Sunday Oct 18, 2026
Hi All! Oh how we love our sea days! We slept in and recharged the batteries since we’ll have a little gauntlet of four straight Japanese port days coming up. So to that end we tried to get educated on them and went to the lectures giving overviews on each port.
Holland does a good job with that and the port speaker is excellent and always has great tips for things to see in each place. The next four port cities, all in Japan, are Kanazawa, Sakata, Hakodate, and Miyako. Try to say that sentence three times fast! They all sound like great places to visit and we can’t wait to experience them!
Tonight was formal night, which is sorta funny since on this cruise line most people dress pretty casual. In the old days you’d see tuxes and gowns but nowadays you rarely even see a sport coat for men and a fancy dress for women. But the good thing is, on dressy night, the main dining room usually has some nicer food choices!
So we went there for dinner and I got the escargot for my appetizer, the Antarctic Queen fish for my main and the Creme Brûlée for my dessert. It all was very tasty!
After dinner we went to the show which was a guest entertainer named Peter Byrne. He’s from Ireland and his show was called “Forever Diamond”. It was described as a 60-year tribute to the timeless hits of Neil Diamond, from Sweet Caroline to Red Red Wine. He put on a great show and we were all tapping our toes and singing along to all these classic songs.
After the show we followed our ain’t broke don’t fix it routine of listening to the great female piano player. Dang she’s good! Tomorrow we’re in Kanazawa, Japan. Can’t wait!
PS: When we got back to our room, we had a towel animal but we weren’t sure what it was??? An elephant? A snake? A frog? See if you can figure it out??
