Aha! At sea again.
There is something both soothing and exciting about cruising. Of course having a staff that sees to your every needs helps, too. As Janice said as we crawled out of bed at a leisurely time, “We don’t need to make the bed!”
Since our cabins are at the stern on the floor below the dinning room, we didn’t have far to go for breakfast. We met some interesting people from Canada (near Niagara Falls and Windsor), Michigan, and Florida. Unfortunately, there was a problem in the kitchen and we didn’t get our eggs for over 25 minutes. The Head Waiter, the same we had had two years ago, was all apologetic, but we didn’t get out of breakfast until almost 10:30 am.
At 10:30 they held their mandatory safety drill. Unlike every other cruise we’ve been on, we were not required to wear our life vests. Apparently they have determined that there have been more accidents, from people tripping over the straps, etc., than there have been from people not knowing how to put on their vests. So basically the briefing is finding your way to your muster station (the number is printed on your ship card), reporting your presence, and seeing a demonstration of donning a life vest.
The first guest lecturer, Adrian Cooper, delivered an interesting overview of the Caribbean. From geography, to flora and fauna, to a brief history of the indigenous peoples. It covered a lot of ground but didn’t include enough pictures of all the plants and animals he described.
Lunch in the dining room with our friends Jinny and Noel. We all had the salmon salad-very good!
Then Janice and I checked out the replacement for Sports of Call. Seems Holland America has gotten tired of guests fighting over getting the right size for the clothing prizes so they have replaced the games with “Onboard Sports” and replaced the Dam Dollars—awarded then redeemed for the afore mentioned prizes—with Grand Dollars, which will be awarded at some Onboard Sports events as well as at other events like trivia.
Spent the rest of the afternoon wandering the ship, signing up for a specialty dinner with Jinny and Noel in the premium restaurant, The Pinnacle Grill, giving John his first lesson on his new Kindle 3, and doing some writing for the blog.
By dinner time, we had received word that we have a table at the early seating! It’s with two women who had been on the ’09 cruise. There were three other women at the table the night before, but they didn’t come. Maybe, we thought, we could get Jinny and Noel seats at our new table.
The evening’s entertainment was a comedian, Rick Starr. We think he was also on the ’09 cruise. We walked out after a few minutes, though because his humor depended on ridiculing other people and their habits. If he was criticizing truly dumb or destructive behavior, it might be funny. But when it is just laughing at others because they are different, then I can’t take it.