The morning began as usual for us in the Pinnacle Grill for breakfast, but we had all new guests now. The cruise director came on the speakers with his morning update, and he has a very good speaking voice. The theme of the cruise is Spanish/Mexican history and food as we are heading south of the border very soon. A Mexican ambassador has joined us for this 11-day sailing.
The temperature was 61 degrees with 91% humidity and no rain. The winds were 5.2mph and the skies remained mostly overcast. This is typical conditions for this part of the Pacific Ocean at this time of year. There was a nip in the breeze on our veranda, but the icy winds are gone.
Working online and doing photos kept one of us very busy. Then it was my turn to do captioning. First of all, I am not the computer whiz that Bill is. All it takes is one accidental move, and sometimes things disappear into oblivion, never to be found. And that's what happened to report page # 4 . Careful as I try to be, getting used to this new computer has been challenging. The loss would require another hour of processing that page tomorrow. Other fun things were attempting to pay a very small doctor's bill online. Should be easy, but it wasn't. The good thing is that we have a telephone option in the computer that works like a cell phone.
So we took advantage of getting hold of our youngest son today. It was like he was only a short distance away with a clear connection. The nice thing about this phone is that we can talk forever, and there are no charges. It does work best when we are all in the same time zone.
We did spend some time watching for humpback whales, but no luck there. We did see an occasional bird fly by, but that was it. Recalling other sailings we have done on this coast at this time of year, there were numerous sightings of boobies, gulls, turtles, dolphins and whales. Maybe when we get closer to Mexico, we will see more wildlife.
This evening was "dressy" with the guests entertained by the Vivace strings with classical tunes. After each melody, we could hear clapping all around the lower and upper dining rooms. It seems to be the pattern that at least one of the dressy evenings have the music in the dining room. After placing our order, we had a longer than normal wait between courses. With only 900 guests onboard now, that is a mystery to us for the extended wait times. One guess is that the waiters are having longer wait times for the orders, or there are fewer waiters onboard now. Anyway, we ordered shrimp cocktails with the best red sauce, a Caesar salad, and a bowl of piping hot tomato bisque. Really good too. Mains were one surf and turf of prawns and a tenderloin and another entree of rack of lamb with nothing else on the plate. Dessert was a plate of sliced pineapple and one tiny caramel volcano cake.
While we were waiting for our entrees, we happened to notice three groups of crew members numbering perhaps 10 people in each group. They were being escorted to the larger tables in the lower dining room. They were too young for passengers and not particularly dressed for the gala evening. Most wore t-shirts with a few baseball caps. The girls among them looked much better dressed. Curiosity got the better of us, so we asked Maitre'd Dwi who these diners were. Turned out to be groups of room stewards who were invited for a "team building" experience in the dining room. Since the waiters on deck four were not busy with customers, these groups had the chance to experience dinner with the regular menu we assume and also know the service the guests are used to. Whatever the reason, it appeared they were all having fun.
The entertainment was Teacake Ferguson, a vocalist with songs by Aretha & Whitney. La La Land was the movie in the Wajang as an alternate option. That's funny, we have heard more than one cruise friend refer to sailings on the high seas as being in La La Land. They could be right...
Two more sea days ahead will work out just fine for everyone.
Bill & Mary Ann
No Pictures
