Morning lectures!  Bruce’s last lecture on battleships.  The Captain’s navigational talk which ran long, so Sharon’s talk started too late for us to even see 15 minutes, because it is the Extravaganza buffet – and we know we have to get up there early!  This time though it is really weird.  There are people floating around, taking photos, but not like last cruise. Guess because there are far less Asians on this leg.  Anyhow, we take seats at the bar-like counter against the windows so we can keep an eye on the seafood market and when it opens.  We are pretty close to the first in line, because A) we know what we are doing, and B) everyone is still taking pictures.  I mean come on!  It’s a bunch of shrimp and some lobster!  For what do you need pictures?  Some dumb guy actually goes behind the roped off barriers to try to get his own seafood – and of course gets yelled out.  Duh.  We get our plates but then have a heck of time getting out of the picture taking scrum – with everyone shoving their cameras in our faces or trying to push us out of the way.  Oh and then on top of that, the Captain is there and the officers are yelling – “Photos with the Captain” – and that just clogs up the space even more.  Jeez.

All that aside, we have our plates, our nice little window area and are done with the melee early.  Although, the line never materializes like it did last cruise.  We could have waited 10 minutes and avoided the scrum entirely!  Not so the fruit buffet. That line was long the entire hour we were up there – so much so, I never got my jackfruit because it was totally not worth standing in that line.  Oh well.  All’s good.

At 2 we went to the matinee production with the acrobats who were amazing as always.  A great way to spend the afternoon.

Evening activities were the norm – gym, balcony, dinner.  As we are finishing up, Michael comes along and tells us not to leave, he has Jalebi for us!  Most of the restaurant staff is Indian and we have a long running joke with Michael (Asst. Head Waiter who is from Mumbai) about dessert. We never have dessert, ever, but told him we’d have dessert if it was Jalebi, that amazing fried sugar concoction we (well, me more than Ed) fell in love with the first time we were here.  One night they actually had Jalebi on the buffet, but Michael said they were soggy and not good, so he wouldn’t serve any to me. His wife is coming to meet him tomorrow and he keeps telling us she is bringing Jalebi for us. To which we keep telling him not to, but he’s stubborn! Well, tonight he had the kitchen make Jalebi special for us!! So sweet!

The rest of the evening is spent on the balcony with our evening night caps and TV watching, then onto bed, anticipating our arrival in Mumbai tomorrow.