Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Wednesday

Hello, everybody! Are we already on day 3 of the cruise? Noooooooo! Still having a fabulous time. Yesterday we had room service for breakfast, then spent some time out on deck as it was a nice day. Sunny and about 18 degrees. Perfection.

In the later morning we took the tender ashore for our tour of Newport, RI. It was a 90-minute trip around a very pretty place. No buildings taller than eight stories (and only one of those). But mostly what we were looking at were the "summer cottages" of the rich and famous of the gilded age (or various gilded ages, or gilded families). These 25-30-room mansions were lived in for 7 or 8 weeks a year. Wild.

Back to the ship for a late lunch in Horizon Court (the buffet restaurant). The food on this trip is turning out to be excellent, as usual. I think we've only had one cruise where it wasn't. We're always amazed by how good the buffet food is. After lunch, RH went for a rest and I made my first visit to the spa, for a pedicure. Ahhhhh. That felt SO GOOD. (And she was very good about working around my still-healing blisters!) After that, the four of us sat around the Atrium for awhile, drinking tea and people-watching, until time to primp for the first formal night.

For the foodie fans: I had crab quiche; cream of asparagus soup; beef tournedos (SO good, VCCGirl!); chocolate-hazelnut souffle with warm sabayon sauce. RH had: crab quiche; beef consomme; halibut; some sort of cake (I forget); and a couple of the petit fours waiter Chalee "forced" upon him. Enjoyed the music in the Explorer's Lounge for awhile after dinner -- a trio playing pop stuff from the 50s-70s, as per usual for this lounge. Baby Boomer music. Very good. Then RH and I finished the evening with the viewing of a fairly lame comic/magician. (I believe TL and Ms. K went on to see a singer, but we were tired.)

So far today (it's 11:15 am as I'm writing this) we have had our 2-hour bus tour of Boston. It was interesting but we had a few annoying people on our bus. Some people who talked constantly, totally ignoring the tour guide, and a guy with a severe phlegm problem. Ewwwwww. So many beautiful old buildings in Boston. So much history. So much road construction. (But that made us feel at home!) We were glad to have an early tour even though it made for early rising because now we have lots of time this afternoon to enjoy our ship. The Grand Princess is aging a little, but it's a layout we have done several times previously so we are very at home here. And it's interesting to compare Princess with Celebrity now. Although service on Princess is very good, Celebrity does have them beat in that regard. But Princess is definitely a little more "fun". (Quite an older crowd on this particular itinerary, though. No wonder there's phlegm.) And the nickel-and-diming trend continues: you now pay even for a cup of coffee or tea anywhere but a dining room. Oh -- but there was a new thing yesterday: they came around the public areas about 3 pm with milk and fresh-baked, warm chocolate chip cookies! I missed out because I was pedicuring, but TL was very excited by this. I don't know if they'll do that every day, but I will be hanging around hopefully this afternoon!

This is not up to my usual writing style because I'm just writing on the fly. Usually I write my blogs in Word first and then cut and paste them here, but I have no access to Word on these computers. But I don't care. I have better things to do! So I'm off to find a cozy spot to read my book now. Another half-hour and it will be time to think about lunch, as we breakfasted so early... Mmmm. Lunch.

Chat with you later! Bye for now!

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