Today, we had another full day at sea as we sail to Ecuador. This will be the first time that we visit Ecuador so we are looking forward to seeing the port of call. We have a shore excursion scheduled for tomorrow.
Once again, we woke up early to begin another wonderful day on-board the Crystal Serenity. We had an early breakfast and then worked out in the fitness center. There are less people in the fitness center compared to how full it was the first couple of days of the voyage. This is similar to other cruises we have been on where after a few days less people are working out and most of those are the regulars who are the ones who work out daily. The facilities are very good. In addition to the equipment, Crystal offers several classes in the early morning and the late afternoon hours. Anne Marie continues to workout on the treadmill while Keith works out on the elliptical machine. Each of these machines also has their own individual television monitor so we use it as an opportunity to keep up with national and international news. We also receive a condensed New York Times in our room each day that is the size of a newsletter.
At 10:00 AM we attended a lecture given by Author, Professor, and Television Personality Harm de Blij on “Growing Geopolitical Problems in South America”. His lecture covered a variety of items including the United States relationships with South America and our other neighbors to the south, major economic and political issues and those specific areas within South America where terrorism will likely spread. He also talked about both global warming and global cooling.
As we sailed across the equator we observed the affect from El Nino. Normally this time of the year it would be very sunny, but today it was very cloudy.
Following the presentation, we attended the Equator Crossing Ceremony. The ceremony was performed by the pool area and was a lot of fun.
We can’t share the secrets with you so you’ll have to book a cruse on Crystal to experience first hand the secret initiation. However, we have posted some pictures.
As this was a sea day, we had trivia once again. There are now a total of fifteen teams with eight members on each team. We didn’t do as well today as we tied for third place. If we only knew that Mickey Mouse has four fingers we would have finished in second place and if we knew that Hello Dolly was written for Ethel Merman we would have tied for first place. Oh well, there will be more trivia games coming up.
We had lunch in the main dining room with two of the three other couples from our trivia team. We really enjoy the sit-down service and the wonderful salad entrees that we can order in the restaurant.
We took a nice walk on the promenade deck as we have done each day. As we have mentioned before we really enjoy this deck as this ship has a wonderful wrap-around promenade deck, which is a joy to walk. It is never crowded and there is very little furniture on this deck.
Before dinner, we attended the Crystal Society Cocktail Party. All passengers’ who have previously cruised with Crystal become Crystal Society Members at the end of their first cruise. As a Crystal Society Member you receive discounts on future sailings, are part of the affinity program, which provides certain benefits as milestones are achieved based on the number of sailings that are completed and also includes other benefits such as being invited to one Crystal Society Cocktail Party per voyage. These cocktail parties provide yet another opportunity to socialize with our fellow shipmates. Following the cocktail party we went to dinner. This evening’s attire was formal with most of the men wearing either a tuxedo, white dinner jacket or dark suit and the women wearing a formal outfit. Tonight was French night. We always enjoy the ambience of the formal nights when we sail with Crystal.
We have enjoyed reading the comments that some of you have posted and really appreciated each of them.
Today, we received a booklet containing a list of all Full World Cruise Guests. We have a wonderful diverse group of passenger’s representing states throughout the United States and several different countries including China, Japan, Spain, The United Kingdom, Belgium, Canada, Antigua & Barbuda, Netherlands, and New Zealand. It is always so interesting conversing with each of the passenger’s that we meet.
We look forward to seeing Ecuador tomorrow.
Keith & Anne Marie
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