Recently I took a 28 day cruise, Seattle, up thru Alaska, then across to Hawaii and back to Seattle. It was billed as an Alaska Hawaii cruise, and that is exactly what it was. The cruise line was Holland America. A few weeks before the cruise HAL (Holland America Lines) sent out an email notifying us of events during the cruise. There was an Orange night (a HAL thing), a costume party, a masquerade party, and a Great Gatsby party. The Orange party is a HAL thing, and pretty much everyone wears something orange. It might be a hat, a scarf, a sweater, a dress, pants, etc. Some people go all out wearing wigs, and dressing in orange pretty much head to toe. It can be rather fun.
The other parties are pretty self explanatory. People did actually bring costumes. There was even a Santa and Mrs. Claus. The Great Gatsby party had a lot of sequins. For the masquerade party the art classes had painting classes with masks you could decorate. It was rather fun.
One interesting thing for me was with that much time on a ship, you did a lot of laundry. It gave me a chance to see how people now dress on a cruise. I’m sure many cruises would wonder why that is interesting, much less why it matters. My life is a quiet simple one. I spend most of the time at home with my dog. Consequently I don’t wear a great variety of clothing. Simple jeans, yoga pants, tee shirts, fleece jackets when it’s cold, and not much jewelry. My dog hardly cares what I wear. So my clothing choices are a bit limited.
Because of this seeing what others wear is something I find interesting. For the trip I took 4 pairs of pants – jeans, dress, yoga, and linen type. No dresses. It was sneakers, slip on sneakers, and sandals for shoes. Sequins were not in my wardrobe. Then of course I had a fleece jacket and a rain jacket. For the Orange night I took a button down shirt in a burnt orange. Other that it was tee shirts, an a couple of sweaters for more formal or dressed up dinners. I don’t live a life where I use many more formal or dress up clothes.
The thing is that recently, since I’ve returned from the cruise I’ve had to attend a mother/baby shower, and now a wedding. I’ve come to the realization I have “holes” in my closet. Those holes are the things I don’t have to fill in for special or more social events. Those include outfits and shoes. And since I would like to continue cruising it might be in my best interest to plug those holes.
The interesting things you learn and realize on a cruise.
As for the events on the cruise, all those parties. It was a lot of dancing, lots of music, lots of late night fun.
With all the days at sea, they had quite a few educational talks, a lot of specialty groups that met, and this cruise even had bridge lessons. They kept us quite occupied and busy. There were so many things available to do and attend. It makes all those days at sea go quickly and happily.