January 31st

January 31^st,

This is a sea day and it is going to be a busy one.

We wake around 8:30 after sleeping very soundly all night. This cruise has been very smooth so far but there is the gentle motion of the ship and it really helps you sleep well. It was warm last evening so we left the balcony door open for a while. Sometime during the night Ken closed it. The sea air and the gentle rocking are the very best sleeping pills.

We went to the dining room for breakfast, I had oatmeal and Ken had poached eggs. After breakfast we went to the last enrichment lecture by the Stockhams. This topic was the Aztec people and their history. They certainly were an amazing people and Cortez did the world a great deal of harm by destroying their advanced civilization.

After the lecture I checked out the sale in the jewelry store, didn’t shop just looked. There was a nice fire opal pendant there but fortunately I like mine better, both in appearance and price.:-)

Then I went to the international café and had my coffee tumbler filled and returned to the stateroom. I was behind on the blog and so I spent the next 2 hours trying to catch up. The connection is very slow so I will have to add pictures later. Perhaps it will be better tonight.

Because of a late breakfast we skipped lunch we shared a banana and an orange.

The next event is a slot pull with the cruise critic group at three o’clock in the Casino. Twenty three of us took part. We each put 15 dollars into a one dollar machine and we each got to pull 5 times. The person who won the most was Walt. He won about one hundred and fifty dollars. Most of us gained very little but we cheered and yelled and had a lot of fun. During all of this chaos there was a very grumpy looking lady sitting at the next machine. She never cracked a smile the entire time. It was such fun seeing the look on her face. Anyway when all had played the result was we all got thirteen dollars back. So we had a full half hour of laughing and cheering for a cost of two dollars. That was not bad at all. The casino gave Walt a gift of champagne for being the one who won the most. It was a lot of fun, and I would do it again for sure.

Then we had to return to our room because our chocolate covered strawberries were due to arrive at four.

We had a glass of our wine, ate our strawberries and got ready for the captain’s circle party. It was very nice as usual. Every one of the most travelled passengers had around 1200 days at sea with Princess. The thing that was different this time was the fact that they had special glasses, frosted hurricane style, with the princess motto of “Escape Completely “on them. We were told that we could each have one of these glasses. I hope they do it on the next cruise as well so we will have a set of four. Since Princess had changed their motto to “Come Back New” I am sure they just want to get rid of the old ones but it is still a nice gesture and I know we will appreciate having the glasses.

We left the party at its end and proceeded to the dining room. This was lobster night and there was another special Norman Love chocolate creation. My oh MY, it was delicious!!!

After dinner we went back to our room to put our glasses away and change clothes. Then it was off to the production show British Invasion. It was almost new in that we have seen another version of it but this one had several new numbers as well as the old ones. The costumes and the energy never cease to amaze us.

After the show we did our usual coffee and brandy. I think we must be getting older because we haven’t been taking in any of the parties or the dancing.

Tomorrow is the last day of the first cruise and the Super Bowl so it will be a very busy, hectic day on the ship.