Day 4 (Saturday) at Sea

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This was another leisurely day at sea – very relaxing! The sky was slightly overcast when we sailed out of Florida yesterday, but it cleared later in the day when we got away from the mainland. We are heading northeast today and have picked up some overcast again today, but no rain and still short sleeve temperatures. The sea is nice and calm with no problems to report. For some reason, they have not opened the pools yet (didn’t even have water in the pools until yesterday afternoon, but that did not stop some folks from sunning themselves on the upper deck).

We slept in late this morning before going up to get a small buffet breakfast. Then it was off to immigration and we have now already gotten cleared to disembark in the UK (passports stamped and everything). This was a smooth a process as we could possibly imagine.

After talking yesterday about our cabin being smaller and some of the differences in the ship, we do NOT want to give anyone the impression that we are unhappy. On the contrary we are having a great time. We even stopped at the future cruises desk today and have signed up for another cruise next year. But we did sign up for a balcony stateroom next time and were able to select a specific cabin with an extra large balcony in a prime location on the ship (we did not know previously that all balcony staterooms are not equal). We will sail out of San Francisco on Sept 28, 2012 and go through the Panama Canal with eventual landing in Florida. Along the way we will have various ports of call and it should be a 15-day cruise altogether. Anyway, you can see we are still great fans of cruising.

Afterwards, we went to the presentation about our second port visit (Cobh Island). The speaker actually talked about Cobh, and Cork, and Blarney Castle, and Waterford, and a large area of southern Ireland. Once again it was very interesting but we will only get to see a few of the places when on our excursion.

Then was lunch and we decided to have the sit-down luncheon today instead of using the buffet line. I think we ate a larger lunch though than if we were picking items off a serving line. Since tonight is the first Formal Dinner, we will probably hold off on any afternoon snacks. Janet even decided to forego the afternoon High Tea to avoid all the little finger sandwiches they serve with it.

We attended a session which demonstrated fruit & vegetable carving. It was impressive to watch the figurines which were created, but if we did this at home then we would probably eat all that fruit instead of letting it just sit as an art project. Speaking of art, there is a large area on our deck set aside for displaying painting and similar art. Janet found one which seems to have been made of beads instead of just paint. Unfortunately she cannot think of any place to put it in our house. What really worries me is that she keeps stopping to visit the emerald section of the duty-free jewelry store (probably wouldn’t have the same problem as with the painting).

Dinner this evening was excellent. There are always choices of appetizers, soups or salads, entrees, and desserts. We have never failed to find numerous combinations that all sound delicious, thus forcing difficult decisions. Sometimes we need a tie-breaker and this evening Bananas Foster won since it would count as one of today’s servings of fruit. Of course mimosas also count as fruit since they have orange juice mixed with the champagne.

After dinner was the Captains Reception (see champagne above) followed by an excellent stage presentation of love songs from “your parents’ and grandparents’ days”. Actually it was songs from the 50’s and early 60’s and they were very good, as well as us being able to remember them. We have enjoyed all the shows and intend to keep going to as many as possible.

Alas, by end of day there was still no water in the pools – have to try to find out why. Internet access may become spotty while we cross the mid Atlantic, so there may get to be a few days when you don’t hear from us, but we will keep the blog records and post them when we get back into satellite coverage. For now – goodnight.

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Photos

Sign on Stern of Ship
Actually for adjacent pool