January 28, 2018 – At Sea

Weather continues rather cloudy and windy, and Jim had to move his 3-mile (1-hour) walk indoors this morning, with a fairly steady rain falling outdoors. At 6:00 a.m., there isn’t much activity interrupting speedy roundtrip walks around and around the sixth deck. The good news is that the rough seas have calmed down a great deal, and the swimming pool has finally opened. We’re hoping that by the time we reach Hawaii the sun may even make an appearance.

We’ve stayed busy with all the activities onboard. World Cruise Game events have begun and will continue on sea days through February 13th. Jim’s mixed-relay walking event will take place after our two days in Hawaii. The two of us had a wonderful dinner last Friday evening in the Prego (Italian) restaurant. Because we’re full-world-cruisers (as opposed to those passengers who are only on board for one or two segments of the voyage), we can eat as often as we like in the three specialty restaurants on Crystal Serenity. We really like Prego.

Each segment of the World Cruise, there’s a different magician from the Magic Castle in Hollywood on board the ship. They perform 30-minute shows in an intimate club setting. The audience is restricted to 20 people maximum for each show, and tickets are hard to get. Last Thursday (Jan 25^th), we attended the show by Paul Wilson, a Scotsman who was described as the world’s foremost expert on cons and scams and star of both the BBC show, “The Real Hustle” and “Scammed” for the History channel. We sat no further than three feet from him and could not figure out how he did his amazing sleight of hand tricks.

In the Galaxy Theater we went to shows by Broadway performer Emily Skinner and comedian John Joseph. We especially enjoyed the comedian -- he was nonstop, laugh-a-minute, funny.

The past two days at sea there have been excellent enrichment speakers. We went to six of their presentations and found them well worth attending. Dwight Stones, Olympic medalist who set the world record in the high jump ten different times, spoke on "The True Definition of Winning." Destination lecturer Ken Rees presented the history of the Hawaiian Islands, along with tips on what to see and do during our visits to Maui and Oahu. Astronomer Dennis Mammana previewed the total lunar eclipse which will occur between 2:00 and 5:00 a.m. January 31st. He will be on deck 13 of the ship that morning to help with viewing the eclipse. We aren't sure whether we will get up for the viewing or not. Maybe we'll just take his word for it.

The two former Olympic Athletes, John Naber and Dwight Stones spoke, once again, this time on "Mind, Body, and Spirit of an Olympian." Here’s a photo of the two of them (the ones in suits).  Mr. Naber is in the foreground and Mr. Stones is in the background). In case you’re interested, both of them are very tall – 6’6” and 6’7”.

World affairs lecturer Dr. Robert Schrire spoke on the topical theme, “Tyrants: The Case of North Korea.” Special interest lecturer Jon Malay presented theories on how the ancient Polynesians navigate across the vast Pacific Ocean to Hawaii. Not everyone on board attends all of these presentations, but they are taped and shown on stateroom TVs, but we like to attend as many of these as possible in person.

Today was the first Jazz Brunch Buffet set up in the Crystal Cove, with more appealing food than you can possibly imagine.

Jim & Ginny