"Treasures of Cruising the World" with Bill & Mary Ann: Report # 7 Sailing Towards Puerto Limon January 6, 2016 Wednesday Partly cloudy 15 Pictures

Sent: Thursday, January 7, 2016 4:31:25 AM
Subject: FW: Report # 7 Sailing Towards Puerto Limon January 6, 2016 Wednesday Partly cloudy 15 Pictures

Report # 7 Sailing Towards Puerto Limon January 6, 2016 Wednesday Partly cloudy 15 Pictures

Upon trying to establish our internet connection this morning, we were unsuccessful in doing anything. The internet was obviously down. Rumor has it that the service has been the worst ever for the last two weeks . Perhaps they are "working" on it, as we are often told. That's why our reports have been delayed, in case you all are wondering what happened to all of the contributors. We shall try again later.

After another great breakfast, we took our morning walk. Today's weather was far from "partly cloudy". It had been raining all morning from the looks of the decks. Doubt the sun will come out much today, which is just as well, because we would be room-bound for the afternoon anyway…….unpacking and stashing our stuff.

Before we dove into the task, we attended the first meeting of the Cruise Critic group at 10:30am in the Crow's Nest. A very nice, and extremely organized couple, put together this large group, and obviously spent a lot of time preparing for the long cruise. They had sent out proper invitations to some of the senior staff, but the only one to attend was Joanne, one of the Future Cruise Consultants. She gave a short talk, then everyone mingled for over an hour. We asked Pete what happened to the officers, and he said he had been informed that they were no longer allowed to attend these gatherings. This has to be a new policy, because at the first meeting on our previous cruise, all of the ship's fellows were there. Will investigate this later. Anyway, the meeting was good, and we are sure those who were getting tours together did so discreetly. Oh yeah, they even handed out small bags of candy with a printed map of the 2016 itinerary. How nice was that?

The unpacking job was successful, and most of the fine details are finished. The two bars with hooks we bought worked perfectly, hung on the existing double wall hooks. This increased the hooks from 4 to 24. We added a 2 x 3 foot world map, that sticks to the wall, two calendars, and plenty of small plastic hooks, also stuck on the walls and inside some closets. Two hanging shoe bags hold costume jewelry, small toiletries, and various things like notecards, pens, glue, scotch tape, etc. It's all where we can see it easily.

We added many wire hangers, which fit better in the closets. We figured about 4 dozen would be enough, but we were two dozen short. The wooden hangers are better used for storing the slacks, jackets, and heavy items. We just used fewer of them. We intend to collect a few of the laundry baskets to store some t-shirts, swimsuits, and pareos on the narrow top shelves of the closet. Easier to pull out the basket, then lose some of the items to the back of the high shelf.

One of the jobs included getting a start on planting the window garden. We had purchased some narcissus and lily bulbs and a few amarylas. We now have seven pots on the shelf. Tomorrow, we intend to plant some dwarf sunflower seeds. They did pretty well last year, and it is fun the watch the growth progress.

Taking a break for a Lido lunch at 2:30pm was a good idea. The crowd was gone, and there was no line at the sandwich bar. Some things were new in here, like the glassware. There were regular-sized glasses for water and iced tea, not the small juice glasses. And we had new linen napkins…..white with orange stripes. Very nice. Glasses were set at each seat, and it appeared that the drinks were served to the diners from new sturdy plastic pitchers with lids. That's an improvement.

By now that sun had peeked out, but if we had gone out by the aft pool, our day would have been finished as far as getting anything more done. So we passed by the lovely desserts (very tempting), and made one stop to see Christel, the Guest Relations Manager. We had lots of catching up to do on cruise news. She is delightful, and if you have any problems, she is the lady to see. Actually, we did get the story about the disabled internet. Technicians are onboard repairing it….hopefully. And until they do, there are no newspapers available. This is not a great way to begin a Grand Voyage.

Dinnertime came quickly once again. Our new tablemates showed up again, so we guess they like us all. They are super friendly, but that's probably part of being Texans. There were three good choices for entrees tonight, and we chose one of them….. the prime rib, and were not disappointed. Barb ordered a fresh veggie plate with ranch dressing for us to share. Good idea, because that way we leave the tasty bread alone. While we were eating, we noticed a group of folks had been seated across from us. It was then that Bill recognized two of them………Elliot Finkel and his dad, Fyvush. Elliot is an accomplished pianist, while his dad was a star on the TV series Picket Fences, among other things. We deducted that tomorrow evening will be the first "gala" night, and we bet the entertainer will be Elliot.

We had two surprises when we got back to our cabin. There were gifts left on the bed……two boat bags of swag, or a navy bag, computer-sized with a small pouch containing hand sanitizer, mints, bandaids, sun screen, lip balm, and insect repellant. All useful.

The second surprise was that the clocks went back one hour……..yeah we know, not really a gift, but well appreciated anyway.

Bill & Mary Ann

Olaf, our room buddy