Sweet Reunions

1/21/26

When I was young, age 7-12, my parents would send me and my brother to sleep-away camp for 2 months each summer.  I would like to think it was because they loved us so much, but truth-be-known, they wanted to travel unencumbered.  That’s ok.  It was the 70’s.  My granddaughter is 7 now and I can’t imagine sending her away for 2 months in the summer……not to mention the cost.  If someone told me they were sending their 7-year-old away to camp for 2 months, I’d likely give them the same look I get from people when I tell them we’re on a 131-day cruise.  How ironic.

The other truth-be-known, I hated going to camp but was fine once I got there.  There were great reunions of friends I hadn’t seen since the summer before and, because this was before cell phones and because 8-year-old boys don’t write letters, we had a lot to catch up on as we fell back into our familiar friendships.

Today’s reunions were like that.  Cruises are like adult camp and it’s a real blessing we get to take cruises like this every few years.  Thankfully we knew that Scott and Anita were “returning”, but many others, we didn’t.  But we spent the lion’s share of time with S&A.  They joined us in the Horizon Court about 2pm and for two straight hours we, reminisced, caught up, and tallied additional grandchildren, 1 for each couple in case you were wondering.  They have 9, we have 2, and I doubt we’ll catch up but I can hope.  Unlike camp reunions, we have the drink package, which added to the festivity.  Day drinking always does….until it doesn’t.  More on that later.

It hadn’t actually been 3 full years since we saw S&A.  We cruised with them thru Scandinavia in June 2024 and had lunch with them in Florida in Feb 2025 on an overlap day right after they got off a cruise and right before we got on a cruise. It was on the 2024 Scandinavian cruise that they told us about PC26 (WC26 at that time) and we booked it from the ship.

About 4pm, we all went to get ready for dinner.  Sherri and I stopped by the sail away party on the lido deck, which the dancers did a great job at.  It was pretty chilly in LA and with the added wind once moving, it was cold.  But the dancers were all smiles in their short outfits clearly designed for either indoor or warmer weather.  My hats go off to them. 

After a quick change and a brief stop at the hor’dourves hour, we met S&A for dinner where we continued to catch up and enjoy each other’s company, including a few drinks of course.  I mention this because since the beginning of the cruise, I guess I haven’t taken full advantage of the drink package yet.  All of the sudden, I was exhausted and needed a power nap, that turned into full on sleep till morning.  I was wondering if I’d have a hangover, which I didn’t but it felt like I might.   I’m not really much of a drinker anyway, but note to self, pacing and drinking lots of water are requisite moving forward.  Knowing you don’t have to drive home probably contributes to the debauchery.  Before heading to the room, we did manage to purchase some PC 26 swag in the gift shop….a winter coat I’ll need later in the cruise.

The other noteworthy part of the day was we were all required to disembark for customs.  Suffice it to say, it’s a process to clear the entire ship of all passengers and crew while trying to process new passengers and crew getting on.  Despite that, it only took about 1 hr, which is stellar.  In 2023, apparently a couple decided they weren’t going to participate in the exercise so they hid on the boat.  3  hrs later, they were escorted off the ship to boo’s from the passengers waiting long past the expected time…..and even worse, over the lunch hour.   Don’t mess with feeding time at the zoo.  Enough said.

I did manage to work in a fitness session before all that and ended up with 14,905 steps, BUT due to some sync issue between my watch and my phone, it only recorded the steps I took after I switched off airplane mode.  I can’t mathematically let it go and so I’ll have to manually adjust the stats, when I get to the blog post later this month. 

Tomorrow is really the first full day of the PC cruise, and with S&A on board, we’ll start playing cards more on sea day afternoons.  That will be nice as we have 5 sea days before Hawaii.