January 22 - “Livin’ on the high seas”

So we woke up yesterday morning, not to the glorious sounds of water lapping upon the sides of the ship, or even to the gentle beep of a travel alarm clock.  Oh, no.  This day we woke to the surprising and somewhat alarming sound of a baby crying in the hall outside of our room.  Around 5:30 a.m.  back and forth the young passenger went, apparently - and hopefully - being escorted by a distraught mommy.  It was made all the more strange since we have only seen one or two people less that 60 years old on this entire cruise.

We went ahead and got out of bed.  Our first attempt at room service was due at 6:30 anyway.  Coffee and chocolate milk and fruit and toast (for Chris’ queasiness).  I served her breakfast in bed.  Hey, even I can handle handing her a piece of toast.  She did much better throughout the day yesterday, seasickness-wise.

The weather was way better.  69 degrees.  They even opened up the swimming pool.  So we finally did our roaming around the ship.  We located a restaurant and lounge area that we never could find the day before.  We though maybe we’d be able to find the comedy show we had heard about this time.

In keeping with our early morning kids’ theme, we joined a Dr. Suess-a-palooza parade.  Walking around the ship with 20 or 30 kids and their parents/grandparents ringing cowbells and shouting “Dr. Seuss is on the loose.”  Felt like home.  We also went to a build-a bear workshop.  Cap’n Bert-tholomew Bear is now in the family.  So is Cat in the Hat.  He belongs to Chris.

Yesterday was also our couples spa massage day.  I think it was a Swedish massage done by some girls from Zimbabwe.  Felt pretty good, but mine could have pushed harder.  They tried to get us to come back for a hot stone massage, but we decided having hot rocks rolled around on our bodies didn’t sound all that appealing.

We had dinner at the  ritzy place again.  I ordered chicken fried steak.  A little piece of home, or so I thought.  It was straight from the menu.  Know what he read back to me?  “Fried chicken steak.”  I figured, close enough.  Either way, though, there was no way this was a chicken fried steak.  No batter at all.  Thin, soupy white gravy.  At least the mashed potatoes tasted familiar.  Oh, but the dessert was amazing some kind of chocolate volcano explosion or something.  Very chocolatey.

We finally got to see a show onboard ship.  Never happened on our Alaska trip. It was a musical extravaganza with no real story line other than it was happening on an island.  Just song after song.  The actors must have been exhausted.  Most of the songs were from the 50’s and 60’s, so the white hairs were in hog heaven.

We did find that lounge again.  That’s where the comedy show was after the musical.  Pretty funny comedian.  He kept it clean, too.  I understand the “explicit” show was happening after we left.  Well, the place was packed out.  And then when we left the halls were packed with people trying to get in to see the next show.  We finally descended to the bowels of the ship and made our way back to our room.  Quite the adventure.

Ephesians 4:32 says, “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.”

Father, it has been a whirlwind so far.  Looking forward to seeing some of land today.  Thanks for putting some islands out here.  Amen.