I woke up pretty early today, and my brain turned on right away. We were still at sea, and Denise was still fast asleep. I turned on my laptop and finished my cruise blog for whatever day I had been writing about last night. The room was dark.
When I finished the blog write-up, I knew what I had to do. I've learned that whenever I feel overwhelmed by my work (and it's been happening more and more often lately), the best thing to do is walk away from it for a night, then turn off my brain (and my feelings) and just start digging away at it the next day. So that's what I did.
We pulled into beautiful St. Thomas at about noon, but I had no plans of getting off the ship today. Denise was up by then, and I had gotten a couple of notes out. So we got ourselves together and headed over to the Windjammer (which was serving lunch by now. I know I said I usually hate to have lunch food instead of eggs to start my day, but today I had planned on it.)
I was still in a fairly foul mood, and looking at the choices the Windjammer offered wasn't improving it any. The restaurant is still in COVID mode, so instead being able to serve yourself at the buffet, you have to have the staff serve you. I get the reasons behind this, but I don't like it. First you have to get a crew member's attention, and the amount they serve is never exactly what you'd serve yourself. It also makes the line move slower.
Eventually, I settled on a hot dog, a cheeseburger and some mac and cheese. It wasn't going to win any culinary (or health) awards, but it served my needs.
We got back to the room, and once again, I found myself at cross-purposes with the room steward Daniel, who had just then sent someone in to start cleaning the room. I tried to tell him we didn't really need it, and he could do it when we were out for dinner. We compromised on just having him clean the bathroom. Then I settled in to work for the day. (Denise went out to do her thing, out and about on the ship.)
I worked for several hours, and by the time I was calling it a day, I had dug out of most of what had been dumped on me the night before. Unfortunately, while I was sending stuff out, people kept sending stuff in, so I finished the day not much further ahead than when I'd started. It sucked, but it would have to do.
At this point, I laid down and took a nap for maybe 45 minutes or an hour, until Denise came back to the cabin. She got herself together for a night out. (I think tonight's theme was Yacht Rock night). I put on some pants. One thing I liked about this cruise was the complete lack of pressure to get dressed up. (Which might come in handy by the end of the cruise, as at this point, I think I'd realized that I'd packed about 45 pairs of underwear but only about six T-shirts.)
I had hoped to catch a singer named Jennifer Hart at some point that day. She was a regular cruise ship singer, not an 80's star. Like The Human League, she got on and off the ship in St. Thomas. But I just wasn't able to match up either of her two sets for the day with my schedule.
We had dinner as part of a table of eight, which was fine. And tonight's dinner was better than the night before's. (This time, I passed on asking for coffee with dessert.)
When we finished, we scurried across the hall to Studio B (I liked that it was so close to the Main Dining Room) to see Paul Young. We'd seen him do a short set once before on one of the 80's tours in Atlantic City. This was another one of those acts that I could have just as easily skipped. Denise wanted to see him, though, so I figured I'd keep her company.
I'd describe his set as "amiable." It wasn't anything unforgettable, but it was OK. Paul's voice has lost a step or two just since we last saw him a few years ago. But he had a good band that covered it up pretty well (including the guitarist for Dire Straits Legacy, who had stepped in for Young's guitarist, who was still sick). He also had two cute female backup singers who were fun to watch. And he did a cover of Joy Division's "Love Will Tear Us Apart" which was kind of neat. He did all of the songs Denise wanted to hear, so he was good with me. And of course, he closed with his big hit, "Every Time You Go Away." Overall, I was glad I went.
After the show, we ran into Larry the Duck, whom Denise had met multiple times, but I never had. He introduced me to his wife Suzanne. We told him we were planning to attend his New Wave Karaoke Party later that night, which he seemed pleased to hear. He asked me what I was going to sing. (Um, nothing?) He kind of encouraged me (cough, cough!), so I scoured my brain for what I might be able to fake.
After that, it was time for one of the two headliners of the cruise, and one of the main bands we'd come to see - The Human League. The plan was that they would get on the ship in St. Thomas, perform their two shows, and get right the hell back off again. I had no problem with this plan. I wouldn't have known what to say to them if I ran into them on the buffet line anyway. (Maybe, "Stop slowing up the line!?") Because we had red passes, we were scheduled to see them for the second show.
This time, we went right to the balcony on Deck 4 - I had no intention of having another run-in with the Show Nazi's tonight.
To make a long story short, this was the highlight of the trip (in spite of the uncomfortable seats in the Royal Theater. You suck, Royal Theater!) Their set flew by, and was very cool, both visually and sound wise. The two ladies were a little flat at times, but not too bad. And Philip Oakey sounded great, especially considering the guy is a year older than I am. Their set seemed short, partially because they were the first band I'd seen all week to end their set early so they could do a (well deserved) encore.
By the time their show was over, I was in a much better mood (even though I was still pretty well buried in work).
At this point, Denise and I went upstairs to relax for an hour. The plan was to look at tomorrow's schedule and see if we maybe wanted to get off the boat in St. Maarten's to do an excursion. Unfortunately, when we got up to the room, we found that the crew had dropped the ball - they left our daily swag (I think it was a hat), but had forgotten to leave us tomorrow's daily schedule. I decided to go downstairs to the customer service desk to get one (two), although by this time, we had pretty much abandoned the idea of an excursion tomorrow - I had too damned much work still, and Denise had thrown her back out badly the night before we flew out by trying to pick up and weigh her luggage. She was in a lot of pain.
I went down and got the schedules, then headed all the way up to Deck 14 to Ellington's Night Club, where the Duck's karaoke was scheduled to be held. Denise met me up there shortly thereafter.
Now this was a nice place. It looked down upon the pool deck, where they were still holding the Yacht Rockin' Pool Party. We couldn't find chairs with a good view of the karaoke stage, but the ones we did find had a great view down on the pool deck. It was amazing. As I said, a lot of the Royal Caribbean design is focused inward on the ship, so it was great to finally see this wonderful outside view. I think it was the first time I really felt like I was on a cruise ship. (Denise thinks this is an area that's normally only for Diamond Club members, and I think she might be right about that. It seemed pretty ritzy. I felt like I was the riff-raff who had somehow snuck in past the bouncer.)
By this time, I was totally relaxed. I don't even think I had a drink at Ellington's (although I'd had a Mudslide earlier at The Human League show). But Denise and I just relaxed, looked at the view, and listened to the karaoke (which was pretty fun).
I had decided that if I had to, I'd maybe try to handle The Cars' "Just What I Needed". But fortunately, we were far enough from the stage and Larry's sign-up sheet was full enough, that there was no pressure to sing. So I didn't.
We stayed until the end of the karaoke show at 1AM, and just a little beyond. I felt bad that Denise's back was bothering her so much. But still, she seemed to be enjoying herself, so all was well.
Eventually, maybe 15 or 20 minutes after the show ended, we headed down to bed.
