Something Old, Something New, Nothing Borrowed, Something Blue

We went back to our cabin to drop off our stuff and then we went down to Sorrento’s/ Café Promenade to get something to drink. Once we had finished our drinks, we headed up to the solarium to chill out for a bit. We even managed to get one of the round loungers. Graham did not want to come to dinner that night. One of our tablemates was starting to come down with a cold and he was worried that he would catch the cold. Dinner than night was at The Grande again and I did not want to pass up the opportunity to wear one of my gowns. So we arranged a time when Graham would meet me so that we could get some photos done and then we went our separate ways. I got showered and changed and then headed downstairs. After all of this, the person in question was not at dinner either. He had decided to get room service and an early night.

















Dinner was nice. I had the wild mushroom ravioli with a tomato dressing followed by the Veal Osso Bucco with creamy polenta, roasted root vegetables and rosemary veal just. This must have been the biggest piece of veal I have ever seen. Everything was lovely. After the huge size of the main course, I did not feel like dessert. It was during this meal that I ended up with an “adopted” dad. I knew from the beginning of the cruise that I was the youngest person on our table by quite some margin. I did not mind this at all. I can get on with most people and age has never been a barrier or even a consideration for me. Anyway, during conversation at dinner it came out that the oldest son of one of our table mates is the same age as I am. When I told him this, he referred to me as his daughter and this is how it remained for the rest of the cruise and I ended up calling him “dad”.









As I did not fancy dessert, I excused myself before the others had dessert. Graham was early and we did the rounds of the photo opportunities. The one I was most pleased about and that I had not spotted in advance was King Julien. When we had done the rounds, we headed back to our cabin and settled in for the night.













 
I so totally agree with you about the fear of the steps with no handrails!

The HOHO bus was a reasonable price. It seems like you were able to accomplish quite a bit that day.

LOVE your gown! I don't think I have seen that one before.
 
Interesing update thank you.

Our posts ended up crossing so you may wish to go back to read the rest.

Cute dooney handbag!

I love this one. This was released for the Disneyland Half Marathon last year.

That is rare without crates and people in.

I was pretty happy to get the photos without any obstructions.

The bus is good value and great to have wifi.

I was pretty impressed with this. It was just a shame that the Wi-Fi was so patchy.

Athens has never appealed to me so I was interested in your thoughts, the Greek Islands are nice but not so keen on mainland Greece.

This was my first ever visit to Greece, but I would like to visit some of the islands at some stage.

One of the reasons I don't enjoy European vacations is the darn mable floors on the hotels! I am like bambi in the hotel room with my frame. I can't stay up!

I can imagine that this would be really difficult.

Nice photos of the Acropolis but I won't be lining up to go.

I am glad to be able to say that I have seen it, but I would not go again.

That would def be a day on the ship.

Piraeus itself actually looked lovely and they have a hop on hop off road train there. I think if we end up in Piraeus again, this is what we will do.

I so totally agree with you about the fear of the steps with no handrails!

I am not very good with heights at the best of times and I have always had issues with my balance so this was just a nightmare.

The HOHO bus was a reasonable price.

I thought so, too. Normally our go to company is City Sightseeing, but their buses were a lot more expensive.

It seems like you were able to accomplish quite a bit that day.

I was pretty pleased with the ground we managed to cover.

LOVE your gown! I don't think I have seen that one before.

I got this new for the cruise. I loved the style when I looked at it, but I was not too keen wearing it. However, it looks nice in the photos.

Corinna
 
Thanks for the heads up on missing out on the evening post. It must be we both log in at the same time beung on the same time zone! I can't believe I would have missed dinner and photos...

Love your orange dress. It really suits your colouring. You know I love that Titantic backdrop and the Characters I would have been upset to have missed that.

Dinner looks good. Veal is one of my fav meats. Too large... Throw it this way lol. That is funny about your adopted Dad.

Glad they gave the server with a cold the night off! You don't want that in your dinner!
 


WOW !!! Everything is WONDERFUL so far, LOVED - absolutely loved - the photos from HP !! WOW, like "living" inside the movies!!
Marco and I visited HP world at Universal Orlando last year - and were very impressed too.
SO GLAD you had such a nice experience !!
:flower3: ... waiting for more ...
 
