Well, it turns out that the couple I sat beside at dinner 2 nights ago are the guest lecturers on board the ship! She spent years as a Professor of Native Textiles at the University of Hawaii, and he was a Professor of Geology. Each sea day, at 9am, one of them gives an hour talk – today hers was on the history, design, and collectability of the Aloha shirt.

Then I attended a Morning Trivia session before joining the CruiseCritic.com’s Meet & Greet. It’s an opportunity for the forum members who’ve chatted online to meet each other in person as well as to be introduced to the ship’s department heads. They had a lounge cordoned off for us and coffee & pastries set up, so a nice effort by the ship.

An hour or so of resting & reading (my ankle is still swelling up so R&R is required) then I joined some Solo cruisers for lunch in the main dining room. I’m enjoying the table service as the portions are quite small and the setting serene whereas in the buffet my plate is always huge, no matter how abstemious I try to be, and it’s bright and busy.

I dined again with a small group of Solos for dinner. We deliberately waited for a first group to join and go as we wanted to try the other main dining room, Azura, but they don’t cater to large groups. To me it’s a nicer atmosphere – casual/elegant versus airy/gilt. Then we tried a few venues for music before calling it a night.