Today our ship crossed the equator. According to our captain, if you have never crossed the equator by sea, you are a pollywog, but once you have done so, you become a shellback. The ship has a “martime tradition” of honoring King Neptune with a ceremony at sea, and they brought out “King Neptune’s Court” to bless our journey and find us worthy of safe passage. Then the newly appointed shellbacks were invited to ceremonially “kiss the fish”. It was so cute!

The court:

After the Equator crossing, we spent our day enjoying more of the great activities offered by our ship. From the port of Honolulu until our first port of call in Tahiti on Wednesday, we have onboard a team of people they call the “Hawaiian Ambassadors” who offer daily classes and lectures to teach guests about Hawaiian customs and culture. I love it! Today I went to two of their classes, a hula class and a ukelele class. The hula class was fun, and we learned to sing a Hawaiian song and do the accompanying dances to two songs. I love that their dances are designed to tell stories, and the movements are very purposeful.

After hula class Rob joined me for the ukelele class! The first thing I learned is that I have always pronounced “ukelele” incorrectly- it is “properly” pronounced “ooh-kuh-laylay”. We then learned a bit about the parts and history, and how to play three chords, which we used to play two songs (one Hawaiaan song, one “You are My Sunshine “). Rob and I have no musical background between us and play zero instruments (Jenna is definitely the musical one in our family!), so it was a struggle for us and we cracked up at the horrors of our own playing thru most of the class. But, it did get easier, and by the end of the class, I was starting to get the hang of the chord transitions on the three we learned. Such fun!!

And for your auditory terror, er… enjoyment, here are what should be considered the outtakes :

Our evening brought another dinner in the dining room (food there has been pretty mediocre overall- nothing bad, but nothing to write a blog about, and still beats cooking at home!), two rounds of trivia in the Sky lounge (we miss you CV trivia pals!), some free champagne (the best kind) at the shops onboard, a bit of dancing at the 80s party, and a lovely full moon. You know, just our usual Sunday night, right?! 🤣

Thanks for adventuring with us!