I meant to ask that slide or glasp that you have across the top sash part of your burnt orange dress. Did that come with the dress or did you add it? It's real pretty.
 
It must be we both log in at the same time beung on the same time zone! I can't believe I would have missed dinner and photos...

Yes, that is what I figured.

Love your orange dress. It really suits your colouring.

Thanks.

Dinner looks good.

It was very tasty. We don't eat a lot of veal, but I love Osso Bucco and of course Wiener Schnitzel.

That is funny about your adopted Dad.

It was. He is a really nice guy.

Glad they gave the server with a cold the night off! You don't want that in your dinner!

It was one of our dinner companions rather than our server who was sick.

WOW, like "living" inside the movies!!

Welcome. I was absolutely blown away by the Harry Potter Studios. Everything felt so real.

Did that come with the dress or did you add it?

This came as part of the dress.

Corinna
 


Day 17

This day marked a distinct change in pace. Although this was only day 7 of the cruise, we were essentially done with port days with only one more port to come. So at this stage we could just relax and relax we did. This started with a nice lie in. We woke up around 9:30, got ready and then headed for the Windjammer for some breakfast. It was pretty full when we got there, but we found that there was another seating area behind the Windjammer and there was plenty of seating there. They had two drinks stations in that area offering tea, coffee and water with one of them also offering juice. They also had servers coming around offering the same drinks and pastries. I learned that the Royal Caribbean Blend is drinkable if you add sugar and cream rather than milk.

We took turns walking to the buffet to get some food. Again I was amazed by all the different options at the Windjammer. Near where we were sitting they had set up a station with 4 or 5 different kinds of pancakes and a toppings bar with fruit compote, sauces, chocolate, nuts and other goodies. I don’t normally even like pancakes, but I was drawn to this. That morning, I had chocolate chip pancakes with whipped cream, chocolate sauce and crushed Oreos. This was absolutely delicious. Graham went for the healthier option with various fruit. Then we went both for some hot food. This was when I discovered the vegetable fried rice. This may be a bit of an unusual breakfast offering, but I really enjoyed it and ended up having this for quite a few breakfasts. I had some sausages and an omelette with sausage, mushrooms and cheese with this and this really hit the spot. Graham when with a more traditional breakfast and had sausages, bacon, scrambled egg and hash browns.

After breakfast, we went back to our cabin to pick up a few odds and ends before heading to the pool deck. Graham headed to the solarium again with his telescope and I was lucky enough to find a round lounger towards the solarium end of the indoor family pool. I settled down with my iPad and read my book for a few hours. It was really nice just relaxing and doing very little. At some stage Graham appeared as he was ready for some lunch. We went back to the cabin to drop off Graham’s telescope and pick up my refillable mug and then we headed up to the Windjammer.









Graham discovered the food station with tacos, nachos, tortillas and various toppings. So he ended up with a plate of nachos with all kinds of toppings. I went with a variation on that theme. I discovered the fries, which were absolutely delicious and made myself some Chilli Cheese Fries with taco meat, grated cheese, guacamole and sour cream. This definitely hit the spot. We both fancied something sweet and chanced dessert. We had some almond cake, which was actually pretty nice.

After lunch, we headed back to the cabin to get our stuff back. This time round I was out of luck as far as a round lounger was concerned, but I got a normal lounger towards the back of the solarium and settled down with my book. Graham headed back to his favourite spot towards the front of the solarium. We both had a lovely relaxed afternoon.

