At Sea,

Judy spent the morning at her knitting class.  Kristin Drysdale is teaching knitting patterns from her recently published book, The Nordic Knitting Primer.  Judy is taking the Icelandic Sweater Class.  In three 3-hour classes on Sea Days, Kristin will teach all the techniques used in constructing an Icelandic Sweater.  Judy is knitting the Little Gretel pattern in a thinner yarn and smaller needles.  Her project will include all the techniques that are used in this pattern and should end up being a medium Teddy bear-size pullover.

I spent the morning unpacking, getting all my IT gear straightened out, and working on the blog.

Around noon, Judy and I went to the SeaView pool for lunch.  We picked up some sandwiches from the New York Deli.  I really like all the food they serve there.  I got the Pastrami sandwich and Judy got the Little Italy Meatball Sub.  There was a 35-minute wait to get our food, but we were given a pager and didn’t have to stay too close.

We ran into Hyperion Knight, Guest Entertainer Pianist, who we have seen several times on previous cruises.  We enjoy his shows very much and we will be getting together for dinner in a few days.  He is a crazy good Trivia player – so if you see him at Trivia – get on his team quick!

I noticed that about 20% of the pool lounges were still untouched around noon.  No one seemed to be saving loungers and there was plenty to go around.  It was foggy most of the day and this isn’t a Caribbean cruise, so the pool isn’t as busy as it usually is on other sailings.

Dr Michael Douglas was the guest lecturer this afternoon.  He gave a talk on the Artic Environment to a packed house in the World Stage at 2 pm.

The Wine Tasting, also at 2 pm, drew a big crowd.

Tonight was the first “Dressy” night – Gala night is now RIP – at least on this ship.  There were a handful of men wearing tuxedos, maybe 10 % in suits, a few more in coats, ties, or jackets.  The rest were wearing the basic collared shirt.  I scheduled a Tuxedo Junction at 7 pm but this ended up conflicting with the Captain’s Welcome Toast at 7:15 pm so turnout was sparse.  We should get a few more people on the next “Dressy Night”.

The Cruise and Travel Director, Bettyann Chun, and Captain, Eric Barhorst, kicked off the Welcome Aboard Reception on the World Stage at 7:15 pm.  After a few remarks, Captain Eric introduced his Senior Officers and that was that – maybe 10 minutes once they got started.  The evening show was starting at 7:30 pm and we rushed out to get to dinner early.  We hoped to finish in time for the 9 pm show (moved up from 9:30 pm).

We are at a 6-top table and we enjoyed the dinner and the company.  We had the Filet Mignon Oscar which was very good, along with the Jumbo Shrimp Cocktail and a Creme Brulee for desert.

We finished our meal at 9 pm and walked straight to the World Stage for the show, getting there a few minutes after the show began.  Going forward we are going to start dinner at 7:30 pm instead of 8 pm and we should be able to get to the shows on time.  The late shows are lightly attended so getting a seat is never a problem.

No Lobster on the menu tonight – See a copy HERE.

Cantaré– a male quartet of talented tenors, was on the World Stage tonight – they sang a variety of popular songs – to a prerecorded backing track – no live band.  It was a good show, they are very entertaining.

We will be in Sydney, Nova Scotia, tomorrow.  There wasn’t any discussion of going thru Immigration tomorrow so I guess this is all being handled behind the scenes.