Today begins the first day of our journey on the Crystal Serenity. We look forward to visiting so many places for the very first time and sharing our experiences with each of you.
We just wanted to mention again what a wonderful time we had at last evenings World Cruise Gala. Throughout yesterday, there was an excitement in the air. In many ways yesterday felt like a major class reunion since we saw so many familiar faces whom we had the pleasure of sailing with last year. It truly seems like only yesterday that we were disembarking the Crystal Serenity in London in early May at the conclusion of the 2007 World Cruise.
A few of the officers and staff who we spoke with last evening had actually seen us walking around Beverly Hills over the last day or two. So, we guess we must have really done a great deal of walking. A couple of officers had already known our names even though we had not met them before. Evidently, they had looked at last year’s World Cruise Book, which had pictures of each of us, and remembered our names with our pictures. To us, this is truly amazing.
As was the case last year there is a nice diverse group of passengers from all of the United States and from other areas of the World. There are many passengers traveling solo along with others traveling with a spouse or partner. There are first time Crystal cruisers, first time World Cruisers, along with others who have taken a World Cruise previously. At our table last evening, three of our tablemates were traveling solo along with three couples that were each traveling together. We knew the other two couples from last year and one of these couples is on their ninth consecutive World Cruise with Crystal. Again, truly amazing.
Last evening we also spoke with some other personnel who will be on the ship during the World Cruise. We spoke briefly with the Golf Pro and his lovely wife and while Keith is not a golfer his wife remembered that he had done fairly well in last years World Cruise golf putting competition. We also spoke with the person who will teach the Memoir Writing course as he did last year along with his lovely wife. Ernie and Val if you are reading this, we all said how much we will miss the two of you on the voyage and Ernie we look forward to reading your upcoming published book when it is out. Ernie took the memoir writing class last year and was so inspired from this class that he is having his first book published soon. Again, amazing.
There was such excitement at last evenings World Gala that it is difficult to put all of this into words. We are so very fortunate to have the opportunity to be a part of this experience and we will cherish every moment of it.
This morning we awoke early and enjoyed our final breakfast at the Hotel. We were one of the first guests in the restaurant and we saw Captain Glenn Edvardsen (Captain Glenn). The Captain was finishing breakfast so that he could proceed over to the ship. We look forward to sailing with Captain Glenn over the next 108 days. He will be on for the duration of the voyage.
Our Cruise Director will be Rick Spath. This will be our first sailing with Rick as our cruise director. He introduced himself to us last evening and we were so very impressed as he had already known who we were and our names.
For the first portion of the World Cruise our Hotel Director will be Josef Lumetsberger. He was the Hotel Director for the second half of last years World Cruise and it was wonderful to speak with him last evening. He has been on board the Crystal Serenity for the past month, and to Los Angeles on Thursday from Cabos San Lucas so that he could attend last evenings Gala. As Hotel Director he has responsibility for the hotel portion of the ship which includes so many areas including the entertainment, food & beverage, the various restaurants, all of the staterooms, the front desk and the shore excursion desk and all of the other hotel related aspects of the ship.
After breakfast we spoke with some fellow World Cruisers and then went back to our room to pack up our remaining items. We have had a wonderful time in Beverly Hills.
We arrived to the Crystal Hospitality room about 45 minutes before we were scheduled to leave the Hotel. At that point we learned that embarkation would be delayed. This was because the ship was delayed by customs earlier today, which caused a delay in the disembarkation process. In the end, rather than leaving the hotel at 11:00 AM as originally scheduled we departed at around 11:45 AM. We boarded the ship at approximately 1:00 PM and were warmly greeted by the Cruise Director and the World Cruise Hostess. Afterwards, we went directly to the main dining room for lunch.
We had a wonderful lunch and then we took care of some items until our room was ready. Anne Marie verified our table assignment for dinner and were very pleased that we were assigned to the table that we had requested prior to the completion of last years World Cruise. Leo, the Matre D’ recognized Anne Marie right away, which was so nice. At the same time, Keith took care of getting our computer configured to utilize the Internet and also took care of making a couple of reservations at Silk Road which is the wonderful Japanese Specialty Restaurant.
At 2:30 PM we went to our room and spend the next several hours unpacking all of our luggage. The good news is that about every 30 minutes one or two pieces of our luggage arrived. At the same time, we met our butler, Alexander, and our Stewardess, Rose, and her assistant.
While we were waiting for our luggage to arrive we had our door open and at one point we could hear musicians, which was the USC Marching Band. There were seventy-five members from the Marching Band on board to entertain us.
Before dinner we took care of a few items at the front desk and it was wonderful to see familiar staff at the desk who all remembered us from last year. As we have walked around the ship we were greeted by many staff that all knew us. We embraced many passengers and staff in big hubs as this was the first time that we saw them since the World Cruise ended in May. We really feel like we are back home being on the ship.
We had a wonderful dinner this evening. We are so very happy with out table and we have a terrific senior water, waiter and headwaiter. We will share more about them over the coming weeks.
We still have more to get our room ready so we will end for now. Today was a wonderful day and we are so very excited to be back on the beautiful Crystal Serenity.
Keith & Anne Marie
