We went to Palo a little early, but our table was ready. As soon as we were seated, Susanna came to offer us a complimentary drink. Graham had some Prosecco and I had a Kir Royal. We also both had some iced water with lemon. Susanna asked if we wanted the guided tour and we declined. We had brunch at Palo often enough to know how it works. Graham headed for the seafood and had some crab legs, scallops, shrimp and tuna. I had some melon with Parma Ham and some sweet nut bread. We then ordered a pizza to share with half Spicy Italian Sausage and half Red Grape and Cambozola. I also ordered a chilled strawberry soup and Graham headed back to the buffet for some cold cuts, bread and cheese. I then ordered my favourite, the Chicken Parmigiana with Risotto. Even though I had paced myself, I could not finish this. Graham ordered the Seared Tilapia with Asparagus Risotto and really enjoyed this. He had some Panna Cotta and some White Chocolate Covered Strawberries for his dessert. I had not really room for dessert, but could not resist the White Chocolate Covered Strawberries so I had a couple. We also both had some coffee.
I knew that they had made some changes to Palo, but could not figure out what they were. I asked Susanna and she pointed out that Palo finally has been given some of the Venetian poles that it was named after and they also changed the floor. Now that she pointed it out, I realized that it was absolutely stunning. I took a few photos and then we paid.
We were so stuffed that we decided to have a nap. When we got back to the cabin, there were a lot of goodies on the bed. Michelle must have given them to our stateroom host. We got two Mickey head bowls that are now used as fruit bowls in our house, Mickey hand side plates, a recordable Disney Story book, some Christmas decorations that went on our tree as soon as we got home, two money boxes that you can use in the water, a keyring lanyard and some great Christmas socks. I am sure there was more as well. This was such a lovely surprise. Once I had admired everything, we settled down for a nap.
We had set a wake up call for 16:30. When we woke up, we had to take care of my least favourite part of the cruise: the packing. Still, this did not take to long. We pretty much just made sure that everything was in a suitcase. Graham was going to do some laundry at the Beach Club Villas so we put all the laundry and odds and ends in one case and all the clean stuff in another and planned on reorganizing everything at the Beach Club. When I stepped out of our cabin, I found a Magical Moments Certificate and a folder with some stock photos behind our fish. This was from the Shutters photographers. This really made my day.
Once we were all packed, we had another wander around deck 10. I was still toying with the idea of trying out the Aquadunk, but it was quite cool and windy and this was a welcome excuse to chicken out. We then went to Shutters. Graham had not seen all the photos yet. I wanted to make sure that they were all on the kiosk and would therefore make it onto the CD. We also needed to choose two prints that we got as a Platinum perk. This was so difficult this time round as they were all so fabulous. We made two piles: one for the photos that definitely were not going to make the cut and a shortlist. Most of the character photos did not make the first cut, as I wanted some photos that were specific to this cruise. We then went through the shortlist and selected one photo from each set. That still left us with a bunch. Eventually we just went with our gut feeling. At one point I decided to go and take some more photos. I really wanted some photos of the chandeliers at After Hours and there were some other things that I wanted to photograph as well.