Thursday, January 2, 2020; At Sea, Puerto Vallarta to Los Angeles Day 1

Thursday, January 2, 2020; At Sea, Puerto Vallarta to Los Angeles Day 1

We had our first sit down breakfast in the dining room today.  It always seems like it is too easy to overeat in the buffet because there are so many choices, and you want to try a little of everything.  

We stopped at the International Cafe enroute to the Vista Lounge for the morning Trivia to use up some of our coffee card punches on Cafe Lattes and Chai Teas.  Since each punch on a coffee card is good for any specialty coffee drink, the tendency is to want to always order the most expensive items, but after a while, it seems like we really don’t need all the extra sugar in the flavoring syrups and whipped cream.  Nobody is certainly going home having lost weight on this cruise.

There were 5 teams playing in the morning trivia- the truly hard core trivia players, whom we have come to recognize easily.  We have traded off with them for most of the wins.  This morning was no exception- we ended up in a two way tie with them, and ended up winning on the second tie breaker, which was to guess which year Australia was federated as an independent nation.  The first tie breaker was what year the Panama Canal opened.  Both teams knew that correctly.  We had guessed 1910, while the other team guessed 1945 for Australia’s federation.  We were closer to the correct date of 1901, and won some notebooks.  Earlier in the cruise, we had lost a tie breaker with the same team, so I guess that makes us pretty even.  

There was no mid morning trivia so we had a relaxed morning with naps and working out in the fitness center. 

We received our disembarkation luggage tags, which are always a sad reminder that our cruise is approaching its end.  We will need to start packing up our formal and excursion clothes, along with most non-essential items tonight.  

John and Ciara participated in a water color painting activity in the Piazza.  This was set up in an interesting manner where there were 6 easels with 6 canvases in a circle.  Each participant started a painting on their canvas, and then every one minute, the participants would then shift to the right and work on the next painting, circling back to their original canvas to see how all the other participants had added to it.  It was amusing to watch as some participants took having their painting defaced by all the other participants better than others.  We ended up decorating our stateroom doors with John’s and Ciara’s paintings.  

We did take part in afternoon tea and then we did the afternoon general trivia, which had a number of interesting and difficult questions such as what US state is closest to Africa, what land mammal has the largest eye balls, and what do the M&M stand for in the name of the candy?  We missed winning by 2 points.  

We had dinner in Sabatini’s to use our specialty dining vouchers. Ben and Janet had their Captain’s Circle reception and managed to bag a few extra cocktails to share with the kids afterwards. 

We finished up the evening watching the production show “Encore”, which is the Royal Class ships’ version of the “Bravo” show.  The set is a little more elaborate, and there are a few different songs.  The guest soprano had some trouble with the high notes in one passage of her main piece, but managed to pull it together at the very end of that song.  

Tomorrow is our last sea day, and last full day of our cruise, so this trip is winding down rapidly.  We will soon have to change gears to getting back to the real world, but we have one last day to enjoy tomorrow.