April 20th Here We Go Again!

Today is one of those rare occasions where we literally live through the 20th of April again, due to the fact that we crossed the international date line last night. We had been told to set our clocks back 24hours, before going to sleep. It doesn’t seem like traversing an imaginary line on a globe or map would really impact anything so significantly. However, here we are. We spent yesterday as the 20th of April cruising on board ship and today, we are spending April 20th for the second time cruising on board ship. Royal Caribbean’s daily schedule called yesterday 6A and called today 6B.

(Patrise greeting the new day from our balcony. You can't tell from a photo, but the wind is really high this morning. I have also taken a video, so you can hear the sound of it.)

(Again, hard to tell from a static photo, but the waves are notably higher today. The captain said the waves were 4-5 meters [13-16.5 feet] high. And the winds were blowing at 35-40 knots [35-45 mph].)

(Another view of the morning waves)

(Another view of the morning waves)

We have no specific plans for today. Doug has come down with an upper respiratory infection and he is still feeling a little out of it, so rest is the order of today. We ordered room service for breakfast just to allow him a little more time to sleep. When it was all said and done, he did not sleep in the morning. He worked on updating yesterday’s blog entry (“April 20th, For the First Time”), after I had written the draft. He then changed out of his pajamas into clothes, and we went to the meeting place to turn in our passports. All of the passports are being collected to give to the Tahitian authorities, before we disembark. Doug wondered whether to present his original passport or the new, emergency passport. In the end, he decided it was better to go with the current emergency passport, since the original would now be invalidated in the State Department’s system. It may raise questions, but he felt it would be better to be honest upfront. I am concerned that it may cause more problems than it’s worth. We’ll see.

There was no one at the meeting point for the passports, so we went to Guest Services to ask where the collection point was supposed to be. Turns out the passports will be collected on Day 7, not Day 6B. While at Guest Services we also did a few other items of business. First, we got a printout of our ship’s charges to date. By looking at the account on our room television, we noticed there was a large credit balance that we did not understand how it had come about. The Representative, Marla, got us a copy of the bill to date, and she explained how the credits had come about. We also asked her about how we could leverage this booked cruise for points in the Royal Caribbean Loyalty program. She searched through their records, found out that we had been on a previous RC cruise, then she proceeded to sign us up for the loyalty program, giving us credit for the long ago cruise as well as this one. Now we are Royal Caribbean “gold”. We had learned about all of this by talking to the Cartlidges yesterday. The third thing we did, while being helped in Guest Services was to sign up Patrise for the ship’s Master Chef contest that will occur April 27-28, near the end of the cruise. Although she loves to cook – and many of you know from experience that she cooks well – I had to talk her into it. It will be fun, or so I think.

(Patrise is registered for the Master Chef competition, to occur later in the cruise.)

(Waves crashing against the side of the ship. Can you detect the rainbow in the wave spray on the right?)

We went to lunch at the Two70 café, which is attached to a performance hall. We sat down there to eat and found ourselves in the middle of an active bingo game. We didn’t play, but the hostess was an energetic and entertaining young Latina. In between calling the Bingo squares, she was deejaying and playing some good music. After lunch, which coincided with the end of Bingo, we went to the Concierge Lounge to read and relax.

(Seated underneath the Bingo screen in the Two70 cafe)

After a while, we surmised that our books were reading us, more than the other way around, so we returned to our stateroom and laid down to take a nap.

After the nap, Patrise watched National Geographic Channel on the room television; the show was about the study of blue whale behavior. I watched Netflix on my laptop.

At 6pm, we returned to the Medical Center for my follow-up visit and testing. My nose is more stopped up than yesterday; and since I am not breathing well, I am more tired/fatigued. However, the best news is that I DON"T HAVE COVID!!! YEAH!!!!. The doctor gave me a nose spray, in addition to yesterday's antihistamine tablets, then sent me (us) on my (our) merry way. We left there and immediately went to dinner. Tonight, we went to a restaurant we had not previously eaten in or seen -- the American ICON Bistro.

The seating here was much busier, and practically everyone, except the two of us, was dressed in some form of white clothing. This was "wear white" night, but I didn't get the memo. At any rate, here are some pictures of the restaurant.

(Crowds waiting to be seated for ICON [on the right] or Silk [on the left].)

(A view of ICON from our table)

(Patrise is trying to cope with the noise in ICON. Much more "energetic" conversations occurring.)

(Names of our waiter and assistant water. Kadek [Kah-dek] is from Indonesia and Kaywanna [KAYE-wahn-ah] is from Jamaica. They were a good and attentive team.)

(Knucklehead with a stuffy nose and not dressed in white)