Yesterday was day 2 of our Alaskan cruise onboard the Celebrity Mercury. Days at sea tend to be our favorite days of a cruise. They are peaceful, relaxing and regenerative. Yesterday was no different.
We began the day with a leisurely breakfast at 7:30 am. We met my mother, my aunt and my sister (Barb) and her husband (Walt) in the dining room. The eggs benedict were fabulous as usual. They tend to be a staple for me for breakfast.
After breakfast, Sean, Walt and myself entered the ping pong tournament. As fate would have it, Sean ended up eliminating Walt and I ended up having to play Sean in the final. We had a very close match needing four overtime points before I claimed the victory and spoils, a Celebrity Cruises lanyard.
Sean spent the rest of the morning in the teen center with his group in the kids club. Savannah has been disappointed that she was put in the cadets group in the kids club and as of yet, hasn’t been to the kids club. The cadets is for 7 – 9 and she wanted to be able to hang with the older kids. I suspect before too long she will go to the kids club. That said, she has enjoyed doing things with the adults. Her and Suzanne entered several trivia games/contests.
The group enjoyed another nice lunch together in the dining room after which everyone retired to their rooms for a relaxing afternoon. We sat on our balcony and watched the Canadian/Alaskan scenery flow by. It was as breath taking as we remembered from our first Alaskan cruise fourteen years earlier.
The evening of the first full day of the cruise meant the Captain’s welcome aboard dinner and gala complete with formal attire. We decided to get some group pictures, so we dressed early and met in the Cova Cafe. We did the picure routine and had a before dinner cocktail. The kids got lots of nice complements in their formal wear.
The dinner was excellent once again. I enjoyed a nice stuffed pork tenderloin. With Celebrity changing to a new Executive Chef recently, the menus have changed. They are still wonderful, but the kids have been disappointed by escargot being removed from the menu. They used to get escargot as an appetizer for every meal. Most of us had Cherrie Jubilee for dessert which was out of this world. Suzanne got her first specialty coffee of the cruise, Aspen Coffee. They usually make it for you tableside, which is quite a show, but the seas were a bit rough so they couldn’t make it tableside.
After dinner, the Klasens attended the song and dance review show. Everyone else passed. It was the same show as we saw in November on Mercury, but a different cast. In November, it was our least favorite show by the Celebrity Singers and Dancers, but was still enjoyable. We thought the show last night was better performed than in November.
After the show, we went to the Navigator lounge for the 70’s Disco night fun. Oh, and being in Alaska, we also watched the sunset. It was very nice at about 10:3 pm. When we finally retired for the night about 11:30, it was still dusk outside.
Tomorrow, we dock in Juneau. The rest of our group is going on a whale watching expedition. We hope to see whales off the boat as we approach Juneau. We don’t have an excursion planned. We will go into Juneau and walk around. We may go to the Alaskan State Museum and may take a town bus out to a the local Mendenhall Glacier – just have to play it by ear.
The slots were good to me today – ahead $175.00