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.
My sister and a friend are on the same cruise. I had been wondering about the transatlantic crossing. Thank you for your posting.
This is our second one as we did one last year too. Both have been superb. If you live for port days and dread the thought of 6 days in a row at sea, it might not be the right cruise. That said, still plenty to do on the ship. never a dull moment!