Saturday, March 11, 2017

two sea days to sydney


Few experiences in life are as delightful as my mornings in Mexico.

But sea days on a cruise ship are a close second.

Most cruisers like port days. Cruise ships have a great advantage. You unpack once and your hotel moves from city to city -- the next more exotic than the first.

Obviously, I like that aspect of cruising. I have been extolling it for the past two weeks.

But there is something a bit too frenetic about port days for me. The long lines getting on and off the ship that expose the fault lines in human nature. The time lost just getting to tour destinations just too far from the port where the ship is docked. And the limited stay in each port that is a constant prod to see more with less retention.

Given my choice, I would choose a cruise where port days are an afterthought. That is the primary reason I like repositioning cruises, such as the Copenhagen to Miami cruise I will be on in October.

Today is one of those blessed sea days. As will be tomorrow.

As I write this, I am sitting in the Diamond lounge, an area, reserved for frequent cruisers, perched high above the ship. And it is a day to remain perched.

The seas are a bit rough today. But far from the worst I have seen. We all look like Betty Ford graduates gone bad. The all-too-familiar sickness bags posted throughout the ship underline our weaknesses.



I have never suffered from sea sickness. But my fellow travelers who have a touch of motion sickness are well-advised to reacquaint themselves with better living through chemistry.

Usually, sea days are my days to sit quietly and read. That is when I travel alone. But I am not traveling alone on this cruise.

And, as luck would have it, the activities that one or two of us find enticing are all crammed together.

  • 10:00 am The Backstage Event: Meet your Entertainment Team
  • 10:15 am Progressive Quiz #7
  • 11:15 am Theater Tour
  • 12:00 pm Galley Lunch Buffet
Of course, I would have done the theater events on my own, but not the trivia -- that I am finding rather tedious on this cruise. And the "thank you" buffet was so boring it would have been better to have avoided.

If you haven't figured this out already, I am very fond of live entertainment -- and live entertainers. I learn something new about ship-board stage productions at each of these events. Today it was a very comprehensive description of the complications surrounding injury and illnesses amongst cast members.



So, it is a day of education, a tad of reading, and a lot of auditions for my stint with the Wallendas.

One more day at sea before Sydney. 


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