fire as we put them into the water. The actual hot tubbing experience is fine, as long as we keep our heads low enough not to be directly in the wind and keep our bodies under water. We stay in for about 10 minutes before we have finally decided this isn’t the best idea. I hop out and dry off as quickly as possible in the freezing wind, throw my clothes and jacket back on and take Colleen’s stuff to her so she can do the same. Needless to say, the wind against our wet bodies has the goosebumps out in full force!
4:30pm PST – We have changed out of our swimsuits and put our dry clothes back on. We decide to head back up to the Windjammer for another snack. As we walk through though we don’t see anything we really want to eat and the seasickness has begun to take its hold again. We head back down to our room and watch some TV for a while which doesn’t seem to be helping so we decide to take a dose of Pepto Bismol which we were smart enough to bring with us. After we take the pink stuff we decide it might be best to take another nap before dinner and hope the combination of sleep and Pepto does the trick.
7:00pm PST – Luck is with us as we feel much better! We each shower and begin dressing for our first formal night. Tonight we also have the opportunity to meet the Captain, have our picture taken with him and enjoy a glass of champagne as we meet some of the other high ranking caretakers of the ship.
7:45pm PST – We have made it down to the Captain’s reception and stand in a short line to meet him. When it is our turn, we are introduced as Mr. and Mrs. Scherman which sounds strange but great at the same time. We snap a quick picture and head inside the lounge where we are seated and given a glass of champagne for each of us. As we visit, I begin to describe something (can’t even remember what it was now) to Colleen and promptly know the glass out of her hand spilling all of the seat, her dress, and my pants. For those of you who know my personality when something like that happens, it takes everything in me to not chuck my glass across the room, but I keep my composure and begin cleaning it up. We are both slightly embarrassed and frustrated, but the server next to us comes over and begins to make light of the situation right away and pours Colleen another glass. We find another seat and by the time 8:30 hits for dinner, we have dried out and nobody is the wiser.
8:30pm PST – Our formal dinner features Escargot or Shrimp Cocktail among other options for appetizers, Filet of Beef is the recommendation by Jessie our waiter as the entrée which we both happily order, followed by Double Strawberry Cheesecake, yummy! The meal is terrific and the conversation is very enjoyable. The head waiter, Paul, commented that our conversations seem that of folks who have known each other for years and have made this trip together which is a compliment to the wonderful people we have the pleasure of eating with each night.
10:45pm PST – We head to the theater again tonight for a rendition of “Piano Man” performed by the Royal Caribbean Singers and Dancers. “Piano Man” is a Broadway produces musical featuring songs from Billy Joel, Stevie Wonder, Elton John, Ray Charles, and Barry Manilow. We are a little concerned that the show may not be up to snuff since we are on a cruise line, but the singers perform beautifully and we sit with smiles singing along throughout the show. Before we know it the show is over and we are thoroughly impressed with a couple of the singers in particular. We head back to our stateroom, change into more comfortable clothes and head up to the 9th Deck for a cup of Hot Chocolate before we retire for the night. Tomorrow promises to be enjoyable, we get to set foot on land again in Juneau and set out to sea in a smaller vessel for our first excursion, Glacier View Sea Kayaking! We are both excited and we have our early part of the day planned out to get some souvenir shopping taken care of before we leave the pier for kayaking.
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