The only notes taken today were the current weather conditions and the Captain’s talk after 12pm. Day number one at sea on the way back to Florida was a warm one with temps in the low 80’s and humidity at 87%. The winds of 23.1 mph helped a bit to cool things off. The ships speed was 17 knots and we were rocking and rolling all night. We do believe that what the Captain said yesterday was correct with high winds during the night, near gale force and sea swells of over 10 feet. All contributing the motion of the ocean. This is not what we like when it comes to packing. Remember, the higher you are, the more you pay and the more you sway. Hopefully the seas will calm down the further north we get.
The final Mariner Recognition Event took place in the World Stage at 10:15am. As President’s Club members, we all had the chance to attend all three dates or choose one. Honestly with the packing chore looming over our heads, we were leaning towards not attending. However, after some convincing words from one of our breakfast buddies, we said OK….we will see you there. Please save our seats.
The format was about the same with music provided by Vivace before the show began. Erin announced two acts….one of which was a lovely lady from the crew staff, and the other was Josh, our travel guide. They both sang songs that reach the high notes. Then the awards started with the introduction of Florin, the hotel director and Captain Frank of course. The table of medallions was full with all four levels. They began around 11am, and ended by 11:45am. Perfect timing. The World Stage Cast of four singers treated us with another rendition of “Halleluia” the same song they performed at a previous assembly. Great job. Then the exclusive lunch was announced in the lower dining room by 12 noon. Once again, we did not attend although we did hear through the grapevine that the last two lunches were quite nice.
Back to the “salt mines”, we continued with the packing and never left the room for the remainder of the day. Captain Frank came on around 12:15pm with his daily report. He expected that sailing in the open seas would be rough but subsiding by 6pm when we would be near the sheltered area near Haiti. He was correct, and by looking out our mist-covered veranda, we did not see the whitecaps we were seeing this morning. The last request he had was to turn the clocks forward one hour tonight. That will put us on Eastern time, the same as Florida.
Today we had an odd message regarding the telephone services onboard. It appears there has been an ongoing issue affecting the dialing of the extension numbers from our room phones as well as the public phones. The electrical and IT teams were actively monitoring and investigating the matter. In order for us to connect to guest services, room service and dinner reservations, we had to dial a different number. The emergency number 911 still worked. Good to know.
By the time we were ready to go to dinner, we had unloaded all three stacks of drawers as well as the desk drawers and closets and successfully filled about 6 pieces of luggage. Labeled, weighed and locked, they are ready to go out in the hallway tomorrow after dinner. The menu was titled “Farewell Dinner”. But we still have one more night, so we sure hope we are not being kicked off early. That would put us in the vicinity of Cuba. We ordered an alternate salad with the appetizer of clothes line bacon on the side. At least it looked like the Pinnacle Grill treat but was not the same. We think they used very thinly-slice pork belly instead of the bacon. Mains were the veal chop, which was good but a bit on the chewy side. It came draped over a mound of cheesy polenta and some mystery root veggies underneath the polenta. The bacon-wrapped green beans were good. Desserts were some watermelon and another round of Jello. A sweet ending, but light.
The show this evening was Hits On 45, radio’s golden era performed by the World Stage Cast. We were so tired, we called it a night and were happy when we found the stacks of drawers were taken away. No tripping over them tonight.
Bill & Mary Ann
