En Route To Ashdod, Israel Day 1

A word about Petra. We posted some pictures on our picture web site from yesterdays tour of Petra.

We woke up early this morning since we knew that we had a busy day today. We had our usual breakfast in the Lido Café and it was not as busy today as it has been for most of this segment of the cruise. With some passengers having done two full days of tours over the past two days we suspect that some wanted to sleep in a little later this morning. We spoke to some of our fellow passenger’s about what a wonderful time we all had in Petra yesterday. We also viewed some of the scenery from the ship including seeing the coast of Saudi Arabia. After a nice breakfast, we went to the Fitness Center to workout. Anne Marie is feeling better and should be back to full strength in a couple of days. Anne Marie worked out on the treadmill while Keith worked out for an hour on the elliptical machine. We each worked out for about one hour and fifteen minutes.

This morning we attended a couple of lectures. The first lecture was given by Sportswriter and National Public Radio Commentator Frank Deford. The title of his presentation was “The Old Ball game.” This covered how John McGraw, Christy Mathewson, and the New York Giants created modern baseball at the turn of the twentieth century. He spoke at length about these two individuals and other ballplayers and managers of their time. He is such a wonderful speaker and we look forward to his next lecture.

The second lecture was given by Crystal Cruises Senior Vice President of Hotel Operations, Thomas Mazloum and the Director of Crystal Cruises Land Programs, John Stoll. They spoke about the World Cruise of 2008 along with other upcoming Crystal Adventures. They reviewed many of the shore excursions for this summers sailings of the Baltic and the Mediterranean. One area they emphasized is that Crystal is now offering many overland programs where passenger’s can spend one or more nights on land and then meet up with the ship at another port. They say that these have become very popular with those passenger’s who want to take advantage of the fact that they are already close to various tourist sites but need more time on land to see them. There have been many overland programs offered during this years World Cruise with a fair amount of passengers who has signed up for them. For example, in the Middle East, some passenger’s are on a three-day overland tour of Israel while others are on a four night overland tour of Egypt. When we were in Africa a number of passengers went on a Safari and there were many choices available for them to choose from.

We then went to team trivia which will be the first of two consecutive trivia games since tomorrow is also another sea day. Our team finished in a tie for second place today.

Afterwards, we had lunch in the main dining room. We each had a wonderful salad entrée and enjoyed the fine service in the dining room. We ate with another couple who are doing the last three segments of this World Cruise and who we have sailed with on three previous Crystal cruises. It was fun to talk with them and we also play table tennis with them from time to time.

This afternoon we attended a mandatory Israeli Immigration Inspection that was conducted for all passengers. We were given group cards with a pre-determined appointment time to report one of the main lounges. When we entered the lounge we were given our passport and then we met briefly with the immigration officer. He stamped another card, which we will take with us into Israel, and as we left the lounge we returned our passport back to personnel from Crystal. This is all part of the rigid regulations that are enforced for those visiting Israel. For example, the deadline for reserving tours in this port of call was earlier than was we are accustomed to since the cruise lines must provide the Israeli authorities with a manifest listing those passengers who will be visiting Israel along with what tours they will be on or if they will be on their own. All of this is perfectly understandable given the Middle East situation and we are very supportive of this and all related requirements.

This evening we attended Friday night services before we went to dinner. The attire for this evening was formal and this is the third of four formal nights that are planned for this segment of the World Cruise.

Tomorrow morning we will enter the Suez Canal at 6:00 AM and we wil exit the canal at approximately 6:00 PM.

Keith & Anne Marie