January 26, 2018 – At Sea

We’re continuing our west-southwest traverse of the North Pacific from Los Angeles to Hawaii, and the full schedule of on-board activities are underway on Crystal Serenity. There are normally about 50 offerings of fitness, enrichment lectures, card games, movies, and so forth from which to choose. These include everything from bridge lessons to music, knitting, golf, computers, digital filmmaking, dancing, tai chi, Pilates, casino tournaments, afternoon tea, and on and on.

One big event -- the opening ceremony for the 2018 World Cruise Games. Three former Olympic athletes are onboard to officiate and to share their stories with us – John Naber (America’s most decorated athlete at the 1976 Games in Montreal and later a TV broadcaster for over 35 different sports for all major networks and cable outlets), Dwight Stones (two-time medal winner in the 1972 and 1976 Olympic Games and TV broadcaster for nearly 30 years), and Wyomia Tyus (four-time Olympic medalist and founder of the Women’s Sports Foundation). The World Cruise Games will run from January 28 through February 13, with an average of about six events per day. Events include lap swimming, paddle tennis, shuffleboard, basketball, walking relay, and golf putting, to the somewhat less athletic events such as chess, team trivia, and gin rummy. Jim signed up for the walking competition, and Ginny for solitaire – up until now, we didn’t know that was an Olympic event. It must be for the World Cruise Games.

Weather is slowly warming up, approaching 70°F (much better than the 50s we experienced in LA). Jim has started his 3-mile walks daily around the Promenade Deck in early morning (usually starting between 6:00 and 7:00 a.m.) and we’ve started our game competitions between the two of us. The score so far is tied 1 – 1 in Gin Rummy. So far, it’s been rather windy, with a lot of swells in the ocean. We’ve noticed that water has been drained from the swimming pool for the past few days, because it was splashing out of the pool and all over the Lido deck.

We’ve attended a number of excellent enrichment lectures, including the previously mentioned John Naber, who is an excellent speaker tying his Olympic experiences to motivational themes. Dr. Robert Schrire is a world affairs lecturer and Director of the Policy Institute at the University of Cape Town. Dr. Schrire is a rather expansive, thought-provoking, and challenging thinker. His first topic was, “Why are People So Angry.” Today were two more exceptional presentations ─ first was Jon Malay, a meteorologist, oceanographer, and what he calls a “space professional.” Of course, his presentation interested Jim, as they were right down his alley.  Then there was Celebrity Lecturer Bruce McGill, who has appeared in over 150 films, Broadway plays, and TV series over the past 50 years. His reminiscences of a career spanning from “Animal House” to “Lincoln,” and many others along the way, were fascinating.

Last Wednesday evening, as part of formal night, we saw the remarkable new Crystal Serenity production, “Crystal in Motion,” featuring the Crystal Ensemble of Singers and Dancers, and accompanied by the Crystal Showband. Our review ─ “Wow” ─ it’s a very high energy and spectacularly performed show. Everyone in the audience was blown away by the cast. Singers Tom Lowe and Karin Kovacova sang strongly; violinist Irina Guskova was great; and the Showband, led by Raphaël Derkson, was outstanding. Likewise, the six singers and dancers performed difficult numbers beautifully. Highlight for us was probably the Lord of the Dance number, led by Dmitri Ilukhin. We don’t know how he can do that and make it look so easy.

Thursday night’s show was equally good. Vocalist Jessie Hamilton has a lot of energy, talent, and showed a wide repertoire -- he put on a great show, backed by the Crystal Serenity Showband. Jessie starred as Simba in the cast of Disney’s Festival of the Lion King in both Hong Kong and at Walt Disney World, and we saw him star in the final Crystal World Cruise Special Event show onboard Serenity in 2016. He was a dynamic, young performer then and still is a real showman. It was a great evening.

We have two more days at sea before reaching Maui on Monday, January 29th.

Jim & Ginny