Just before 4, we had to make tracks. This was the afternoon our welcome back party was due to take place. I was quite surprised when I saw this in the Daily Compass. Traditionally Royal Caribbean has hosted a welcome back party for all Crown and Anchor Society members. Not long before the cruise, I read on Cruise Critic that with effect of 1st May this had been stopped fleet wide and only platinum members or higher would now have a party. Obviously the crew on the Ovation had not read the memo. Our party took place in the theatre and was for gold, platinum and emerald Crown and Anchor Society members. Diamond Crown and Anchor Society members or higher where split into two groups and had their respective parties later in the cruise. The party was the biggest one we every attended and we have had some pretty big events on DCL. Some members of the cruise director’s staff welcomed us at the door and just inside the theatre they had set up tables with sparkling, white, rose and red wine. I got some sparkling wine and Graham chose some rose wine. We then went to find a seat. The orchestra was playing. That was a novel experience that a cruise ship actually has an orchestra on board. This went on for a while. The music was not something that I would normally listen to, but they were really good. After a while, the captain, cruise director, loyalty ambassador and Next Cruise manager all took turns to speak. The interesting part was that the Next Cruise manager advised that US conditions would be applied to any cruises made on board. With Royal Caribbean, US conditions are a lot more favourable than the UK ones. After this the orchestra played again and we helped ourselves to another drink. I had another sparkling wine. They had run out of rose wine so Graham had a white wine instead. It was a nice way to spend an hour.

We then went our separate ways. Graham went to get some pool time and I checked out my photos and did the rounds of the photo opportunities before heading to the solarium to relax with my book. At around 19:00, I headed back to the cabin to get showered and change. Once I had my shower, I decided to make myself comfortable with my book while I was waiting for my hair to dry and promptly fell asleep. Fortunately Graham came back about half an hour before we were due at dinner and woke me up. This still left me enough time to get ready. Once we were both ready, we headed downstairs and made the rounds of the photo opportunities. We then headed for dinner.



















Dinner that night was at Silk again. Whereas in the other restaurants we had a different menu on the second visit, we had the same menu again at Silk. I was sorely tempted by the Vietnamese Tacos, but as I ended decorating my dress with them the last time and I was wearing white, I had to resist. I went with the Shrimp Shumai with lemon ponzu for my starter, which was very nice. I then had the Mulligatawny soup followed by beef and broccoli stir-fry with rice. Graham had the prawn cocktail followed by tiger prawn Korma with rice. We had to pass on dessert as we had places to be, but that was not a hardship. Once we finished our main course, we said goodbye to our table mates and headed up to deck 15.











Me with my "adopted dad"



On the Ovation, they have a portrait studio next to the gym. One of the regular photographers suggested that we should make an appointment for a photo shoot. We agreed and our appointment was that evening after dinner. We had been advised that the photo shoot would be for black and white portraits. Hence the reason I wore the gown that I had brought for white night. Our photographer was from South Africa. He was very nice and obviously very good at what he was doing. I felt totally at ease and the photo shoot was a lot of fun. We spent a good 30 minutes up there. At the end of the photo shoot, he asked us when we wanted to come and view the photos. We made an appointment for noon the next day and then we said goodnight. We ended back to our cabin and got ready for bed.
 
In light of the fact that our postings sometimes over lap I waited for a bit in case you posted some photos of the photo shoot session. None have appeared so I am thinking that treat in the next post!

What a lovely relaxing day 17 sounds like it was. Already day 7 wow. Breakfast sounds good. Pancakes with all the trimmings I think the trimmings are better than the pancakes! They make the dish!

Graham is getting his monies worth out of that telescope did he get it for the trip or did he already own it?

How nice the welcome back party! Good job the memo had not yet filtered down. What level are you right now? Anchor?

Lovely photos I do like the background with the black and white type wallpaper. Plus the lovely ones of both of you with the cool Hollywood background. Lovely white gown. That is nice that they have a photo studio onboard. That photo package really paying dividends now.

I do enjoy the photos they take at the tables at the restaurants nice to know they do this on RC too. Also with the Silk boarder on the photo.

I am looking forward to the stupid photos!
 
In light of the fact that our postings sometimes over lap I waited for a bit in case you posted some photos of the photo shoot session. None have appeared so I am thinking that treat in the next post!

I always post a full day. So if you read that we have retired for the day, I am done with the update for the most part. The only exception to this has already happened.

Breakfast sounds good. Pancakes with all the trimmings I think the trimmings are better than the pancakes! They make the dish!


I definitely got my money’s worth out of the pancakes with toppings.

