Just a short post to wrap up day six. It had been a nice day in Ketchikan, but it was about to become a hilarious night on board. About halfway through dinner, our butler, Hilario, sent me a WhatsApp message asking how long it would be until we returned to our suite. I told him about 30 minutes, though I had no idea why he needed to know. We finished dinner, and everyone headed off to evening activities. Bob and Judy were going to the show, and Mike and Cathy were going to Dueling Pianos. Kathleen got back to our stateroom first (she took the elevator—I always take the stairs on a ship), and Hilario met her at the door and asked where I was.
She told him I always took the stairs so he let her go inside to a real surprise. It was a huge HAPPY ANNIVERSARY celebration that Hilario had arranged for us. I arrived a few minutes later and was totally mystified. Our anniversary is in late August, and I am not one of those husbands who screws up dates. So why was Hilario and the ship wishing us Happy Anniversary?
A few minutes later, it dawned on me. When we were filling out our pre-cruise questionnaire, it asked if we were celebrating anything. I checked the Other box and typed an explanation. I said it was the anniversary reunion of the original Martini Mates, who had started together on Infinity more than 20 years ago. Either someone at X or Hilario saw the word anniversary and thought it was ours.
I quickly sent out a group text and told the rest of the Mates to get to our stateroom as quickly as they could. We had to share the “anniversary celebration” with them. And they all showed up. Hilario was awesome, and he even serenaded us with a song he sang for anniversaries. It was pretty awesome, and even though it was supposed to be romantic, it fit us perfectly.
After everyone left, we moved some of the balloons around so we wouldn’t be freaked out in the middle of the night, then went to bed. The next morning, we heard from Mike that he had been called by the three Retreat concierges, who wanted to buy us an anniversary dinner in Murano. More about that in my next post.