Sea Day #1

Friday, November 8, 2019

Our day began by meeting Jon and Michelle at breakfast and going over the day's activities. By habit, I carried a paper copy of the When & Where daily newsletter but we also used the Navigator app on our phones to help us plan our day.

And speaking of the Navigator app...one feature that I believe was new since our last cruise was the ability to see any photos that the ship photographers had taken. The app has face detection capabilities so all you had to do was be logged in and it "knew" which photos were yours! Here is a screen shot of one that we had taken. No longer did you have to sort through the racks and racks of photos to find your own. The photo center also had "classes" where you could learn how to use your photos to make gifts such as personalized coffee mugs, etc.

My first activity of the day was the 10 am Future Cruise Presentation in the theater. Michelle was not interested (nor were the guys) so the three of them went to play "cornhole" on the basketball court on deck 12. For the amount of new information I got from the presentation (pretty much nothing) I should have joined them instead. While they were on the sports deck, Bob met quite a few people who were also interested in playing pickleball so once the game of cornhole was finished, he and Jon transferred across the deck to the pickleball court.

Cornhole

From the theater I went to the America's Test Kitchen presentation on "Dinner Classics for Two". The host, Megan, was from South Africa and was equally good at speaking as she was at cooking. (She works for a private caterer when she isn't on a ship and said it seems quite weird to cook without talking!) I'm pretty sure that I had been to the same session on a previous cruise, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.

As I walked out of the theater, Bob was waiting for me. We got to the buffet just ahead of the crowds (which really weren't ever too bad) and waited on Jon and Michelle to arrive.  Bob went straight to the Asian station as he often did and the nationality of the day was "Indian".

Bob was waiting for me here.

I sent a message to Michelle through the Navigator app to let her know where we were sitting. (We used this feature a lot to stay in contact with each other.) She responded..."we are at bingo and just won a cruise." My response? "Haha...you are lying." But...she wasn't! They had won a 7-day cruise to either the Caribbean or Mexico.

I had thought about going to the 1:00 pm Test Kitchen show on "pasta" while Michelle had decided to attend the "Ladies Pamper Party" at the spa at the same time. In the end, we lingered so long over lunch that we didn't make it to either.

It was just as well. I had decided in advance that I didn't want to fill every moment of the cruise with activities, but just relax and enjoy being on a ship in warm weather. Because of my lack of notes and photos for this day I will have to speculate, but I think Michelle and I might have spent some time on "our balcony" (the lower promenade deck) reading and visiting. And most likely a nap was part of the afternoon plan.

Most of the non-reserved lounge chairs were at the front and back of the ship behind the solid hull,
but there were just a few mid-ship that had a view of the water.

Bob had gone to the gym after lunch and Jon was back in their cabin...working. He had purchased internet for the day to get some business taken care of. I was glad they were able to join us for the full 2 weeks even if it did mean Jon had to spend some of it working. I am even more glad that Bob and I are retired and everyday is like a vacation for us!

Dinner was the first of our four gala nights on the ship which meant a little extra effort in getting ready. We were seated at a table for 4 in the center section of the lower dining room. I prefer having a table by the window, but we enjoyed our waiters so much at this table that we asked if we could make a reservation for the same table for the next night. I was quite surprised when they asked if we would just like the same table every night for both weeks.

Best waiters ever!

When we first booked the cruise, it was just Bob and I so I had requested "open seating". I enjoy meeting other people at dinner, but did not want to commit to an assigned table in case we didn't have anything in common with our table mates. Now that we were sharing the cruise with Jon and Michelle, it worked out better to have the same table and dining time each night.

The evening entertainment was a comedian, John Wing. He was moderately funny, but as other comedians we have seen on cruises, the bulk of his jokes were "old people jokes".

I am not much of a card player but after the show, Jon and Michelle convinced us to try a game they had brought along...Wizards. It is played with a regular deck but also includes 4 wizard cards and 4 jester cards. The objective of the game is to bid correctly on the number of tricks that a player will take in the next round of play. Points are awarded for a correct bid and subtracted for an incorrect bid. The player with most points after all rounds have been played is the winner.

Ending the night with a card game became our routine throughout the cruise. We found various places around the ship to play and sometimes sat at the tables in the buffet. Although it was handy to have drinks close by it also meant we were usually finishing up about the time the "late night" buffet opened at 10:30 pm and although we didn't "need" to eat, there were always a few things that we just "had" to sample. 

Tomorrow...Grand Cayman.