Sea life
I've just realized that this is our first real holiday for just ourselves since 2008. We've had weekends away now and then, and we spent two weeks over Christmas driving up and down Britain (which is a massive mistake, incidentally) but this is the first prolonged period where we can just do what we like with no pressure. And it's not like my parents' idea of a holiday, where they're up at six every morning to go and see something - we wake up when we want, have something to eat, go ashore for a bit and wander around, participate in any games going on that day (at which I have accumulated a total of two points over five days) and then come back to our room in the evening and greet whatever towelbeast the crew have arranged that day on our bed.
There was a fire drill for the crew a couple of days ago. We were sitting in the library when a Scottish officer came on to the loudspeaker and announced "We have received reports of a possible fire in engine room D", which is an oddly tentative way to describe a fire. Do they phone up the bridge and say "There's a hot bright orange thing spreading through the engine room, can you come and take a look?"
We went to the casino for the first time - I'd meant to do it on the previous cruise but we never got around to it. Never having tried a slot machine before, I was absolutely flabbergasted by the massive and complicated rule sets involving bet lines and totals that adjust depending on whether you have twice as many watermelons as cantaloupes and so on, but rapidly found out that it boiled down to this: You hit "Spin" and lose money. We were reasonably adept at the video poker, though, and I can see how that could be addictive - it's easy to be certain you're going to get a good hand soon even though I know damn well that the computer isn't choosing cards at random.
And we also had our first experience with open-seating dining, where small groups are put together into larger parties if only the larger tables are available. We shared a table with two other couples who were very nice - both old enough to be talking about their grandchildren. One of them started off by saying how they had changed their cabins shortly before the cruise, and now for some reason he had found a birthday card addressed to him in the post that morning even though he was born in March. We got the usual questions about how we met (a story so long that you really do need to have something to eat as it's explained), along with the expected fascination about Whitney's job and the usual boredom about mine. The other two men were both on the boards of their condo associations, so we got to share a lot of stories about the dreadfulness of our own and how we had been on the point of raising legal action over the location and deployment of a lawn umbrella.
Then the dining room staff suddenly brought out a cake, and not wishing to argue, we celebrated his birthday. Merry Christmas!