We had another wonderful time on the ship last evening. One of the pleasures of any cruise, and particularly a World Cruise is the evening when you get together with friends on board the ship.
Before dinner we sat at the Crystal Cove with friends John and Linda for almost 45 minutes.
Anne Marie's suit has some similarities to the one that some of the Crystal Crew now wear such as those who work behind the Reception Desk and the ones worn by others such as the Crystal Society Hostess, Japanese Hostess and the Cruise Sales Consultant. We did stop by the Reception Desk and got a good laugh about that.
We dined at the Crystal Dining Room with good friends Lynn and Buddy. We have sailed with the two of them the past few years and have enjoyed lots of great conversations along with several special dinners with the two of them.
We had pre-ordered a Caesar Salad and also Chateaubriand with Head Waiter Bojan. Bojan prepared the salad for us table side and it was quite good.
Our next course was the entree and the Chateaubriand. Bojan carefully cut the beef so that each person had two sliced pieces which was more than enough for everyone. It was cooked medium rare and was quite tender and tasty. It was accompanied by potatoes and some vegetables.
The meat was cooked perfectly.
We ordered some additional side orders of vegetables and shared them family style
Asparagus.
Sautéed Onions
Peas
We also began our meal with a nice Chardonnay bottle of wine which Javier had selected for us and shortly before the entree came Javier poured the Red Wine which was a nice Bordeaux which he had selected for the evening and also had decanted for us.
Both wines worked very well.
Anne Marie ordered a sugar free Pumpkin Dessert and Keith had his mixed berries as his dessert. Sorry but we didn't get a photo of the Pumpkin Dessert.
All in all we had a fabulous time. We never ran out of conversation and we caught up on so much over dinner. We will get together again.
The entertainment for last evening was performed by Ventriloquist Mark Merchant. He can often be found performing on both the Crystal Symphony and the Crystal Serenity and he also does perform on some other cruise ships. He is very witty and nothing he says surprises us.
When we arrived back to our room we received a letter about our visit to Bangkok and it was something that we had expected. In short, due to the situation in Bangkok where the Thai government has declared a 60 day state of emergency and the United States State Department has issued a Travel Alert it has been decided to cancel our planned visit to Bangkok. Instead we will spend one additional day in Ho Chi Minh City and an additional day cursing the beautiful Halong Bay. We fully understand this decision and in the end the most important thing is the safety of the guests, crew and the ship.
We slept very well and the seas were relatively calm.
Keith awoke early and began his day with his early morning workout at the Fitness Center. He watched a couple of news programs to catch up on news from around the world and also from the United States.
He went back to the room to do some reading and writing and then he went back to the Fitness Center for some additional time on the Elliptical Machine. Friend John arrived so they chatted for a little while.
Afterwards, he enjoyed time in the Lido Cafe as he had coffee and read, wrote and also chatted with some of the Lido Deck Stewards.
He spoke with Lido Deck Stewards Max, Ross, Jun, Benjamin and Liebert. This is a photo of Liebert.
He brought some coffee back to the room for Anne Marie. Anne Marie got in her daily one hour morning walk since the weather is quite nice she walked outside on the Promenade Deck.
A short while after she returned we enjoyed breakfast in our room, thanks to Rao. At the same time we watched the Daily Morning Show.
On the show Rick mentioned that today is his daughter Anne-Marie's 13th Birthday so he called her for a minute. She was home sick. We always talk about the Crystal Family and it was very touching to get to listen to Rick speak with Anne-Marie and he shared a few photos of her.
Each guest was asked to stop by a desk that was set up to sign various forms associated our visits to various ports in Asia. Some of these were for landing cards and others were for Visas such as Vietnam which Crystal will be obtaining for us on board the ship. There were easily ten or so forms to either sign and/or to provide some additional information. Crystal organized this very well and we were fortunate to be one of the first to take care of this.
At 9:30 AM Keith attended a class on how to use some new capabilities that have been made available to guests on selected electronic devices by Crystal Cruises.
On top of this there are additional capabilities which include complimentary movies on demand, and also the ability to watch the lectures on demand. Also another new capability allows guest to send comments to the President and Executive Vice President of Crystal Cruises, real-time, while on board the ship so that items can be resolved during their voyage rather than after the fact.
The training also covered each of these items.
While Keith was in this session, Anne Marie attended a Knitting get together.
Later in the morning, Ken Rees spoke about Guam and covered its history as well as things to do when we arrive to this port.
This time Keith attended Team Trivia. Yesterday marked the close out of the scores for the first set of Team Trivia games held on this voyage and today started a whole new game. This way there would be more than one winning team on this voyage which is quite long and has lots of sea days which is the time that Team Trivia is played. We got twelve and one-half points out of fifteen but some teams got thirteen and fourteen point.
We both enjoyed lunch and we each had a Salad Entree.
Afterwards, Keith worked out at the Fitness Center since it was drizzling outside, while Anne Marie walked and then later she attended Yoga. Keith met up with good friend Bob later in the afternoon.
This evening we will be attending a special World Cruise event. This will include a pre-dinner cocktail show followed by dinner. Two of these events are offered on each World Cruise.
We will post all about this tomorrow.
TODAY'S THOUGHT FOR THE DAY…….
"You cannot do a kindness too soon because you never know how soon it will be too late." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
Keith & Anne Marie
Actually, a question: how much is the rental for iPads on the ship? And many thanks for all your work on the blog, emails, etc.
ReplyDelete