December 23 - Christmas Eve Eve! A day earlier, Rachel and I barely missed the signups for the the Great Gingerbread House Competition. Really, it was bogus. They said that sign-ups were until 12, so we went to the customer service desk at 11:45 to sign up, and they said, "Oh, we already sent the list away." "But it said in the guide that sign-ups were until 12." "Well the list is gone, so it's too late." Hmph.

Anyway, everyone onboard the Pacific Princess is incredible lucky that we didn't make the sign-up list because we would have kicked some major butt. I mean, I spend the majority of my life right now making architectural models and am fiercely competitive, so it's probably a good thing because I would've turned this friendly "hmm can we assemble a pre-made gingerbread house?" competition into a battle til death!

Instead, I unleashed my competitiveness in this afternoon's game of water volleyball.

Water volleyball actually wasn't on the schedule today. Rachel and I were just minding our own business in the pool when the water volleyball pool recruited us. They needed us to be down for a game so that they could convince the activities director that they should shut down the pool for an unscheduled game. These guys literally chased down the dancers, begging for volleyball. Finally, they found Jen and were able to persuade her that we should play. These are the perks of being on a small ship.

I am no good at water volleyball because I am not tall enough to stand in the pool (really, I couldn't stand anywhere in the pool), so I had to tread water the entire time which was exhausting. But I've got heart and had nothing better to do, so I joined the crew of afternoon water volleyball players.

After the net was taken away from us a few hours later, the guys continued wrestlemania, which I was down to watch (they kept trying to recruit Rachel and I for a sister-v-sister match, but I'm pretty sure they were just hoping for a wardrobe malfunction).

There were two minority groups on this cruise - children and young adults. And both were in the pool right now - kids splashing on one side, and the WWE bros on the other. But the kids got greedy and wanted both sides of the pool, so they kept swimming over to where the guys were rough-housing, and eventually a dad intervened and asked the guys if they could leave the pool.

So we moved to the hot tub. I might have mentioned this already but the hot tubs were always scorching hot! Like maybe you can dip your toes in hot. Not just annoying, but dangerous, especially with what I'm assuming was a record number of children onboard.

Went back to the room to clean up for dinner and noticed that we had a few stowaways outside -





It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas! This gingerbread village was created by the wonderful dessert and pastry chefs aboard Pacific Princess. Not the results of the passenger gingerbread competition earlier that day!



Our head waiter, Nelson, had to wear that silly hat until Christmas, but was kind enough to share it with Dad. Like I said before, Nelson was an incredible head waiter, and spoke to us every night. He was much better than our waiter and assistant waiter who didn't even bother to learn our names.


Appetizer that night was the crab and artichoke dip, yum!


I piggy-backed off of Rachel's creativity and ordered the Pad Thai (main course) as a smaller portion in place of a salad.


Because we couldn't miss out on the main entree, Surf & Turf -



And for dessert, Love Boat Dream. I'm actually not a fan at all. It's a texture thing. But it makes a pretty photo, for sure.


Tonight, we celebrated by the pool at the Love Boat Deck Party. It was really cute, and they dressed all of the dancers up like Isaac in his bartending outfit with mustaches. I didn't bring my camera because it's heavy, and every once in a while, I just want to enjoy the evening and not photograph it.

And here's something Princess doesn't skimp on - nightly turn-down service with chocolates!