I woke up to Martin coming in after his run. He had been excited to run around the ship to see what shapes he could make on Strava. However, it seems that Strava isn’t quite set up to cope with people running on moving objects as Martin appeared to break personal bests and probably a few world records – 26kms in 34 minutes!

We left Eleanor sleeping and headed for breakfast at Tritons. One of two restaurants for breakfast. Martin had gone ahead and when I arrived at the restaurant which is a sit down a la carte menu affair I was shown a table full of people. Table sharing is definitely a thing, but when I said that I was with only my husband and not my family the staff immediately pointed to Martin who was sitting on his lonesome.

Once we had breakfast we went back to wake up Sleeping Beauty who immediately got up and went out with her new found friends.

I went out onto the deck and started the blogs. I sat out on deck 4 underneath all the lifeboats. I saw a few people out for a walk and a few workers but other than that I was the only one on the loungers on Deck 4. The loungers were also in the shade thanks to the overhead lifeboats.

At 10am I ventured back to the shop. The previous evening I had looked at some “cruise pens” by 10am they had sold out.

At 11am I carried on the theme of alcohol tasting. I had had gin tasting at Margaret River at 10am. And as part of this cruise we decided to go for a wine tasting session. This was led by Atilla, a Hungarian Sommelier.

We had 3 whites and 3 reds and 4 of us had this table. Wines from Italy (Chianti), a white from Germany (Riesling), a Bordeaux red, a white from Oregon and another white wine that was from the Verdelho grape. While some kept up with the Atilla, I did not and at the end of what seemed to be a very hasty wine tasting I still had about 4 glasses of wine that had at least 2 or more slurpfuls in them. We were told that in a sommelier’s exam they have about 25 minutes to identify 6 wines. I won’t be a sommelier anytime soon but I do know now that wine when swirled has an entirely different nose to it.

After the tasting Martin and I headed for a film.

The Marvels. I neither cried nor slept – instead I walked out. A first for me! It appeared that I needed a lot of back story – several films and a TV series apparently. Leaving early though I got to blog some more, have lunch and sit by the adult pool. At the pool I was able to get a sun lounger poolside. There were two and so I took one. Shortly after I had settled another woman came and it was obvious she was looking for a free lounger. I said the one beside me was free. She then got a member of staff and had the lounger moved to the other side of me so that we had a table between us. Once I had come back from the pool which wasn’t cold (unlike the sea at the beach near Margaret River) she asked me what is had been like, I answered her and then she turned back over and never went in nor did she talk to me again. Most strange.

Then I met Martin for a Muppet Trivia Quiz. While his Muppet knowledge is not too bad – mine is pretty none existent but we scored a respectable 13 out of 20. The quiz was held in the French Quarter, and so Martin had already ordered himself a coffee and two beignets. They aren’t like the ones I had in New Orleans a few years ago, but with a beautiful silky chocolate dipping sauce, it was gorgeous. That would prove to be my first of three that day! We then ventured to the Crown and Fin – a British labelled pub with British film memorabilia. There we entered into a music trivia quiz. On our own, we would have scored about 4 out of 40. But as the place was packed 2 Australian girls joined us. We ended up with 25ish out of 40 and no where near the top!

Dinner was at Tiana’s Place which is themed from The Princess and the Frog released in 2009. A film I have never watched given that Eleanor was hardly one when it was released. The restaurant was New Orleans themed and even the purple, green and gold beads were handed out. (The colouring means justice, faith and power), thankfully the beads were on the table and none of had to bare flesh like in days of old! There was singing and a conga. The singing from the group was great, but it was such a contrast from the quieter Animator’s Palatte that we struggled to have a conversation with our tablemates. None of us participated in the conga led by the crocodile. (No pictures!)

After dinner we went to see The Golden Mickeys.

A kind of award ceremony combined with singing and dancing. It featured beloved characters such as Goofy and some of the Princesses (Rapunzel from Tangled, Snow White) as well as some of the men like Tarzan. But villains such as Cruella Deville from 101 Dalmatians and Ursula from The Little Mermaid with clever special effects made an appearance.

The Walt Disney Theatre and the cinema are well air conditioned and a jumper/cardigan are needed! The only jumper I have brought is very much off brand – it’s a Universal Studio’s hoodie from Beijing – but thankfully I haven’t been kicked off the ship… yet.

As many of you know, Martin struggles to keep awake past 9pm so he has been doing well to keep awake for the shows! After this show, he went to bed and I went to the Azure lounge for an adult show. Whatever you have in your mind as you read the words “adult show” won’t be anything like my reality!

I went to Azure Lounge for a 10:30pm show of “Jeremy Penguin” a juggler from New Zealand. But before his show I stumbled upon an interactive quiz just before. I stood at the doorway of the Azure to survey where I could sit. There were people on the stage area on the floor looking like they were slo-mo crawling. I stayed at the doorway for a bit longer to realise it was a game show of sorts with two contestants. These two contestants had come from different sides of the room which had effectively divided the room into two teams. They had buzzers and it was name that tune from a TV series or advert. A few of the questions had to be canned because it appeared that the adverts hailed from America and hadn’t been shown in Australia. Along the way there were challenges for the teams, one of which included dancing in sync to whatever the contestant decided to do. It was well done and funny but I was glad that I hadn’t been there for the start of the show to participate.

Soon that show ended and Jeremy Penguin arrived. He was a juggler and the only “adult” thing was one joke that is unrepeatable. (Not least because I can never remember jokes and because even if I was able to repeat verbatim the joke, as Frank Carson, a Northern Irish comedian said “it’s the way [you] tell ‘em”.

After the show ended, I went back to the stateroom. Eleanor wasn’t long in after me but by the time our heads had hit the pillow Martin had had at least 2 hours sleep on us!