Saturday – Our sea days are looking promising!  Boring lecture guy is gone, to be replaced with a Cultural Ambassador Program consisting of 3 instructors who will teach us all about Indian culture and the entertainment industry.  Fun!  There is a husband/wife team – he being a dancer/choreographer/writer/director, she being an actress and producer – and a classical Indian dancer who will lead us through the days to come.  Fun!  Today we had 5 presentations – 3 of which we attended; History of Classical Indian dance, What is Mindfulness and Iconic Bollywood movies.  The other two are dance and acting lessons which we aren’t vaguely interested in.  We also had a Connie lecture on We are what we wear – Saris and Salwar Kameez (the pants version of Saris). Needless to say, our day was complete!

Dinner in Windows for Indonesian – Mie Goreng! – and then show in the room because it is a 6-string guitarist, and well, when we bail – which we do – we’re already in the right place!  And then we watch Lake, or something like that, about an Antarctic expedition, I want to go!!!  Then bed. Sea day one:  complete!

Sunday – Happy Mother’s Day!  Today is the Mother’s Day brunch, but first – the Safe Haven Pirate drill.  Even though there hasn’t been any pirate activity for about 2 years, we are still dimming lights at night, turning off balcony lights and doing the Safe Haven drill in the hallways.  Pirate look out begins tomorrow!  Then more Cultural Ambassador programs.  Today, we have Who Was Buddha, the 2^nd part of Sumeet’s mindfulness series and How to Make a Movie.  Then we are free for the rest of the afternoon.

Tonight is dinner in Aqualina and then Broadway under the Stars up on the pool deck – both of which were excellent.  I had 3 appetizers – all delish – Ed had app, soup and the special seafood pasta.  Yum.  Broadway under the Stars was excellent, it was hot, but a really good breeze was blowing, which made it pleasant enough and we grabbed the best seats – 2 by themselves by the hot tub – and had a perfect view and no one around to bother us.  AAC forever!  Poor Amanda has lost her voice and can’t talk or sing under Doctor’s orders, but of course, she does talk!  You’re not going to get Amanda to stop talking.  LOL.  She lip synced the songs, and it was still an amazing performance. The cast had a group hug at the end because both Amanda and Jose are going on vacation at the end of this cruise.   As is Ryszard. Total changeover. 

Drinks on the balcony and bedtime completes our 2^nd day at sea.

Monday – Typical day.  Coffee (I’m going to rant about the coffee cups – what is with this?  No big takeaway cups and no china cups in the morning.  Totally frustrating.), gym, lectures – one that was supposed to be struggling artists, but ended up being Bollywood dance lessons which were total fun to watch!  And yes, we only watched.  No participation on our part!  Then Connie with a great lecture on architecture.  Do you know DIC?  Doric, Ionic and Corinthian columns.

Lunch, afternoon of nothing. Loyalty party – packed.  And this time in addition to pass around canapes, they had whole tables in the back of finger food.  Excellent Asian fried shrimp (mom….you’d be loving these!), pigs in a blanket, all sorts of stuff.  Which was perfect because we were going to the buffet for dinner, so this was a great little appetizer start. 

Buffet was South American – empanadas, roasted pork with excellent cracklings, quesadilla (ok, they stretched the South American thing a bit), Feiojada stew, etc.  Really good and filling.  Then we watched the magician from our room, and he was really good.  So next show, we’ll go to the theater for an in person viewing!  Tried to watch 2 different Indian movies – Monsoon Wedding, not happening.  Totally dumb.  Queen – pretty good, but it was getting late so we stopped halfway, will finish that off tomorrow.

And that was our day!  3rd sea day complete.

Tuesday – More coffee challenges (thank God we take cups in the afternoon and save them for the morning – otherwise we’d be SOL), gym, Living Room trivia (just listening while I type), lectures – Painting as Therapy and then a screening and discussion of Sumeed’s film on Mental Health, which is based on the story of his brother’s suicide.  The movie is fantastic.  The storyline, the choreography – which of course is all Sumeet – the whole idea of trying to minimize the stigma of mental illness. It is truly an amazing film – and if anyone is interested, it is available on Amazon Prime for .99 cents – Ho Ja Mukt. Highly recommended.

