Monday, February 8, 2016 – At Sea – Atlantic Ocean – Mostly Cloudy (showers) – 70F

Itinerary – Segment 1 – Miami to Caldera, Costa Rica

A smooth ride last night and a very nice morning at sea…

The ship will spend the whole day tracking along the north side of Cuba.

Cuba Viewed Through our Cabin Window

Breakfast is served very late on the Journey (7:30 AM), making early people like me wait for the lines to open.  This morning, I ate out on the aft deck (where I plan to eat most times).  Warm, no wind - perfect.  This morning I had my standard fare – waffle with cottage cheese and jam.  It was good (the waffles were crisp not soggy).  The decaf coffee is still too strong so I diluted it one to one with hot water. 

When I got back to the room, I ordered room service for Ellen.

Spent the morning in the Mosaic Café tuning up my first presentation, which is scheduled for this afternoon at 2 PM. 

We opted not to have lunch but instead attended the Dance Class taught by Sasha and Dima (from Ukraine) in the Cabaret Lounge.  Today’s dance was the waltz and we did very much better this time out.  Minimal foot stepping on.  Will try out our new superpower tomorrow evening in the pre-dance session before Showtime.

I showed up at the Cabaret Lounge about 1:30 PM ready to set up my equipment for “The CSI Phenomenon”.  Daniel, the Cabaret Singer, was still giving his talk on the IPad.  He finished about 10 minutes to 2 and I had to set up quickly.  I actually started my talk while Daniel was still speaking to people on the stage.  I was very anxious about the audience since only about four people came into the theater while Daniel was talking.  The audience ultimately filled between a quarter and half of the theater (Cabaret Lounge capacity of 280 people)– I would estimate about 140 attendees.  Not a terrific audience but hopefully, it will grow.

“The CSI Phenomenon”

Matt, the Activities Manager, watched some of the presentation and he was pleased with the turnout.  He said that the talk had the most activity on the ship – not sure where everybody was.  If Matt is happy, I am happy.  He was supposed to introduce me but got hung up with a passenger and couldn’t get to the theater on time.  No one was in the theater after the talk so I spent about 15 minutes chatting with two female passengers about Scott Bakula, Ziva, David Caruso, and Michael Weatherly. 

Lunch was a green salad and pretzel.

Spent the afternoon on the covered pool deck area – tried to read and play WFF Solo.  We also covered 14 laps on the walking track for over a mile’s worth of walking.  Burned off the pretzel I just had.

The Windows Café offered a Chinese Buffet – we checked out the options and decided to have dinner in the Discoveries Dining Room.  We got our table for two in the corner in the front.  Dinner consisted of Green Salad, Baked Salmon (a bit on the raw side) and baked potato.  It was OK but, as usual, it took a long time to complete dinner.

Ed Waters, the Cabaret Entertainer, was pleasant to listen to.

Even though we have seen her before, we attended Mandy Mudin’s Show.  Mandy is a comedienne, magician, and very British Lady.  Her interaction with the audience was funny but some of her illusions seemed easy ones to figure out.  She picked some real interesting people from the audience to help her (one guy thought it was his show).  Pretty entertaining.

We went back to the Casino Lounge (now called “Spirits”) to hear more of Ed Waters.  We stayed there, reading and gaming, until it was time to hit the room.

It was always nice to come to the room because the message slot is decorated by a beautiful birthday card made by Eliana.

The Birthday Girl

The seas are smooth…