Rome – Transatlantic 2009 Day 17 – Atlantic Crossing Day 4
December 11, 2009
Yesterday was the 4th sea day of the Atlantic crossing on this Celebrity Solstice transatlantic cruise. I hate to sound like a broken record, but the weather continues to just absolutely rock. Temperatures were in the upper 70’s with clear skies and continued very calm seas.
After an early breakfast, I headed up to the lawn club to find a comfy chair for more ocean staring. What I thought would be a bit of a gimmick, has turned out to be one of my favorite places on the ship. It’s also quite popular with most of the guests. Who would have thought a huge lawn on a cruise ship would be so cool? Perhaps I should keep more of an open mind on that new mall on the behemoth Oasis of the Sea, which I still don’t really see myself cruising.
When the hot glass show time rolled around, Sean and decided to attend it once again. With every show being different and unique, they are all fun. The area for the hot glass show is also on The Lawn Club. The hot glass show has surpassed Celebrity’s expectations and they are trying make changes to accommodate more folks with better seating and other features from feedback of the glass blowers. With 2 Solstice class ships (Celebrity Solstice and Celebrity Equinox) already having hot glass demonstrations and a third (Celebrity Eclipse) already in the pipeline and launching in April, changes are hard to do and expensive. Still, the glass blowing demo is another winner in my mind. Sean has already told me he wants to go to all the remaining shows.
At this show, one of the gaffers decided to make a clown. Wow, what an intricate and detailed process that was. And the result was outstanding – or at least what we could see when it was put in the annealing oven. The unveiling, after the cooling process, will be this morning and expectations are high. I think part of the reason Sean wants to go to the remaining shows is to try to get the clown in the raffle. If you recall, since the Corning Museum of Glass, who does the show, is not for profit, they raffle off all the glass they make during the cruise. It would be quite a piece to have.
I even managed to stick in a short nap in the afternoon. This has been a very relaxing and restful vacation. I usually hate naps as I don’t sleep at night, but the three or four I have taken on the cruise have done nothing but good things. It is certainly working to recharge my batteries though I had my doubts after our Rome adventures and early port days.
In the evening, Sean and I went to another glass blowing demonstration. The night show, under the lights is slightly less attended due to the conflict with the early seating dinner crowd. This is also the first show where one of the artists actually failed in making their glass and broke it during the process. This was a 30 years experienced glass blowing gaffer. He wasn’t too upset and it explained that working on the glass show for Celebrity was a unique opportunity for them to try new things, to experiment and sort of practice for when they were making pieces for commission or for sale. He said if he had been paying for the studio, the glass, the assistants, etc, he would have been more upset. He said he knows what he did wrong and would improve it the next time. By the time Celebrity has the glass blowing demonstrations on 5 or 6 ships, they will have 60 or 70 glass blowers lined up to support the cruises and demonstrations. The concept is quite popular with the glass making artist community.
Dinner was again smart casual in the main dining room. Savannah had asked if she could go to the dinner party in the fun factory since she hadn’t attended one yet. It was make your own pizza night, so we let her attend. Sean and I enjoyed a wonderful breaded chicken dish with a nice sauce. Suzanne went with a Spaghetti Bolognese and enjoyed it too. So that is another one of the nice things we like about Celebrity, the food is really, really good and the menus are varied throughout the cruise.
After dinner, it was time for the Celebrity Starring You Awards. It’s sort of their Academy Awards for all the various events that cruise guests compete in throughout the cruise. Some awards including joke telling, singing, photography, etc. Suzanne was a finalist in the Singing Star (ie karaoke) competition. The top two singing star performers also got to do another live song in the theater to all the guests. Suzanne performed Cabaret to a rousing ovation. When the winner was announced, it was not her and she took home another 2nd place Singing Star finish.
Next up was the Grand Chocolate showing in the Sky lounge. There were more chocolate and ice carvings than you could shake a stick at. Sean skipped it to hang out in the teens club. Savannah was the only one who actually sampled some chocolate. Suzanne and I just looked.
It was about 12:15 when we headed back to the room to end the day – another fabulous cruise day at sea. Unfortunately, there are only 2 more left before we arrive at Fort Lauderdale and the fun will come to a close – until the next cruise!
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.
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