Today was our first sea day so I ordered our morning cuppa for a bit later as I though we’d have a bit of a sleep in but of course we were wide awake at 6.30am and had to wait till 8am to get our coffee.

We got dressed and headed off up to Horizon Court for breakfast – a delicious freshly cooked omelette – and the nice thing about Princess is that you don’t have to stand in a queue to get it – you order, find a seat then give your server your ticket and they collect it and bring it back to you.  There was a port talk on in the theatre but by the time we’d finished breakfast we were too late and it was all over.  We wandered around for a while checking out our photos in the photo gallery.  We enjoy looking at them but very seldom ever buy them.  Then we meandered through all the shops and ended up down at  the International Café and got ourselves a nice cappuccino.  It was pretty packed in that area as there was a cooking demo on so we went back up to Crooners for a seat.  The boys there were getting ready to do a Martini making demo straight after the cooking one and told us to make sure we came to cheer.   So we finished our coffee and went down to watch them do their stuff.  They were all great  - Dirish from India, Noel, our shaker from Jamaica and Chis from the Phillipines.  Chris trick was to pour a pyramid of nine cocktails at one time.  We did a great job then the drinks were presented to the audience and he brought us over one each.  Mine with delicious – a Bailey’s type martini but Craig’s was Blue curacao based and he wasn’t real fussed so gave it away to a lady who’d arrived too late for the demo and was thrilled to get it.

I had it in my head that the Meet and Greet of Cruise Critic folks was at 12 noon up in Skywalkers so we set off up there – and there was nobody there!  Turned out I’d got it wrong and it was at 1pm.  So we checked out a few areas on the higher decks then called into the Calypso bar by the pool and caught up with Aleksander our barman from the Royal Princess till it was time to go back up for the Meet and Greet.  There was a great turnout and we got to chat to some lovely people as well as meet up again with some of the people who’d been on our tour yesterday.  It was about 2.30 by the time we left there and we hadn’t had lunch so we came down to Horizon and I got some sushi and salad and Craig tried a hamburger from the hamburger bar. 

There was a trivia session on down in Club Fusion so we though we’d give that a go.  We met Narelle who we’d been with on our tour the day before.   She and Dave are from Melbourne.  She joined us and we had a few giggles and while we didn’t totally disgrace ourselves we certainly weren’t one of the shining lights!

It was formal night so we came back to the cabin and got ourselves all tizzied up and headed down to Crooners for a pre dinner drink.  Chris was making beautiful flowers for all his favourite lady customers and I was the first to arrive so he presented me with a beautiful white flower.  We had a couple of drink then as the captain arrived to do his spiel and the free champagne was handed out we thought we’d be smart and go down to the dining room before the hoards descended.  Turned out a few other people had a similar thought and there was quite a line up.  But it didn’t take long and we had a table.  Great selection tonight – 6 of us – a couple of retired Kiwi guys from Hamilton and a couple from Liverpool in England.  There were great company and we’d a lovely dinner – Waldorf salad with blue cheese for entrée, Pan seared Barramundi for me and finished off with one of the Chocolate Journey desserts – chocolate mousse with raspberry coulis – so so wicked!

We thought we’d head back up to Crooners for a nightcap.   Our usual seats at the bar were all taken and Craig spotted two spare seats at a table nearby and asked the couple if it would be ok to join them.  They said yes and we got chatting.  They were Scottish and from East Kilbride and this is where that small world thing kicks in.  I said I knew where East Kilbride was and that I had relatives in Strathaven.  He asked where and who – I said Russells of Goodsburn – and he knows or knows of all my cousins – his name, if Bobby or Hugh are reading – David Leggat from Warnock Plant Hire.  Of all the people to bump into in the middle of South America on a ship of 3500 people!  Anyway we’d a lovely chat to him and his wife Janice for the next hour or so before calling it a day and heading up to bed.