As most of you may have guessed, we slept in and there was not a mile run in store for me this morning. We did wake up to the beautiful views of Portofino. Shortly after getting up our breakfast was delivered to our room. I then decided it was time to tackle this pile of laundry. I set off down one deck and start the process. I had things sorted into 3 washers, put the tokens in, and pushed the start button. 35 minutes later I head back down to check on things and they are about finished. As I waited around I looked at the “automatic soap dispensers” and noticed that one is supposed to push a button in order for the soap to be dispensed at the beginning of the cycle. This was not good news for me. I opened up the washer it they were definitely not clean, certainly didn’t smell clean. Oh what fun. Take 2 – tried it again, this time with the button. The drying process was much less eventful. By 11:45 we had done all 3 loads of laundry and we were proud of ourselves. We went on up to the sun deck as it was a pretty day out. We sunned ourselves for a couple of hours until it went behind the clouds. I was hungry at this point so we went to the Waves Grill where we shared a Panini and salads and had a strawberry gelato milkshake. Wow was that great! Since we had eaten it was time to nap. We went back out in the sun and took a decent nap. By this point it was 15:45 and it was cloudy again. We went back to the room to watch some news, talk to dad, and I went up to post from yesterday. It was then time to get ready for dinner as tonight was the Captain’s Champagne Welcome Reception, and we certainly couldn’t miss that! We had our canapés in our room before heading down to the lounge where we greeted the Captain and his First Officer. We then sat down to listen to the orchestra, have some more hors d’oeuvres and of course some champagne.

They introduced the crew officers and then it was time for dinner. We had a wonderful dinner, again.

We started off with a parsnip puree – much better than the name implies, followed by Mom having a cheese soufflé with leek sauce, a salad, and a whole lobster (which they prepare ahead of time thank goodness! The bib would not have gone with the outfits). I had the caviar, followed by a Caesar salad including anchovies, and I certainly had the lobster as well. Mom was too full for dessert, but I still had a little pocket. I ordered the tray of petit fours. Mom helped on a couple, but I took care of the rest. After dinner we went out into the Upper Hall to listen to the string quartet again. They were wonderful. Tonight they were playing songs from shows such as “If I were a Rich Man”, “Evita”, “Moonriver”, etc. We decided to head on up after they were finished playing. We then thought it would be fun to rent a DVD, so I ran down and picked up Gone With the Wind. Yes, we are in the Mediterranean watching an old movie! Now I am sure many are thinking, how was Portofino? It appears to be a lovely town viewed from the harbor. We opted to stay onboard today and take things easy. Tomorrow we will be in Monte Carlo, so we will be sure to venture out.