Last evening we set our clocks forward one hour due to the time zone change. We woke up fairly early this morning and had breakfast in the Lido Café. Once again the folks on the Lido Deck have rotated so we now have other staff assisting us in the morning. We know many of them from previous sailings and from seeing them in other areas of the Lido Deck. Essentially, there are three teams and they rotate every segment. Currently, we’re on the third segment of the World Cruise so next time around we will have the staff in the Café who assisted us on the first segment. They are all so very nice. Most of the staff on the Lido Stewards are from the Philippines and typically they work about nine months straight and then go home for two months. They are such outstanding individuals. They have a tremendous work ethic and are genuinely very caring and nice people who go out of their way to make each passenger feel special. We enjoy talking with them and learning more about them, their life at home and about their families.
After breakfast we worked out in the Fitness Center. Keith worked out on the Elliptical Machine for a little over an hour and Anne Marie did likewise on the treadmill.
The ship is about two-thirds full and between that and the time zone change there were not many people in either the Lido Café or the Fitness Center while we were in each venue.
Later in the morning we attended a lecture given by best selling biographer and Time magazine’s diplomatic correspondent, Christopher Ogden. He has lectured on Crystal for almost ten years. He has written several books including Life of the Party, which is a biography of Pamela Harriman. This book was on the New York Times bestseller list for five months and also became a television movie. He has also written other books including a biography on Margaret Thatcher. Today’s lecture was titled “The US and Latin America: Not Such Good Neighbors”. We enjoyed the lecture and it certainly gave us lots to talk and think about.
Crystal offers a wonderful lecture program throughout the year and expands on the number of lectures offered during the world cruise. We look forward to these and other lectures over the course of the cruise.
After this lecture we attended Team Trivia. As this was the first day of the third segment, new trivia teams were added. Our team finished in a tie for second place today and is only one answer behind the top team. So, we are off to a good start. We had a wonderful lunch in the main dining room with some of our fellow Team Trivia teammates and two other couples.
This afternoon Keith went back to the Fitness Center to lift weights while Anne Marie went to needlepoint to pick up a needlepoint kit.
This morning during Christopher Ogden’s lecture the seas were quite choppy and it was very windy. It has been better this afternoon.
This evening is the first Formal night of this segment so we kicked off the night with the Captain’s Formal Welcome Reception. This reception provides a wonderful opportunity to talk with fellow passenger’s, to greet the captain and to also hear him welcome all passengers to the ship for this segment of the world cruise. At the reception we took a picture with Rosano and Earl from the Lido Staff who showed us to a table at the reception. The other picture shows Captain Otto.
Following the reception we had dinner in the main dining room. As one of our tablemate couples is on the overnight shore excursion there were four of us at dinner this evening. As we’ve mentioned before, we really enjoy the formal nights as most of the men are in tuxedos or white dinner jackets with the remainder in dark suits and the women are in formal dresses or other formal outfits. Everyone looked so wonderful this evening all dressed up.
Tomorrow we will have another day at sea as the Crystal Serenity cruises northward to Rio. We will arrive in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on Sunday morning.
During this segment of the world cruise Crystal will host their version of the Olympics for passengers and crew. It will be held on the sea days when we make our way from South America over to Africa. There are two former Olympic Medalists on the cruise They are: Dorothy Hamill and Tracy Evans. We will share more information about the Olympic games and the former Olympians when the games commence.
As we mentioned, we enjoy reading your posts, so we welcome those of you who would like to post on the Blog.
We wish everyone a wonderful weekend.
Keith & Anne Marie
No comments:
Post a Comment