Jan 12 -- At Sea

Our day began with breakfast in the room (this is getting to be a delightful habit). We learned last night that we are entitled to one champagne breakfast in the room,  so we're taking advantage of that today.  It's been a relaxing morning catching up on blog writing and selecting what dishes we'll have served in our room tomorrow night by our butler.  Although we were allowed to make only one reservation per specialty restaurant,  we can order in our room from their menus. We haven't taken advantage of that option yet but will definitely enjoy it on our last shipboard night tomorrow!

We spent most of today relaxing and reading -- it was great to have some "down time" again.   These days at sea are wonderful!  Shortly before 4 we headed for the culinary classroom for our second cooking lesson.  Today's was titled "mastering fish" and was very intense -- it lasted for two hours.  We learned numerous ways to prepare fish including deep poaching, shallow poaching, searing (scallops), pan frying,  curing salmon, scampi,  and more, plus we got to eat everything we made.  Good thing our dinner reservations weren't until 8pm!

Carrot decoration used on many dishes

View from our room as we passed some land

We met our friends after cooking class for cocktails then went back to our room to wind down after cooking and get ready for dinner.  Tonight we ate in the last of the four specialty restaurants, the Polo Grill.  Maine lobster was on the menu,  so I couldn't pass that up -- it made my day of fish dishes complete!  After dinner it was already past 10, so we retired for the night.

Tomorrow we'll be in our last port before beginning the long trek home starting on Wednesday at 11pm.  The time change getting here was rough,  as we turned or clocks back 5 hours.  However I suspect going the reverse direction will be even more challenging!   We leave Papeete at 11pm Wednesday then leave L.A. around noon Thursday arriving in Tampa at 10:30 that night.  We're staying at a hotel there and completing our trip home on Friday.  It's always great to get home -- we're looking forward to it!