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 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.
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