Jan 16th, 2020 Day 13 of 128

Happy 11^thBirthday Megan in Recife, Brazil.  Megan and I are both fighting a cold with a cough.  We woke up this morning seriously contemplating if we were going to go on our excursion today.  We actually told Nana and Valerie to go without us, but we rallied and went off on the adventure anyway.  Today we toured the historic cities of Recife and Olinda. It was hot and humid again. But we had lots of water and we were smart and had brought along sandwiches today for lunch that we ate on the bus.  We were back on the ship by 2:00 and Megan and I showered and took naps so we had enough energy for this evening birthday festivities.   We had a nice dinner in the main dinning room.  All the staff came to the table and sang Megan happy birthday in Indonesian.  Then we went to the show put on by the Amsterdam dance team.  It was a compilation of different styles of music and dance from the 50’s and 60’s.  The highlight of the evening was a surprise party planned by Geoffrey the Club HAL coordinator.  He arrange to have a private space all set up with decorations, he had staff all in the room, he had the pastry chef on the ship make Megan a special cake, and we walked in at 9:10pm to have everyone shout surprise to her.  She was so surprised!  It was above and beyond.  I was so touched as a mom that he did that for Megan.  For all the love and support of so many staff members that was shown to us after having only been on the ship for two weeks time.  It was a birthday that Megan will never forget, neither will I.  Sweet dreams to you all from this mommy with a really full heart. Debra

P.S. More pictures to follow. Wait till you see her cake!!