It’s Sunday, so we all head to mass in the
morning. Sarah had been recruited during an earlier mass to sing hymns, then
on the spot, Veronica gets recruited to be an altar server. Mass is in
the Coral Theatre (where they have all the shows) and Veronica looks nervous –
and I totally feel for her. Because
it’s this familiar thing that is suddenly very different: on a literal stage,
no procession, no gowns, one tenth the normal altar server duties required
(mainly she just has to stand beside the priest.) That said, the priest is a
really nice guy – he’s Lebanese and had a parish in rural Quebec for most of
his career. He thanks his volunteers in the end and also makes a call-out to
Teddy and Susannah for being quiet and attentive (because he`s a man who
understands siblings.)
We do the usual breakfast and kids club.
Sarah meets with the future cruise team to book another cruise (different that
the one she booked the day before). After the experience of yesterday, it’s
clear that getting the rooms you need requires some long term thinking, and my
girl: she’s on it. While she’s busy there, I run around the ship taking some
pictures and thinking up snarky jokey bits I can append to each when I post
them on Facebook. Then we sign the kids out a little early because they
want to go climbing (and a lot of these activities have exactly the same hours
as the kids’ club.) Sarah`s mom takes Susannah to play ping-pong because she`s
too young for the wall – which is not so much a safety thing, I think, and just
a frustration-avoider because really little kids couldn`t possibly do it. While
I`m getting the shoes and gear ready for the kids, some guy reaches the top of
the wall and stars singing opera. Not mock OperaMan opera: the guy is for
real singing an aria up there. But I`m too busy managing the kids and I never
really get the story of who this guy is and why the hell that just happened. Despite
besting the wall yesterday, Veronica get fatigued and can`t reach the top this
time and she`s very upset about it. We calm her down with some watersliding,
along with a pledge to try again later in the day.
The kids go do their usual kids-clubbing
and the adults go to the gym, or take a nap, or read. I collect Veronica early, we go
back to the wall, and she kicks the wall`s butt. Then it’s an early dinner for
the kids because the adults have reservations at a specialty restaurant. We go
to Chops, which as you might imagine, is a steak house. Sarah`s dad notes that
it`s similar in feel to Café Murano on Celebrity, but without the same level of pretension. Our server in the main dining room was formerly a server at Chops,
so we come armed with her recommendations. I order the Ribeye and everyone
else orders a Filet, and I have immediate regrets when my steak arrives and it
weighs about eight pounds. But I eat it all and it`s delicious, and then I have
dessert because apparently I haven`t totally wrecked my body enough yet. Dinner is paired with some nice, adult conversation – and even though I`m
more of a dinnertime juvenilia kind of guy – I fake my way through it.
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