Graham is getting his monies worth out of that telescope did he get it for the trip or did he already own it?

The telescope pre-dates me. By the time we met nearly 21 years ago, he has already had it for quite some time. It is really for birdwatching, but it has other uses as well.

What level are you right now? Anchor?

I am gold at the moment. Crown and Anchor Society works different from Castaway Club. You get one point per night spent cruising with double points if you are cruising in a suite. There are also a lot more levels. The entry level is gold for people with 3 to 29 cruise points. We have 23 at the moment. After the next cruise, we will be platinum with 36 cruise points. We need 30 to reach this level. The next level up is Emerald, which requires 55 points. We will reach that on our Transpacific cruise. After this we will have 60 cruise points. Then the race is on for diamond, which requires 80 cruise points. After this there are two more levels: diamond plus and Pinnacle. I think diamond plus is in our reach as this requires 175 cruise points, but for Pinnacle, you need 700 and for that I would need to win the lottery.

Lovely white gown.

I really like this gown. I now have this in a couple of other colours as well. They will make an appearance on the next cruise.

That is nice that they have a photo studio onboard. That photo package really paying dividends now.

It turned out that the portrait studio was completely separate from the other photography on the ship, but we did not know that yet at this time.

I do enjoy the photos they take at the tables at the restaurants nice to know they do this on RC too. Also with the Silk boarder on the photo.

I like the photos in the restaurants, too.

I am looking forward to the stupid photos!

Patience grasshopper. All will become clear in Sunday’s update. Consider this to be a cliff-hanger. Just a word of warning, as with any good story, there is a twist.

Forgot to say fabulous necklace at dinner at Silk.

This is the necklace I bought in Barcelona. I love this to bits and wear it most days.

Corinna
 
Corinna , would you please take a close-up photo of your Barcelona necklace so that we can see it's features. It looks absolutely scrumptious but hard to see the detail. Your TR"s are always so informative...thanks for all the time and effort.
 
OK, just got through Athens....Why were you not excited about this? I'm sure there would lots of things on my list in Athens. The Acropolis sounds cool, but I think with all the treacherous climbs I might not have been so keen on it. However going into town having a Gyros in Athens, now that's cool!

Too bad Graham skipped the meal, especially since the party in question wasn't even there! I love that dress! It is so pretty on you! Great pictures of you and of you and Graham.
 
WOW, I love this relaxing day at sea, you both look so happy and ... :flower1: RELAXED. As others said, the nacklace in your photos is just gorgeous and it looks wonderful on you.
:rolleyes: As I am about preparing our meal ... I loved your photos re the food, I so like while we are on vacation ... to have my meals ... READY for us ... without any effort/time from me !! :) Marco now wants me to cook beef and broccoli stir-fry !!!
We did some RC cruises years ago and LOVED them ! Afterwards we switched to Disney cruise line and loved them for a few cruises ... Then we find that the itineraries are almost always the same ... lately, instead of cruising, we are doing Hawai'i islands :rainbow:...
How do you compare RC with Disney line ?
 
Corinna , would you please take a close-up photo of your Barcelona necklace so that we can see it's features. It looks absolutely scrumptious but hard to see the detail. Your TR"s are always so informative...thanks for all the time and effort.

I would enjoy a close up too! I was blowing up the photo on my ipad mini but it wasn't very succesful!
 
Nice to have a relaxing day, isn't it?

Love both of your dresses!

Was that your "dad" in the other dinner photo?
 
Corinna , would you please take a close-up photo of your Barcelona necklace so that we can see it's features.

I did post one on one of the Barcelona instalments, but here it is again:



This is the precise size of the pendant.

Your TR"s are always so informative...thanks for all the time and effort.

Thanks for reading along.

Why were you not excited about this?

There is actually precious little to do in Athens itself and I felt that Athens has not been very kind to its historical heritage. A lot of the interesting spots are actually a fair distance from Athens. I was prepared for Athens to wow me in the same way that Malta did in 2010. I had felt much the same about Malta before we went, but ended up falling in love with the place. Sadly I had to say this did not happen with Athens.

The Acropolis sounds cool, but I think with all the treacherous climbs I might not have been so keen on it.

