5. Astoria

FINALLY! We sleep in! We all decided, after coming down to breakfast with bloodshot eyes, that we should all take it easy today. So, Suley and Tony made plans to visit Astoria, OR; but the girls decided to work out at the gym and relax. HA.

After working out the girls changed the plans. Sigh. Yes, it gets uglier. After a comedy of errors of massive mis-communication and a lot of running around the ship looking for each other, it is easy to see why we never made it to the city center (if they even have one!). I made a quick turn to see some of the merchants but the line coming back onto the ship was really long! I stood for like 15 minutes to get back...but little did I know, that Tony & Suley were also in that mess and worse, the line's wait grew to ONE HOUR by the time I found Sandra and Annie, back in their cabin! So we watched this stupidly long line catching glimpses of friends caught in the line. Finally a second gangway was opened and everyone was back on board. Getting bored, we had lunch, for the first time, on board at Versailles.

A magic competition continued throughout the day, but we lazed around on the deck and discovered MONKEY HEADS. They were so super cool...I really needed one. So the girls all got one! We enjoyed the beautiful sunshine (it was quite grey and foggy for the morning) and the ice sculpting demonstration.


But once we got rolling and started sailing away around 2.30 PM, it got very nasty in the sky!

So we grabbed our blankets, draped around our shoulders like Superman, and with Monkey Heads in tow, we took off for the cabin and to find out how the magic competitions were going. In short, another blissful afternoon.

We stuck around the theatre to watch Danny Archer's show and then took off for supper...back at our favorite, Aqua. We made friends with the pastry chef behind the glass and he sent out a strawberry and cream appartif for us! It was yummy! We then stuffed our bellies full of dinner and of course, dessert, which happened to be chocolate souffle. Though we were rushing to catch the 7:30 PM Dance Troupe show, we were not about to pass this baby up! Talk about inhale.

The Dance Company put on a funky, jazzy, up-beat show and we then rushed off to catch another lecture up in the Cinema. Sandra and Annie and Suley caught another comedy show up in Spinnakers. After the lecture, we joined them to watch the Liar's Club...a hilarious hour where one (of four) of our cruise ship celebrities tries to tell the truth while the other three, try to convince the audience that they are really the ones telling the truth (behind some pretty outlandish lies!). It was VERY funny and we had a ball...oh yes, and more of those trumpet-like drinks.

Just when we thought it was over...Shawn, our faithful PCAM organizer, organized YET ANOTHER show, just for the staff/crew of the ship as a benefit show for a fellow crewmember who had recently passed away. He was collecting funds for the family of his friend. It was a star-studded show with all our PCAM stars on stage. Great fun and great to see the performers with a "real" crowd in front of them...they really lit up!

What night would be complete without a midnight snack at the Blue Lagoon?! We are getting to know the waitress, Nico, quite well now! She knows our orders of wings the moment she sees us coming down the hallway!

Totally and utterly bagged, we finally hit the hay around 2.45 or 3.00 AM.