DAY TWO – “FUN DAY AT SEA:
Despite having gotten to sleep so late, we were up before 8:00 a.m. on Wednesday. Morning comes early up north in the summer time; somewhere off the coast of Canada, the sun rose at 5:28 a.m., which means daybreak came well before 5:00. We awoke to clear skies and water that looked a lot colder than the night before.

Even though it was a sea day – which in theory means no plans, plenty of time to kick back and relax – we had a full day ahead. We wanted to catch John’s morning show on TV, but discovered that our TV didn’t work. I reported that to guest services, and our cabin steward came to check it out. He didn’t have any more luck getting it going than I did, and said “they” (meaning a technician, I assumed) would have to fix it.

After a few hours, no one had shown up, and really I don’t normally care about watching TV on a cruise; I only use it to check my folio and, on this ship, to watch John’s show. But I didn’t want to miss it again so I dropped him a note on Facebook, explained the situation, noted that the TV was no big deal but asked if there was another location on the ship where I could catch the morning show. He replied within an hour, saying “I’m on the TV case.” We went to lunch and when we got back to the cabin, the TV was working. Now that’s service. But that’s not all. That evening was the first elegant night, so we got dressed up and went to the captain’s party. When we saw John at the party, his first question was “Is the TV fixed?”

The Facebook group for this cruise hadn’t been nearly as active as most I belong to. Maybe that’s because I came in so late on it (because of switching to this cruise from the other only six weeks out) and wasn’t there to get people motivated. LOL. But we did have a few folks who were active on the group page, and we had planned a little informal Meet & Greet for our first sea day.

Tom was up for two parties in one day (the captain’s party and the M&G) so I hustled down to the Gotham Lounge, a really nice space that had always been pretty deserted on the May cruise. There I found one of the couples from our group. And that’s all. None of the rest of our group ever showed up.

But that was fine, because I hit it off with both of them immediately and we found that we had a lot in common and a lot to talk about. We sat and visited for over an hour and then it was time to get ready for the evening’s festivities, which included elegant night in the dining room.

 The captain’s party was nice, and we got a chance to talk with John some more, as well as his assistants and the ship’s officers. It was a little late getting started, as there seemed to be some confusion about the exact location and time, but eventually everyone showed up and quite a few passengers attended (many more than on the May sailing).

We got to the dining room early as planned, and were second in line. I asked for a table for two by the window and that put us with different waiters. That was a good thing, as these seemed a lot more engaged. Our head waiter was Abigail and she was very sweet and friendly, but it was her assistant Sergii, from the Ukraine, who really went above and beyond to make our dining experiences great for the rest of the cruise. He also went out of his way to come over and say hello whenever we saw him on Lido or in the other public areas.

Update: I’ve thought about Sergii often since we got home, in light of recent news regarding the fighting in the Ukraine, and hope his family is okay.

Tom looked quite dashing in his blue-tie-on-black-shirt outfit, especially posed in front of the Renaissance paintings that cover the walls of the Bacchus dining room.

Dinner was delicious, as usual. I got lobster, as usual, and my even-more-favorite-than-yesterday dessert, the low cal banana cake, was on the menu. It doesn’t get much better than that (although of course it did – a few days later when we dined at Nick and Nora’s Steak House).

After dinner, we changed clothes and then went for another walk around the ship to try to walk off a few of the pounds we had surely gained at dinner.

When we got back to the cabin, we found even more goodies from John, and our second towel animal.

Since neither of us had gotten much sleep the night before, we didn’t have too much trouble going to bed (relatively) early – plus we wanted to be up early to see the beautiful sights the next day as we sailed through Tracy Arm Fjord.

DEBRA LITTLEJOHN SHINDER
deb@shinder.net   www.debshinder.com