Actually that would not be such a bad thing. The Acropolis does look really cool when you look up to it from the rest of the city and particularly when you come from the Plaka. Up close, it is more like a giant building site.

However going into town having a Gyros in Athens, now that's cool!

As sad as it is, this was actually the highlight of our day in Athens for me. I loved our meal there.

Too bad Graham skipped the meal, especially since the party in question wasn't even there!

It is inevitable that this happens at least a couple of times every cruise. He just gets tired of having a multi-course dinner every evening.

I love that dress! It is so pretty on you!

Thanks.

I so like while we are on vacation ... to have my meals ... READY for us ... without any effort/time from me !!

It used to be like this for me, but my perspective has changed. I pretty much just work late shifts at the moment which means I get home any time between 22:00 and 23:00 and eat at work. So now for me being able to cook is a real treat. I am off this weekend and I am about to disappear in the kitchen to make Thai Green Curry and tomorrow we will have Canjun chicken with vegetable Quinoa.

Then we find that the itineraries are almost always the same

That was what made us look elsewhere in the end. Our next two cruises are both on Royal Caribbean and are a Transatlantic from Southampton to Miami with stops at Boston, overnight in New York and Port Canaveral and a Transpacific from Sydney to Seattle with stops at Isle of Pines and Noumea, New Caledonia; Mystery Island, Vanatu; overnight in Suva, Fiji; Kona, Big Island; Lahaina, Maui and Honolulu. I am very excited about both cruises.

lately, instead of cruising, we are doing Hawai'i islands

That is a lovely alternative. Apart from the quick pitstops on our cruise next year, we are planning to be back in Hawaii in 2018. This will be a special year for us. We will celebrate our 20th wedding anniversary and Graham will celebrate his 60th birthday.

How do you compare RC with Disney line ?

Extremely favourable. Service is on par and sometimes even a little better on Royal Caribbean. I think where food is concerned, Royal Caribbean has the edge. The same is true for activities. DCL are ahead with the shows and of course they have the Disney characters. Royal Caribbean is streets ahead when it comes to embarkation and debarkation and also getting on and off the ship at port calls. They also seem to handle excursions better and the prices for those are fairer. The cabins are smaller, but because the layout is better and they have tons of storage, the Royal Caribbean cabins actually feel bigger. I prefer the adult areas on Royal Caribbean as well. We will go back on the Wonder one last time, hopefully next October to see what they have done with her during her upcoming dry dock and that may well be our last Disney cruise.

Nice to have a relaxing day, isn't it?

It is indeed. That is part of the reason why I am looking forward to the next two cruises so much: plenty of sea days to just chill.

Love both of your dresses!

Thanks.

Was that your "dad" in the other dinner photo?

As far as I am aware, he was only in the one I posted on this update.

Corinna
 
Day 18

This morning we had not set an alarm. On the itinerary that day this was listed as the beginning of the Suez canal crossing, but that was not supposed to happen until 11:00 PM so we were in no rush that day. So we enjoyed a lie in and woke up of our own accord around ‪9:30. We got up and ready and headed to the Windjammer to get some breakfast. Graham started healthy again with a selection of fruit and yoghurt, but I gravitated towards the pancakes again. This time round I had strawberry pancakes with whipped cream, strawberry compote and white chocolate drops. We then both had some hot food. Graham went with a full cooked breakfast and I had the lovely vegetable fried rice with poached eggs and sausage links. I was in heaven that I could get made to order poached eggs. The only slight letdown was the coffee.

After breakfast we headed back to the cabin to pick up our stuff. Graham headed back to the little outside deck off to one side of the solarium and I found myself in shady spot towards the back and relaxed with my book. It was such a treat to be able to just read without having to worry about a thousand different things I should be doing. Out of all my cruises, this was probably the one where I achieved the least as I am normally very active, but I think this contributed to this cruise being so magical. Sometimes even I have to be lazy and just think of number one.





