At Sea

Sunshine! Today was a sea day and it was beautiful; hot and sunny with a few clouds. Seas were very calm all day. I bought the access pass to the spa deck and therapy pool for the whole cruise. It is a private deck right above the bridge. They only sell 20 access passes for the entire cruise, although some day passes are available. So far there has never been more than one other person up there. I have been going in the morning after our coffee in the cabin. The pool itself doesn’t begin to compare with those on Mercury or Galaxy, but it is a nice heated private pool with a couple jets and a bubble lounger.

Tonight was the first formal night and the welcome party. It was quite nice with all the officers and primary staff introduced. Perhaps ¼ of the men were in tuxes and almost all the rest in dark suits - - very few gowns for women but almost all in sparkly tops and black skirts.
Tomorrow is the Panama Canal - Jim is going to get a 1 day pass to the spa deck. The view should be wonderful and a complete contrast to our last trip through the canal where we were in the Penthouse on Infinity which is the aft corner of the ship.

Finally we have internet access!

Here is our first onboard post. The internet has been down for servicing so I’ve not been able to post until now. This is a combination of posts from the time we left Denver until now; the morning of day 3 - heading into Grand Cayman.

We’re onboard. Our flight yesterday went perfectly; no delays of any type. We spent the night at the Hyatt Regency Pier 66; nice room with a balcony on the 12th floor.
We stayed at the hotel until 12:15 on Monday as I wanted to watch the inauguration. Then a quick ride over to the port and we were onboard 15 minutes after getting out of the van. It’s a small ship and we have a regular size balcony cabin. The cabin is very nice, but has little storage - actually we did very well putting things away and stored our clothes for much cooler weather under the bed in a suitcase.

We did the dinner buffet the first night and the food was very good. Tuesday morning we had our usual coffee and pastries delivered to the room after we awoke. Then we wandered around a bit more of the ship. She really is lovely; much ornate dark wood everywhere. The library is huge (well comparable huge - tiny ship but one of the biggest libraries I’ve seen except aboard QE2). The casino is very small but I don’t usually do much there except give my $10 charity to the starving slots. We had lunch in the dining room - it was very good and I’m glad to learn that it will be open every day - even port days. Dinner was in the buffet area in the Bistro which is offered more than the buffet dinner. It has two menus; an Italian pizza and pasta one and one that offers steak, chicken, etc. We will probably be having dinner there many nights.
Weather this morning is gray, cloudy, wet with moderate to high seas. We are expected to anchor in GrandCayman at 9:00am.

Thank you for the gifts. It was such fun to receive them.

Seas have been moderate to high and winds at 20 knots so we are doing a bit of rocking and rolling. This seems to be a well traveled bunch of people and I haven’t heard anyone mention seasickness. We did have some sun after lunch and spent some time sitting our on the balcony. Now I’m going to try to post this as it looks like I have access.

We are Packed

We are either really good at packing or we have forgotten much stuff! We are completely packed in 4 large bags. 3 are at about 49 lbs. but one came in at 52 lbs… we will see if we get an overweight charge on it. Maybe it will slide through but at this point I really don’t care. I just want to see all 4 of them on the carousel in FLL.

David will take us to the airport in the morning and all arrangements are taken care of for the house. Fred is in charge of the house while we are gone - Peter and Beth will help.
I’m almost to the point where I can relax… then again probably not until we get to the hotel in Fort Lauderdale.

--Ben?? could that be Desert Vision Ben??