Day 7 - Tue 12/11/18 - At Sea to Florida - Day 1

Overnight the internet problems seemed to be fixed. We'll see if it stays fixed. The front desk even called back with a follow up if I found the internet problem fixed.

This first sea day started with a coffee chat with the Cruise Director, Ross, and the Staff Captain who is from Belgium. He was also the staff captain on the Koningsdam and recently passed muster to become a captain when there is an opening. He had some cool banter responding to comments from the chief engineer who commented in a previous chat that all the deck crew does is stare out the window. We also learned that the life raft covers lost overboard during the Cartagena drill were not recovered by the divers.

Following the chat, Captain Albert gave a full house presentation on the Golden Years of Cruising from 1900-1960. He spoke without notes for almost an hour giving much detail about how cruise ships developed and why. It was impressive and he'll be speaking again later in the cruise on the history of Holland America.

In the afternoon we participated in a cabin crawl or essentially a chance to see a number of cabins and compare various features. I'll be uploading videos of those visits to Cruise Critic. Don Mings then gave a simple history of the Portuguese Interest in the spice trade. I wish he would lose the print on his slides and just lecture. Angela went to the chat with Nate & Debbie (married couple who play the dueling pianos). She reported it was a good session.

We did a mile walk around the Promenade Deck before the 2nd Gala dinner of the cruise. I captured a time lapse photo collage which I'll also post to Cruise Critic.

The string quintet, Atlas, performed a Bertstein to Bublé set which was quite good. The main stage performance of Humanity was heavily hyped and the Workd Stage was packed. On the positive side, the electronic technical aspects was off the chart great! However, I really didn't care for the dance aspects and failed to grasp any connection between the title and the dancing. I'm sure others will disagree, and that's okay. Art is art in the eye of the beholder.

We capped our evening listening to Nate & Debbie at Billboard Onboard sing all requests. This is a very popular venue. Prior to it, the Rolling Stone Rock Room band deafened everyone.

Stay tuned for more.

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