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Part 3 of 9: Rehearsal & relaxing

In August of 2009, I (Sharon) deserted my husband Joe and our puppy Dobby (at the time we had had her for about a month and a half) to go on a cruise to Alaska with the choir of which I was a member at the time (we were booked to sing on the ship). Some of my writing style has changed since 2009, some of my snark is exactly the same and heaven knows that cameras and photos have improved in the past 8 years, but here is the trip report I wrote about those adventures…the good, the bad and the ugly! To get up-to-date on the trip:

Part 1 – Arriving in Vancouver
Part 2 – On board and getting my bearings

With an 8am (8am? On vacation? whine, whimper) call time for rehearsal, I was up (before the alarm…ARGH!) at 6:35am and out of bed a few minutes later. In order to sleep as late as possible (ha!), I had requested room service for breakfast so before I left for the rehearsal, I enjoyed an Egg Beaters omelette with ham & cheese, half a grapefruit and coffee. Not bad, not terrific. But definitely convenient!

Our rehearsal was held in the theater where our show would be. At 7:45am, I was the first one there but the rest soon arrived also (Caroline and I agreed it didn’t count as “bumping into each other” since we were both scheduled to be there, LOL!). Our conductor told everyone to sit in their sections as they had been told in rehearsals at home, to which I looked at him and said, “Huh?” Orlando and Tampa hadn’t had any rehearsals (I could see why they wouldn’t…there were only originally 5 singers, now we were just 4, and we were divided into 2 + 2 between Orlando and Tampa, but it certainly put us as a disadvantage – “Carlene” and I hadn’t sung the songs in a concert since October ’08 and poor Celeste and Esther had NEVER done them in a show – so all we had was sheet music and rehearsal CD’s. No pressure…) so we had no IDEA of where to go or even who else sang what parts in order to figure out where to sit. But eventually we figured it out and I took my place with the other 5 Second Sopranos.

The rehearsal was short and sweet, thanks in part to the fact that our piano player, Gabriel (a Nicholas Cage lookalike) was just seeing the music for the first time and was playing via sight reading. He didn’t do too badly, all things considered, and even improvised on the songs he already know, like ‘Fly Me To the Moon” and “New York, New York.” So by 8:40am, we were done.

I wandered back to the Explorers Club and did the jigsaw puzzle they had – I used to LOVE jigsaw puzzles when I lived in Staten Island but we just don’t have a decent place to do them in our house yet. Anyway, theirs was HUGE! 4,000 pieces! of course, Caroline and Sue came by (this time they were definitely stalking me, not me stalking them) and Caroline did the puzzle while Sue wandered about the room (I’m talking with a lot of Brits so I’m starting to pick up on their verbiage). When I got tired of the puzzle, I finished Harry Potter & the Sorcerer’s Stone (again) and then tried to nap in my chair for a little while but it was too loud. Plus I was getting HUNGRY!

I went back to the Lido Buffet for lunch, where I got rotisserie chicken, Virginia ham, some stir fry veggies and a few French fries – it was all pretty good. I wound up eating with 4 Brits – 2 from the choir and a husband and wife team from the Leeds area who I thought were from the choir but in actuality were just British (apparently not all Brits on the ship are Choir Brits, LOL!).

After lunch, the 2 ladies left for plans that they had so I had my dessert (chocolate ice cream) with Antony, Colin, Pauline and Ann, where we discovered yet another difference between American English and English English…what we call Jello, they call jelly and what we call jelly, they call jam. It’s funny how 2 languages that are so much the same can be so different!

We all went to the Crow’s Nest Lounge next, for a trivia game. Our team was me, Colin, Antony, Carlene and “Stewart.” Some of the questions were easy (how many dots are on a pair of dice?) and some not so much. We got 11 out of 15 right but some team got 14 right so they won. The prize was “Dam bucks” for Bingo – something I could live without, anyway.

I had some spare time before my next planned event on my schedule so I went to the various decks, inside and out, and took some pictures – the scenery was beautiful!

 

I had a 2:30pm reservation for a wine tasting in the Queens Lounge, as did Esther and Celeste from Tampa. It was a typical “here’s how you taste wine” seminar, with 2 reds, 2 whites and a champagne – none of the wines were awful (not even the oaky chard) but none were really good, either. Oh well…it took up an hour.

 

4:30 brought my facial, which was VERY relaxing. The girl who did it was named Leisl (or was it Lisette?) and she was from South Africa. 50 minutes later I was very relaxed, with VERY smooth skin.

I tried to grab a quick nap after that – laid down for a good 30 minutes but never fell asleep. And with needing to get ready for Formal Night for 7:45pm, I finally just gave up and got dressed.

I arrived at the lounge near the restaurant around 7:15ish and was waved over by Celeste and Esther who, as it turned out, were sitting next to Caroline & Sue, of course, LOL! We got a round of drinks, got the band to play ‘I’ve Got You Under My Skin” (with two Sop 1’s, a Sop 2, an Alto and a Tenor between us, of course we sang along) and soon enough it was time for dinner.

Everyone looked SO nice in their formal duds…

I got a shrimp cocktail appetizer, the rack of lamb (with ratatouille and a potato cake) and a small butterscotch sundae for dessert. YUMMY!

In the midst of the meal, a bunch of people suddenly started Oohing and Ahhing and going towards the windows…apparently there were some whales nearing, diving. I was able to see them blow out their blowholes but as I was so far from the windows, that as much as I could see. The poor servers had to wait for the melee to end though.

After dinner, I walked out with Nancy and Jessica (I’m SLOWLY starting to learn names) and we and a few other (not ALL the names though, Maybe a half-dozen) got our pictures taken by a photographer. Before they could drag me to get my picture taken with the Captain, I slipped back to my cabin and put on real clothes again. Finally, after updating my blog, I got ready for a well-deserved sleep!