We barely made it to breakfast in the dining room before it closed this morning.  The menu has two specials each morning along with all the usual breakfast items of juices, fruits, cereals, eggs, breakfast meats, potatoes, pancakes and lots of breads, both sweet and savory.  Today, I ordered the Southern Belle special plate of ham, grits, red-eye gravy, and eggs.  It was okay, but it was not like what my Georgia-born grandmother made.  The red-eye gravy wasn’t right, and there was no butter on the grits.  

We played trivia at the “Let’s Get Quizzical” game in the morning.  When we were on the Island Princess and for the first few games on this ship, players were asked to score their own answer sheets.  Now, players are asked to trade sheets with another team for scoring.  I guess, it is safe enough now that they aren't concerned with germ sharing by trading papers anymore.  Afterwards, we went for lunch at Alfredo’s Pizzeria. It is as good as any land-based pizza place I’ve been to and the best of the dining spots on the ship that don’t charge an extra fee.

While we were chatting with our steward, Weny, this afternoon,  He said that he has seventeen rooms to take care of, each twice a day.  Do the math on the number of toilets to clean over the course of his eight- or nine-month contract, and it is staggering.  

I sat on the balcony most of the afternoon after they cleaned it this morning.  We kept the drapes drawn all morning while workers were in the area cleaning.  It is warm and humid, but mostly clear and sunny with a smooth sea.  The weather report says Hurricane/Tropical Storm Nicole has hit land well north of Ft. Lauderdale.  The captain expects no trouble docking on schedule.  We have a new channel on the Live TV section of the TV programming dedicated to the weather in Florida.  Looks like it will be fine by the time we get there.    

This afternoon, I packed one of the suitcases with things we won’t need tomorrow or Saturday.  We have lots of stuff on this trip that we haven’t used at all on this second cruise.  We needed two wardrobes to suit the different climates we have visited.

Tonight, we went to the dining room for the last formal dinner.  Escargot, cold cucumber soup, broiled lobster, and crepes Suzette made a nice meal. 

The comedy team of Alfred and Seymour performed their second show, this time in the Vista Lounge.  We went 45 minutes before the show was to start and found the lounge already half full.  I thought it would be a popular show since they were so funny when I heard them a few days ago.  They are very popular with surprising and mostly original humor.