Rome – Transatlantic 2009 Day 16 – Atlantic Crossing Day 3
December 10, 2009
Yesterday was the 3rd sea day of the Atlantic crossing on our Celebrity Solstice Rome to Fort Lauderdale transatlantic cruise. It was another beautiful sea day with the weather nice and the seas once again calm. Looks like luck will continue to be on our side and we will have another transatlantic cruise without bad weather or heavy seas.
Yesterday was a big wine event day. Since our primary two wine events were looking forward to the entire cruise were in the afternoon and evening, we decided to forego the Captains Club wine seminar in the am. Instead, Sean and enjoyed another hot glass seminar. That show is just pretty amazing and fun to watch. The artists like to create different pieces each time so it really doesn’t get old. It certainly has been one of the highlights on the shipboard activities. The popularity of the show has even surpassed Celebrity’s expectations as they have had to increase the area to accommodate the crowds lest they ruin some very expensive grass.
The afternoon was our Riedel wine tasting seminar. We have done some comparison tasting previously with Riedel crystal vs other glasses/crystal and the difference is quite amazing, but this was our first full blown seminar on the topic. Plus, at the end, each person would get a set of 4 Riedel crystal glasses. It was really interesting to taste the difference in the same wine between the Riedel and ordinary glasses. It was even more so to understand why that was. There’s no black magic. The Riedel crystal is varietal specific – that is a wine glass for each type of wine. By the shape and design of the glass, it focuses the flow of the wine in your mouth and on your tongue to maximize the taste of that wine. It really does make for a noticeable difference in the taste. It definitely was a very interesting and worthwhile seminar.
I spent some time in the afternoon walking the top decks again just checking out the ocean. I even had the luxury (?) of seeing two other vessels going by during the afternoon. According to the Captain, they said we were heading the right direction to get to Fort Lauderdale.
Last night, instead of our normal dinning arrangements, we had signed up for the Connoisseur Dinner. Basically, it’s a specially prepared dinner with specially matched food and wine. The Cellar Master and the Executive Chef prepare a non-standard dinner for the folks who signed up. There were some pretty exclusive wines on the list including a 2001 Lafite Rothchild – the Premier Grand Cru wines. We started the evening tasting some champagne. We then were escorted to the main dining room where they had a back little room set up for us. There was around 25 folks who had signed up for the event.
Everyone was raving about the food. I thoroughly enjoyed the food except for the foe gras appetizer which I reconfirmed that I do not care for. I had veal tenderloins that were just absolutely wonderful especially when paired with the Lafite Rothchild wine. That is such a huge and enjoyable wine and this was probably one of the few if not the only time I will get to sample such a nice wine. Suzanne had a sea bass dish that she said was wonderful. They had paired it with a Chardonnay which she enjoyed but she was also able to wrangle a glass of the Lafite to try. All in all it was a three hour meal/tasting and quite a treat.
After dinner, we went back to the cabin and called it a day about 11:30 pm. Seems hard to imagine but we are already down to the last three days of the cruise.
Rome – Transatlantic 2009 Day 15 – Atlantic Crossing Day 2
December 9, 2009
Yesterday was the 2nd day of our crossing. The weather has continued to hold nicely with at most 6 foot swells. We did run through a couple of rain showers, but the Captain explained those as necessary because of budget cuts and he need to clean the outside of the ship. It’s really nice to have a personable Captain instead of some of the old stodgies you get on some ships. The Captain said he expects the sea state to remain pretty much the same for the rest of the crossing. Woot – two crossings in a row with great weather!
I got the upper hand on my cold yesterday. Still a bit of head congestion and occasionally coughing but I am able to function and do things unlike the day before where I chose to take it easy and watch movies in the cabin, though it was very relaxing.
I spent most of the day yesterday at various vantage points around the ship just taking in the beauty of the ocean. I am kind of weird. I am quite content and happy on some sea days to just stare at the ocean. The mind wanders and clears itself. I like looking for various anomalies or variations in the ocean in the distance. I can just sit there and stare for hours on end. That’s pretty much impossible for Suzanne. She likes to be on the go. Just staring at the ocean is not her cup of tea. She would much rather be sitting with a group gabbing which does nothing for me.
Today was also a good day for ocean staring since Suzanne and her Cruise Critic friends had their cabin crawl. About 40 of them go around looking at the cabins of other Cruise Critic folks to see the different variations and options. As one of the view Family Ocean Veranda cabins on the ship, ours was on the list to be visited.
In the late afternoon, we had the Captain Clubs Celebration party. It’s a pretty good deal. They have free cocktails and food with some special entertainment. This cruise is kind of unique in that there are 1500 Captain Clubs members on the cruise. It turns out that they are pretty much equally divided between classic, select and elite. We are select members but actually make the elite level with this cruise. They gave a little award to the Captains Club members with the most cruises – a couple from Belgium who were on their 54th cruise with Celebrity! That’s living!
Prior to dinner our show tonight was a comedian, Glenn Hirsch. He was pretty good and also clean. He was perhaps not as good as the comedian we saw last year (Fred Klett) but still entertaining and enjoyable to see. The kids enjoyed him too.
After the comedian, it was time for the Celebrity Singing Star competition. That’s basically, the Celebrity version of American Idol. Based on folks singing at the various karaoke sessions, they picked four singers to compete in the Singing Star competition. Suzanne was one of the four singers selected to compete. The top two vote getters in the competition would move on to the overall Starring You competition that Celebrity does for various forms of talent. Each singer got to sing one song and then be judged by a panel like on Idol. The judging panel was comprised of two singers from the Solstice Singers and Dancers Broadway cast and one randomly selected passenger. Suzanne sang Girl in 14G and did a good performance. It was even good enough to earn her one of the top two spots in the competition (exact order wasn’t revealed) and advance to the Starring You finals. She was pretty excited.
Dinner was, well, very nice again. I opted for the prime rib. Suzanne had an orange roughy. Sean had penne pasta with prosciutto and tomatoes. Savannah had shrimp scampi. They were all very good.
After dinner, we retired to the cabin and watched a movie before turning in for the night around midnight. We once again, like every night on the crossing, had the benefit of gaining an extra hour. We wanted to be rested as tomorrow is our main wine event day. We have a Captain’s Club wine seminar just before lunch and then we have a riedel wine crystal seminar/tasting in the mid afternoon followed by a wine connoisseur dinner. That last one sounds really good. It’s a specially prepared dinner with specially selected wines matched up. I haven’t seen the final wine list, but the last one had some huge wines (ie Laffite Rothschild) on it that I normally wouldn’t get a chance to drink or even taste. The kids are on their own for dinner! We are excited.
-
Subscribe via Email
Sign up to receive the latest Mr Papa's World site updates! -
Subscribe via RSS
