Oct. 6, 2019 Sleeping my cruise away

Slept around the clock, a full 12 hrs. It didn’t surprise me cuz i was so tired from embarkation. Actually i was up two or three times  because of muscle cramps in my legs and feet. I used the Theraworx relief foam that i bought on Amazon and it didn’t work perfectly but enough that i was able to go back to sleep. Other times i used this product it either worked real well or not so much so it’s an iffy thing but better than nothing. My cabin is very large, very clean, very quiet, the tv works and the fridge too, my bed and 4 pillows very comfy. I have the thermostat set to its highest so nice and cozy, my cabin attendant Anthony is awesome.

We are headed for Maui, 5 days to get there i think.

I got ready and headed out to eat. I considered doing the Black Pearl dining room this morning but when I got near it was all backed up with a huge lineup. I thought that probably the other dining room the Gold Pearl would be busy too so I went to the Lido buffet. I usually do like the buffets better anyhow. It was pretty packed as well but I went around looking for my muesli which was no where to be found and thé workers in there didn’t know what I was talking about, bah humbug. So I got some yogurt and fresh fruits and a delicious mango drink and sat down at a table that was ridiculously tall. It was awkward eating there so i moved on and ended up seated at another tall table because it was the only one available. Well, i don’t know if the bench was too short or the tables too tall or both. I think i was feeling a little stressed so that’s why i ended up at the ice cream machines. Well, that’s my excuse and i’m sticking to it. My first choice was yogurt but it came out of the tap all runny so i set it aside and got a bowl of soft serve vanilla that was quite solid. It was excellent and icy cold unlike the usual soft serve and now i have my new fav breakfast food. Guess it was frozen overnight and nobody else had picked it as a breakfast food. So now, it’s mine! Yippee! Later i found the little boxes of yogurt so that’s good and  they have them in all sorts of flavours but now wondering if i’ll remember where they’re kept. It takes a while to become familiar with ship buffets!

So i wandered around looking for the meet n greet and found the room at the correct time according to my watch  but there were no people in it. I hadn’t brought my daily “Fun Times” paper with me so decided to just wing it and check out the ship. Unfortunately my knees didn’t allow me to go very far and when i pushed on i found myself at the wrong end of the ship. It’s gonna take awhile to learn this ships layout. 

One deck in particular seems to be hard to find what you’re looking for and the reason is because the Center  section of that deck isn’t available unless you take the elevator to the deck above it or below it and then do the stairs to get to it, maybe?  Gotta wonder how all the people in wheelchairs and scooters do it. This set up has screwed me around a few times now. I have also totally lost my bearings on just about every floor and have the knack of going in the wrong direction every bloody time. Even when using the diagram map of the ship at all the elevators doesn’t work easily for me because when it shows you an arrow of which way to go but you can still mess up because the elevators are in the Center part of the ship facing each other. So, the ship diagram shows forward and aft clearly but has to be translated in your mind which way that is once you go around two corners and so far i haven’t got that straight in my head so i’ve been lost a lot.  To top it off the elevators are placed facing each other so it’s like left and right depending on which one you you can be sure you’ll be lost because it was the opposite way from the diagram that you were looking at. Maybe didn’t explain that well. Whatever, this is for sure my hardest ship to traverse so far. Otherwise everything else on here is awesome except for my knees which are giving me a hard time. Yeah, for sure i can see a scooter is going to be in my near future for cruising.

I checked out the art gallery but turned down the auction and went to the casino instead. Got my players account set up and wasted a few bucks in no time flat. This casino is extremely tight right now; what else is new, lol.  So i wandered around and came across the knitting/crocheting group unexpectedly. They had been there for a couple hours already so i thought no use going to get my crochet stuff because the group might break up soon. So seeing no one that i might know from my Facebook group i got some treats and went to my room until lunchtime.

In my room i found the paper that clearly says to set your watch ahead an hour. I had been too early for the meet and greet and now i’d be too late! We are going to be moving an hour ahead every second day for a few days now. 

Lunch in the buffet was another mob scene but i managed and even found a nice table. I stared to eat and then heard a familiar voice. It was my past cruisemate Annie at the next table! It was nice to see her and she introduced me to her friends and invited me to dine with them later today in the Black Pearl restaurant. I said i'd join them there at 5:30pm. I chatted with several people at my lunch table and coincidently all of them were Australians. Two were twin brothers Ross and Mike who both suffer with vision problems and they were much fun to talk with. Another gentleman asked if he could sit there and of course we said yes and he was a real funny happy-go-lucky guy. Then Krista and her husband sat down and i had a nice conversation with them too. They’re hoping to visit Canada in the near future and I’m hoping to see Australia so it was a lively conversation. Eventually i was so cold i had to return to my room, set my thermostat on high and got warmed up while eating my ice cream, lol.

And then fell asleep! It was time to meet Annie and her friends for dinner so i had to scramble. I had a little trouble finding the Black Pearl restaurant and was able to go in and look for them and i did find them right away. 

But they had already ordered and the waiter was slow coming to get my order so our dinners were sort of spread out. I ordered a sea food starter and it wasn’t very good but i was hungry so ate some of it. Then a mahi-mahi main dish and it too wasn’t really great and i ate about half of it. Then it was rush time to get to the showroom in time but i was so cold i had to return to my cabin to get a sweater and by the time i got there the show was already in progress so i didn’t attempt to find them in the dark. I waited near the back because the room was almost full and when i spotted an empty seat i thought i had been lucky. Turned out not so much, my seat was behind a post! The guy on the stage was spinning hoops and his act was great and he was real funny too. I managed to see some of it because he moved around on the stage so i could see him at times.

Afterwards the other girls were going to dance or a dance class or something and i’m not into that so i went into the casino instead. It was smoky and there was a smoker sitting next to the machine i wanted to play so i wandered around looking for something else to play. Ended up playing a huge very loud machine and it was taking my money real fast until i got some sort of feature and won it all back and then some. I should have left at that point but i lingered playing it again for a higher bet and once it got down to my starting point i cashed out and left for my room. Not sure if i’ll want to play in there much as i didn’t particularly like their machines and their seats are backless and i’ve never encountered that in a casino before. I’m used to having a seat or stool with a back rest for my poor aching back plus the cigarette smoke from many different countries all mingling together was just too hard to get by. But of course i might succumb you never know....Well, yeah, you probably do know i’ll be there regardless But seriously, i’m sure i’m not the only one who wants a chair that has a back, not a stupid stool!

I returned to my room and watched a show on the tv that had been on the stage earlier today. The host was Lee Mason who is our cruise director and i’ve had the pleasure of being on another cruise with him and he’s a pretty awesome guy and definitely my all time fav cruise director. There’s been cruises where i’ve never even seen the cruise director except for when he introduces the star of the evening show for about  2 mins. and then nobody sees him again. Lee is all over the ship all day and very available to all the passengers. He is from near Manchester England and is a very fun guy and i feel fortunate to be cruising with him once again.

Got to remember to move my watch back an hour again tonight....