Then the normal night, gym, sunset bar, restaurant for dinner tonight, Mediterranean specialties. Then the production show tonight which is Take Two – and we watch it in the cabin, because the live streaming is fabulous and everyone on this ship is hacking up a lung.  Makes watching in the cabin much preferable.

Wednesday – Same, same, no different. Although they’ve added coffee service up in the Living Room because either Mosaic’s coffee machine is burning and they need to not use it for a day or two (Putu, one of our fav server’s reason) or it is too crowded and they need another venue (Jose, ACD, reason). Either way, it’s perfect for us because we sit up there every morning listening to trivia and working on the computer. 

Then it is Bollywood dancing, which we love to watch and probably should have done, but it is too late now.  And honestly, from my perspective, I couldn’t remember all those steps and then I’d be stressed. So, watching for me is perfectly fine!  There is a Connie lecture on architecture in Petra – the Islam influence, and then, well, that’s it.  The rest of the day is blog and walking and gym and Sunset bar and dinner in the restaurant for Japan night – Sashimi!!!  And hammered Pork katsuo.  Yeah, well, taste was good, but texture, not so much.  Then cabin for movies because it is the  6-string guitarist guy who doesn’t do anything for us.  Sea day 5 done.

Thursday – Same, same, no different.  Although sort of different.  Gym, breakfast, morning coffee while listening to trivia. But then we did go to the cooking demonstration with the absolutely adorable Jacques, the sous chef, who is from S. Africa and is cooking Butter Chicken.  Excellent demonstration, really fun, and we picked up a couple of really good tips.  Then it is the captain and HD Q&A which was good, except Captain Johanes likes to talk, and talk, and talk, and talk. So it went really long.  But the one thing we did find out was that when we thought we blew an engine and stopped a few days ago (with us having flashbacks to the NCL Star in the Tasmin sea) it was actually for a burial at sea.  A family aboard spread the ashes of their father in the sea, and the captain stopped, lowered the tender platform and they had the ceremony right there in the Arabian Sea. So sweet.  Just one more reason why we love this cruise line.

Afternoon was blogging, reading, going to the chat with the medical team which was interesting and fun because the doctor is a hoot.  He is a talker – just like the captain – don’t put them in the same room together – seriously!!!  But while he talked about Norovirus, he never told us it was rampant on the ship and never explained why suddenly we have “guards” at the sanitizer stations in the buffet.  We are totally convinced Noro or something is happening.  We’re not changing our MO – wash our hands, stay away from people, wear our masks when in the showroom!  What can we say? Ed got a haircut. Hey, cabin credits remember?

Dinner in Prime C – excellent as usual.  Tuna Tartare, the best. Lamb chops, great, but too much.  I asked to wrap them up to take them to the cabin and our waiter said “seriously?”  Yes, seriously!  I’m not letting it go to waste, it’s good and we can snack on it tomorrow! Then cabin for the magician/comedian show – he is so funny and amazing.  We have no clue how he does any of that!  Crazy. 

Day 6 – done!

Friday – Day 7, last sea day.  Same, same, no different.  Gym, breakfast, coffee and trivia, Connie lecture, lunch, blogging, early afternoon gym because the dancing and acting “showcase” with all the passengers is at 5pm. Can’t miss that. And wow, did they put on a show. Acting and dancing as is they were at an Indian wedding.  They were so impressive – the whole performance really came together in the last couple of days. We had tears in our eyes, it was so good and nice and fun.  After the passenger performance, the professional Indian dancer (whose name I can’t recall) performed some wonderful dances, then Sumeet and Sasha closed out the show with pictures of their wedding and a farewell and thank you.  Excellent series.  

Then dinner in the restaurant – and packing for our overnight in Luxor.  So exciting!!!