Day 9: At Sea
Today was Palo brunch day. While we were getting ready mom was watching the morning show. I had told her early on that we could go see it being taped but she had completely forgotten. She would like to go do that before the cruise had ended. Thank you to Flossbolna for that info.
Up to Palo on one of the few elevator rides of the cruise. We found Karin and Tom there but they weren’t in their dress up clothes. They had realized that morning that they had accidentally mixed up days and their Palo reservation was actually the day before. The wonderful Gonzolo said it wasn’t a problem at all and they could definitely have brunch this morning instead. So they quickly went to get changed and were back in a flash. We had Leo again as our server and he did the usual tour of the buffet. I didn’t feel like taking pictures of everything but if memory serves Karin did.
Mom and I don’t care for champagne so Leo had the bartender make us a special orange and passion fruit cocktail. We had two glasses each. It was liquid candy!
Brunch was extra special today. The food is always delicious but to share the meal with such fabulous company was truly the icing on the cake.
Mom’s plate of pastries and some cheese
I had a medley of appetizers. Everything was tasty, the fruit was perfect and the caprese salad so yummy. I think I overwhelmed my senses with so many cheese though.
Mom also had a tomato and goat cheese pizza. She couldn’t eat more than 2 pieces but said it was very good. I should have asked if they could do a gluten free pizza because they made that yummy garlic bread for dinner. I will ask next time.
Leo was able to have gluten free pancakes for me. I was surprised when a single pancake was presented but I was glad there wasn’t any more. It was not the best.
Desserts were the highlight of my meal. I had raspberry panna cotta, coffee panna cotta, and a mango cream thing. They were all so yummy and usually I don’t care for coffee but I ate every bit. I got mom her own because I wasn’t sharing! I’m pretty sure I had seconds of all three.
Mom had a raspberry panna cotta, a tiramisu, and a cannoli. She said the tiramisu and cannoli weren’t worthy and was too full to enjoy the raspberry panna cotta so I happily finished it for her.
Leo had overheard me saying I don’t care for chocolate covered strawberries and brought me strawberries with a side of chocolate. He was so sweet!
Fantastic meal completed we headed out. We were having so much fun time completely got away from us and we missed the Tritons Swim at 11:30. We confirmed we had dinner booked for Monday night before leaving. Karin and Tom guided us toward a hidden Mickey that we had never noticed before. I love all those Disney touches.
Then down to get an extra Daily Navigator for Alison and Fran. Karin was gathering a collection for them.
Mom and I ended up at a salsa class. We had seen all the dance classes in the navigator but hadn’t made it to one so when we saw it started at 1pm and it was currently 12:46 we headed that way. It was fun but I was completely hopeless. It seemed that most everyone there had been to the other classes and were used to how things were done. We had fun.
Then up to the room to change into bathing suits and head up into the sun. We watched Finding Nemo on the Funnel Vision while I caught up in the journal. After the rain the day before it was nice to have sun again.
After Finding Nemo they had Big Hero Six, another of our favorites and we watched that from start to finish.
We must have had some fries while watching
I had the drink of the day which was fantastic but I didn’t write down what it was. It looks like a Konk Kooler with raspberry puree.
We stopped in the room on the way to see the show of the evening, Buckets and Boards were doing their family show. We got there early enough to hear Peter, the cruise director, do his usual opening speech. He recaps the day and talks about the next. Tomorrow we’d be going through the Panama Canal!!! We were told we should probably get up early to see us go under the Bridge of the Americas. Also, the Beatles tribute band would be doing a special performance tonight up on the outer deck. Too cool! If you remember we thoroughly enjoyed their performance the other night in the main theater and would love to see them again.
I stopped and wanted to tell them how much we had enjoyed their show several years ago and how glad we were to see them again. I wasn’t looking for a photo but they insisted. The show was fantastic as usual.
Back to the room to get ready for dinner and found our towel animal of the evening.
Down to Tritons for dinner. We stopped by Karin and Tom’s table. They had already started eating or I would have asked them to join us. Turns out our tablemates were at Palo for dinner. Karin noticed we were on our own and came over. Mom and I much preferred our servers to theirs so when Karin asked if we’d join them I asked if it would be trouble for them to join us. Not at all! said Jose, and they brought Karin and Tom’s drinks and appetizers over to our table straight away. This would start a trend for the second week of the cruise but I’m getting ahead of myself.
Mom only had bread as her appetizer tonight
And I had another of my favorite tomato tartes
They had a rice pasta already on the menu tonight, a form of pad thai which was excellent
Mom had the same thing but without eggs
For dessert mom had her usual
And Jose found me one of the flourless chocolate cakes from the night before
Dinner was simple but delicious and all the better with our new tablemates.
We stopped by Karin and Tom’s cabin to collect Tom’s camera before going up to see the Beatles show.
There were lots of ships waiting to go through the canal in the morning. I tried to get some photos but the phone didn’t do the sight justice. I think Tom must have gotten some excellent photos on his good camera.
We watched the show from above and it was absolutely fabulous! Such fun and great music.
Peter got out on the dance floor and got a lot of other people out there too
It was such fun and an unexpected treat. We all stayed to the end and then said goodnight It would be an early morning and we’d all meet up together to watch us go under the bridge. While walking to the room we smelled smoke, cigarette smoke. They had specifically made an announcement several times that we were refueling and there was to be no smoking until another was made. We were shocked to smell the smoking and hoped nothing bad would happen.
Back to the room we watched Monster’s Inc. while falling asleep, it had been another excellent day.
Tomorrow, Panama Canal Day!
So happy for you that you got everything you wanted! Your excursions sound awesome.
Thank goodness we'll have lots of time on our cruise in 2018 so you can tell us all about it.
Very excited and everything is falling into place nicely.
I requested Sunday off as well, so don't need to race home, but at some point need to go collect the boys from the kennel, probably should head out around 2. Is the Brown Derby for Thursday? we can be there early, I'll have a friend stop by and check on the boys in the middle of the day. You just tell me when we need to be somewhere and we'll be there. 
I’m going to attempt to not post too many of the same ones. It was just such an amazing day, I wanted to capture everything. It’s taken me several hours to go through them all and figure out which ones are duplicates. I had downloaded mom’s pictures as well and it seems we were on different time stamps. So if anything seems out of order I apologize in advance.
