Now that we're dealing with two cabins, it's a bigger production to do anything, even breakfast. Karen and I get up by 8 but the entire group cannot possibly make it to the breakfast venue until after 10 due mainly to the beautification process taking place next door. The kid tries passing out toast, coffee and juice, ordered through room service by him.  Arriving at the Lido, we all have an adequate breakfast; fried egg, toast, fruit, orange juice and coffee for me and other stuff for everyone else. Queenie won't drink the water aboard so she uses the bottled water, $4.

With our meal out of the way by 11:30am, three of us head up to Deck 15 to get a place by the pool while Mom stays in our stateroom, preferring the solitude of our balcony. We meet our 6000 other guests up there too, all marking their deck chair territory with towels, sandals, books, sunglasses, anything they find handy. Forget about finding 4 chairs together, there's not even one. Half of the chairs have people in them, half just stuff. Kids are jumping around in the kid pools and so many people in the other pools you could walk across the top of their heads.  The pools are full of people, that's it!  We give up on on the swimming and finally find a table and chairs in the shade. Jonathan, attempting to call Mom in our stateroom, calls a few different people before finally leaving Karen a message for her to come up to our location.

We hang there for the early afternoon but Queenie wants to see "The Sexiest Man" contest in the Aqua theater at 2pm so off we go. Judging from the contestants, I could win the contest but we watch. It's entertaining. I work on the blog while the others order chips and salsa from Sabor's. I'm sure I'll get the bill.  We wander about the ship. It's huge and takes a while to get from one end to the other. Jonathan tries to climb the rock wall but he has to have socks on.  Since he has none, we postpone. This rock wall story will continue for days.  

At 4pm, we all return to our staterooms to get ready for dinner. Tonight is a formal night and the kid has a tuxedo Karen bought him for Christmas for him to have on the cruise. Apparently, he wore it to school one day so the parts got separated.  Unfortunately, only half of the outfit was packed so improvisation was in order. Looking through his stuff, except for the correct pants and jacket, he had a regular white shirt, plain black shoes, no studs or cuff links, no cummerbund and a blue tie!  I explained to Jonathan why they call this a "Black Tie Affair"?  I brought my tux so we could tag team the photo guy and I have an extra tie. The rest he will just have to fake.   

It seems more beautification at the beauty bar impedes our progress and we leave our rooms at 6:30pm, late again for our 6pm reservation. Queenie says, "Just tell the reservations desk that we had problems."  I couldn't agree more!  

For dinner it was scallops, prime rib and cheesecake. I have no idea what anyone else had. After dinner, we have some photos taken and then line up for the "Mama Mia" show. It's a play featuring songs from Abba. We have reservations for 9:30 and the show finishes at midnight. A long day and by the time I ready my cameras and clothes for tomorrow, it's 1am. I set the alarm for 6:30am, hang out the room service breakfast card for 7am and say goodnight.