October 17, 2014

Well, we are about 10 hours out of Port Liberty.  We will be an hour late because the feeder bands from Gonzalo were making the seas rough and Captain James slowed down to keep the wibble and wobble out of the Explorer of the Seas.  Probably be an hour late leaving, too.

As you might imagine, based on the hammering Bermuda is getting now, we are not going to the South Atlantic and the Caribbean next week.  Instead we are heading to Canada: Halifax and St. Johns.  And I have changed my talks to non-Caribbean themes.  I’ll be doing an old one “Literary New England” about famous writers who lived there, and some bits and pieces from their works, plus making fun of the language they crafted so well.  The second, and only other talk, will be “Space: The Final Frontier” about the early days of the manned space program.  The first is the only one itinerary specific, but when you change a cruise like RCCL has had to do, you do the best you can.  And I’ll be doing the worship service at 8:45 – wake up, saints!

Tonight two of our table mates finally showed up: Rob and Lisa from New Yak.  Really nice kids, wish they’d been with us the whole time.  This was their third cruise and the first time they’ve eaten in the dining room.  They said they won’t make that mistake again and will be sure to be in the dining room on their next cruise.

Our waiters, Anthony and Svetomir, from India and Serbia, were fantastic.  The best we’ve had cruising in a long, long time.  Great guys.  Super service.

We are packed and ready to move back to Old 9483.  Crazy system.  We started there.  This week they brought on a bridge instructor and instead of giving him this room, they gave him 483, and we move back to 483 for the next cruise.  Needless to say, one of us was not pleased.  We were packed in less than an hour, and it won’t take much longer to put everything back out tomorrow, so all is well.

And speaking of going back to the old – we will be back at Table 346 next cruise.  Hopefully our waiters will move down stairs, too.  They are rated based on guest response, and the third floor dining room is the place to be.  They are both recently back from vacation, so the likelihood of moving down this soon is slim.  But one never knows.  Do one?

Hopefully below is a picture of our waiters and a couple of views from the ice show.  That’s really fantastic.

Well, I will blog Sunday after my talk, and will check email sometime Saturday. 

TTFN!