Day at sea - Wednesday 25 September

Today was a quiet, relaxing day - we had a holiday! We dined in the Da Vinci Restaurant from the a la cart menu. They even had gluten-free pancakes, although they weren't a patch on the ones we make at home. We relaxed on the deck by one of the pools and read our books, then had a small, light lunch in the International Cafe down in the Piazza, with a wonderful pianist entertaining everyone.

Next we sat down early at the Art Auction, where free bubbly was also handed out. We both found the art beautiful and the whole process fascinating. There were very good prices, but I decided not to bid on my favourite piece that had a reserve price of $84,500. There were plenty of pieces going for US$400-$1000. I was there for two and a half hours, and David for a couple of hours!

Where had the day gone?! Now it was dinner time, and another formal night. So, we all got dressed up and headed to the dining room for 6 pm. We enjoyed just having ourselves and the Barrows at a table for four, and had a lovely meal. We have the Ruby Princess Employee of the month as our Maitre di in this restaurant, and boy is he good. He goes the extra mile with gluten-free, too, without me even asking.

We had half an hour before the show we wanted to see at 8:30 pm, so we checked out the display of photos taken as we embarked the ship. Ours is a good one, so we coughed up US$20 for one copy.

The show was good - a Welsh Comedian, and she sang well, too. She had us all laughing, and Jan and I now recognise ourselves as being anorexic.... (ask when we get home)! The show was only 45 minutes long, so David is enjoying the earlier nights.

We were told that we would be passing ANZAC Cove at 9:45 pm, so many of us were lining the deck at this time. We could see the monument, all lit up on shore, not far away - it was very emotional and I felt my eyes welling up, thinking about the ships that had been in these very waters, carrying the men who would lose their lives on that shore. I noticed that it was the Aussies and Kiwis who were on the deck (surprisingly, almost a third of the passengers on this trip are Aussies).