Shortly before noon, I went to find Graham and we headed up to deck 15. As we were coming up the stairs, the captain was making his noon announcement. That was where we find out that there had been a delay with our Suez Canal crossing. Rather than starting the crossing at 11:00 that evening, we were now due to start at 5:00 the following morning. That was very welcome news indeed. We had kind of planned camping out on the balcony over night, but I have to say, I much preferred the idea of spending the night in my comfortable bed. We have had ‪5:00 AM starts on our Panama Canal cruises so I did not mind this at all.

We got to the photo studio a couple of minutes late. He asked us to sit down on a sofa and then showed us our photos as a slide show. I have to say they took my breath away. They had come out really well and some of them were truly spectacular. After looking at all of them first, he then asked us to narrow our selection down. He grouped them together in selections of 4 similar shots and asked us to pick our favourites. Usually we picked 2, sometimes only 1 and there were a couple where we wanted to keep all 4. He regrouped a few of our choices and we eliminated some more and then he showed us a slideshow again with just our selections. At that stage we eliminated a couple more photos and then he asked us if we were happy, which we were. At that stage, the moment of truth came. He told us the prices. The cheapest package consisted of 5 digital photos and was $550. The package with all the photos that we had chosen was more expensive than what we had paid for our cruise. Graham was quite prepared to let me have the basic package as he had sensed that I had totally fallen in love with one of the photos. This was a solo shot of me and was hands down the best photo of me that I had ever seen. I did love it, but not enough that I would spend that amount of money on this. So I made an adult decision and walked away. I explained that for that amount of money, we could book another cruise.

When we headed back to the lift, Graham said that maybe we should do just that. I honestly had no idea what he was talking about. I asked what he meant and he told me that maybe we should go and book our next cruise. I did not need to be told twice. We headed down to deck 5 and the Next Cruise desks. All the desks that had a Next Cruise consultant present were busy. They have some comfortable seats in the vicinity so we sat down. When we had waited for a while, I spotted an appointment book and put our names down for an appointment later in the afternoon. Of course just as soon as I had done this, a Next Cruise consultant became available. So we went to see him. While we were waiting, I had been flicking through the various brochures and flyers that they had on display and I had come across my ultimate bucket list cruise. It was a transpacific cruise from Sydney to Seattle taking in various South Pacific islands as well as Hawaii. Graham was quite taken with this, too. So we decided to ask about this.

I had planned to nominate my Dreams Unlimited travel agent if I ended up making a booking on board as she has now branched out into Royal Caribbean as well. I did mention this at the beginning of the conversation and he offered to price up the itinerary both in Dollars and in Pounds. It actually turned out to be quite a bit cheaper in Pounds. So we had to bite the bullet and go with this and I now have to deal with Royal Caribbean direct. I am actually surprised that there was even a price in Pound as this particular cruise is not available on the UK website or through any UK agent. Anyway, with what happened just over a month later, I was glad that he talked us into booking in Pounds as otherwise this would have ended up being a very expensive cruise indeed.

We chose our cabin. We have gone for an inside cabin and on deck 7 forward. I am pretty happy with this. He then started to talk about extras. We agreed to pre-paying gratuities, as we need to pay those at some stage anyway.

He then offered a select beverage package, which we initially declined. He still priced this up and it turned out that this worked out cheaper for both of us on a 24 night cruise than what I alone was paying for the soda package on this cruise, which was only 16 nights. So that was a no brainier as I would have purchased a soda package anyway. With this we are getting carbonated soft drinks, wine and beer. I am not a beer drinker, but I can imagine having a glass of Prosecco before dinner and a couple of glasses of wine with dinner. I have seen since that Royal Caribbean has now removed the charge for this completely so I am glad we agreed to this.

The last element was the flights. Again, I was extremely reluctant, but he convinced me that we may as well lock the price in and that we could remove them without penalty right up to the final payment date if we find them cheaper elsewhere. That sounded fair enough. We have since had the flight details and if we were to book the identical flights direct, the flights alone would cost more than the whole package and Royal Caribbean also throw in the transfers and a hotel night in Sydney.

