Today we have a full day at sea as we cruise to Sydney, Australia
Last evening the seas were relatively calm. Keith woke up early this morning and enjoyed another nice workout in the Fitness Center. He was the first one in the Fitness Center and there were not too many passengers working out today. Anne Marie is still not feeling too well so she took another well-deserved break from working out. She met Keith at the Fitness Center at the end of his workout and we both went to the Lido Café for breakfast.
We both enjoyed a wonderful breakfast in the Lido Café. Typically, we enjoy cereal and fruit for breakfast. The fruit on the ship has been quite good over the past few days such as the strawberries, blueberries, melon, bananas and the grapefruit. On most days we have breakfast in the Lido Café as we don’t want to wear our exercise clothes in the Main Dining Room and the Lido Café opens earlier in the morning so it is much easier for us to just eat there. On occasion, we have breakfast delivered to our suite and the butler does a wonderful job setting up the breakfast for us. Midway through our breakfast we were joined by one other passenger at our table.
When we went back to our room we saw that there was one available washing machine in the Laundry Room so we decided to take advantage of that and we did a couple of loads of laundry. Keith saw the Cruise Director in the hallway and he was kind enough to show him the television studio for the ship, which we learned, is located right on our floor. There were sections to the studio; one with all of the various broadcast equipment used to broadcast from the studio and for all of the various stations used to broadcast movies throughout the day and evening hours along with equipment used to monitor the stations. The other room was the studio that we see on television on most mornings where the daily program is shown. It’s sort of like a mini set for shows such as the Today Show and Good Morning America. It was very impressive and Keith really appreciated the Cruise Director taking time to show him this area of the ship.
Speaking of television, we continue to pick up a fair amount of programming as we cruise this part of the world. We continue to receive CNN Worldwide News, CNN Headline News, Fox News, CNBC, BBC along with a Japanese Station in English and a station from Australia long with two ESPN stations. In addition a few Crystal stations broadcast movies along with another worldwide station that shows movies and there is also another station showing older movies. There are other Crystal Cruises stations that carry other programming from the Crystal produced morning show featuring the Cruise Director and World Cruise Hostess, to a station that features information about upcoming ports of call and the shore excursions, to another station that features the various lectures to another station that provides information about future Crystal Cruises. We also get two newspapers from Crystal so it provides some additional information regarding news and then we use the Internet from time to time to catch up on other news related items.
We are sixteen hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time in the United States. So, usually we are one day ahead. This is still confusing to some people on the ship so many times Keith has to explain this to other passengers. As we’ve mentioned, it is so much easier traveling in this direction where we mainly set the clock backwards from time to time.
We listened to the Captains Announcement this morning and he noted that the seas have been relatively calm. His thought for the day is “ You don’t drown from falling in the water. You drown by staying there.” For us this is a reminder to take charge of ones life and to be pro-active rather than reactive to changes in ones environment. We really enjoy these thoughts of the day and, therefore, like to pass them on.
Since today is a sea day there are many lectures and other activities throughout the day.
Destination Lecturer Dr. Jay Wolff gave the second presentation. He presented “Gallipolia.” His presentation dealt with the Australian and New Zealand Troops who joined Empire forces in Europe during World War 1. They were used in an ill-fated offensive against the Turks, their lives were tragically squandered by high-level incompetence. Their countrymen remember their obedience and bravery to this day. As is the case with all of Dr. Wolff’s presentations it was very well attended and the story that he told was both informative and quite interesting. We continue to learn a great deal from Dr. Wolff.
Book Dramatist Barbara Rinella gave the last presentation of the morning. As they say, they saved the best for last. She was wonderful. The title of her presentation was “Who will Henry VII choose to become the new Queen of England?” She dramatized the book titled The Boleyn Inheritance, by Philppa Gregory whose historical fiction presents a fascinating portrayal of the intrigue, political maneuvering and emotional upheaval of the Tudor court of Kig Henry VII after the natural death of his third wife, Jane Seymour. This presentation was given to a standing room only crowd and was a crowd pleaser. At the conclusion of her session, as she does in other sessions, Barbara Rienella told us about a variety of other books. Anne Marie is reading one of them now.
Before lunch we had the opportunity to visit the Bridge along with six other people and we greatly appreciated this opportunity. While we visited the bridge last year during a World Cruise event, it was nice to see the bridge with so few people. During the tour, Captain Glenn came up to talk with the group. The sophistication of the equipment is truly remarkable. It is amazing what can be monitored on board the ship as well as all of the various cruising capabilities, which exist on this vessel.
We enjoyed a wonderful lunch in the Main Dining Room. The dining room was relatively quiet since there was also an Australian Luncheon Buffet featuring a variety of items from “down under”.
We took a nice walk on the Promenade Deck after lunch. The outside weather was quite nice and we thought that the fresh air would do Anne Marie some good. We ran into Barbara Rinella and told her how much we enjoyed each of her three talks.
Afterwards, I played table tennis with various passengers for about ninety minutes. It was my only second time playing since the World Cruise began. It’s time to get some practice for the upcoming World Games. ☺
We enjoyed yet another wonderful dinner in the Main Dining Room. Last evening we had greatly enjoyed the fresh Tasmanian Salmon so much that we asked for it again this evening. We found it to be very tasty and moist.
This evening marked the conclusion of the third segment of the World Cruise. Those passengers who are leaving the ship will disembark the ship sometime tomorrow morning in Sydney. Approximately 400 passengers will be leaving the ship. Tomorrow afternoon, new passengers will be joining the ship. The ship will carry a little over 800 passengers during the next segment of the World Cruise.
We are very excited about our first visit to Sydney, Australia.
Keith & Anne Marie
