Thursday, January 9 - At Sea

 Thank you to all who are leaving comments.  It's nice to see that people are reading these posts.  There are a few from "Anonymous", which is the default, but I think I know who you are.  If you want me to know for sure, please sign your comment.

Jan, about the wine - Michael thinks he remembers that on our previous cruise, we asked for a bottle of the Wente chardonnay in the suite.  Once you do that, they keep that info, so they will make sure you have one delivered on future cruises.  Once years ago we asked for a bottle of distilled water, and ever since we've had one in the suite when we arrived.

We've run into more past cruisers, including John and Rocket who were on the 2020 World Cruise and 2022 Grand Arctic with us.  And today at lunch we saw Shambu (Vishnu's twin brother) who is the maitre'd in La Veranda and Chartreuse.  When he heard we had reservations there tonight, he said he'd see what he could do about getting us a table for 2, but we assured him we were happy with a sharing table of 4, as long as he put us with nice people!  (He knew we were joking.)

This morning we attended 2 lectures:  "The Cuban Missile Crisis" by James Grant-Peterkin from the UK was really good.  He had notes, but only briefly referred to them and spoke like he was telling a story, rather than just cramming facts in.  Will be sure to attend his other talks.

And second, was Terry Bishop, also from the UK, who spoke on "A Brief History of the Caribbean".  This wasn't one of his best, but it was still enjoyable because he has a wry sense of humor that comes through and he's so knowledgeable.  He didn't even refer to his notes.  My only complaint is that his slides are pretty small so we couldn't always see what was on them.  I think I'll be sure to sit on the lower level a bit closer next time.

The weather is getting better so the pool deck was busy mid-day.

This afternoon was the third lecture: "AI in Music and Art" by Bill Lee.  He was a lecturer on our Oceania cruise up the Amazon last year and not one of our favorites.  He's just like I remembered in that his lectures don't really flow smoothly and are a bit too technical sometimes to follow.  I don't think I came away from this one with much new information.

We played trivia with Roger, and Bo (short for Barbara) and Bob who approach trivia the same way we do.  We only got 11/15, but had lots of fun anyway.  They are all on the entire World Cruise.  

Tonight was a formal optional night and the Captain's Welcome Party in the theatre.  Afterward, we had dinner reservations at Chartreuse at a sharing table where we had a very nice dinner with Jeanne and Roger who are from England.  That is the third Roger we've met on this cruise and the second Barbara - a record!  Then I actually made it to the show which was a comedian/magician named Levent.  I didn't stay until the end as he was just OK.