After we had this booked, I asked about the cruise we had really come for. I had my beady eye on a repositioning cruise on the Ovation from Hong Kong to Singapore in November. Before we left for this trip there had been some pretty good prizes available, but they had gone up and he advised us that there were no decent deal available for this. I appreciated his honesty. I was a little upset that I would not get to cruise on the Ovation again anytime soon as well as the fact that our Far East trip was now on ice, but Graham and I agreed that we would keep an eye out for a decent deal for November. We thanked our Next Cruise consultant and decided to do something about lunch.

By now it was gone ‪14:30 and neither of us fancied a proper lunch. However, as it was still a long time until dinner, we thought we should have something. So we headed down to Sorrento’s. I had a slice of Hawaiian pizza and Graham had a slice of pepperoni pizza. That hit the spot. I then went next door to get some dessert. I brought back a white chocolate and cranberry cookie for Graham and a flourless chocolate cake for me. Once we had finished, we headed back upstairs to the solarium. Graham staked out a spot near the front again and I stayed near the back, where I relaxed with a book.

Just before 5 we packed up and took our stuff to the cabin. I picked up my souvenir cup and then we headed up to the SeaPlex for bumper cars. They had a session that afternoon from 5 to 8. Initially there was a huge line going all the way around the SeaPlex. So we found a seat and just watched. I got myself some orange Fanta. After about 30 minutes the line started to go down as people were drifting away for early dinner so I got in line. Initially I managed to have a go on every fourth turn, but after about 18:30 the line had gone down sufficiently that I got a go every second turn. At that stage Graham joined me. Our special little friend was there again, but for the most part I managed to avoid him as he was either ahead of me or behind me. While I was in line, I noticed that he was up to his usual tricks again. When I saw him targeting an elderly woman who had not really had the hang on how to operated her bumper car, I had enough. I decided that maybe it was time to treat him to some of his own medicine. Shortly afterwards a nice little opportunity arose. He had just engineered another frontal collision at speed and as a result had spun around. I saw this and also saw that I had a clear track between where I was and where he was and decided to give him a taste of his own medicine. I accelerated and headed towards him. Just before I reached him, Graham approached at a right angle. We both reached him at the same time and he ended up sandwiched between us. Hence forward, we just referred to him as the sandwich filling. It is amazing that sometimes Graham and I seem to be able to communicate without speaking or even looking at each other. Anyway, our special young friend went off in a huff and the rest of the session was a lot more fun because of it.

Once the session was over, we went back to the cabin to get showered and changed. We did the round of the photo opportunities before heading to dinner. Dinner was at American Icon grill and there we did have a different menu. Graham told our server to just bring him any appetizer and ended up with calamari. For his main course, he chose the traditional Thanksgiving dinner. I had the Idaho Homemade Potato Pancakes followed by the Traditional Wedge Salad. For my main course, I went with the Surf and Turf again. Graham passed on dessert, but I had the hot skillet cookie with vanilla ice cream and hot fudge sauce.

























When we had said goodbye to our tablemates, we headed back to our cabin where our stateroom host had left us a towel creation. I set the alarm for before the crack of dawn and then we got ready for bed as we had a long and excited day ahead of us.



 
Sometimes even I have to be lazy and just think of number one. I'm so glad that you did this! :worship: You deserve it!

Booking that dream cruise is definitely better than a very expensive photo package!

Glad you got back at that little monster!

Pics on the steps are cute.
 
WOW !! A very special one , a dream cruise ... with a fair price !! Oh, I feel so happy for you !! What a wonderful way to celebrate your 20 years anniversary !! CONGRATULATIONS !!
Marco and I will celebrate 40 years in 2017, it doesn't seem that long ... but it is. ( :rolleyes1 I have already booked our flight to Orlando for July 2017 !! I love to keep dreaming all year round about the next trip ... :rainbow:. That is IF my old parents will be doing "quite well" -otherwise we should have to cancel the trip of course; however, having a trip to look forward to helps us keep going among our very demanding jobs and everyday chores/troubles and health issues !!)

LOVE your idea of being lazy, just doing what you wanted to !! I am starting to work this morning :sad1: and it was SO RELAXING to read about your quiet and fun day !!!
TKS for sharing !! :love:

PS We loved RC line too very much !!
 

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