November 8, 2021 – Older than Dirt Day – St. John’s, Antigua – 85F

Slept much better last night.

I got my favorite seat in the Oceanview Café at around 7:00 AM.  This morning I had a regular pancake with chocolate syrup, bananas, and walnuts.  I also had two freshly made fried eggs (asked for one and got two – maritime law).  The breakfast was excellent.  I also tried a biscuit today – never seem them on a Celebrity Ship before.  They were good but tiny and already cut in half.  Strange.  I watched the sail in during breakfast.

                               

We are alongside Aidi Luna today. She’s a pretty big German ship – I noticed passengers wearing masks.

The ship provided bikes for the Luna passengers - I guess to explore the port area.

Ellen ordered room service and when she was done, we looked for a place to read that was in the shade and quiet.  We wound up at the Sunset Bar aft, where I decided to try one of their signature drinks – I ordered a Pina Colada – it was frozen and very good.  

                                                 

The Rooftop Garden is right around the corner from the Sunset Bar and we spent a little time thee as well.  One of the features of the garden is the Living Wall - studded with various plants.  We've seen this on other ships and this one was very well constructed.

                               

The large canopy kept the sun away from us and we spent a few minutes actually watching “Black Widow” on the huge and very clear theater screen.

We had lunch in the Aqua Spa Café.  I got two slices of sourdough bread from the Oceanview Café and put tuna from the Aqua Spa Café to make a pretty good sandwich.  I also had the Tomato Bisque cold soup.  They don’t have iced tea at the Aqua Spa so we had the guava tropical cocktail (too much sugar and too sweet).

We tried the Solarium for a while but it got to hot and soon we were back in our temperature controlled Cabin and our infinite veranda.

We had dinner tonight in the Normandie Restaurant.  I had the Alsatian and Gruyere Cheese Tart (yummy); the Cesar Salad (always good); the Grilled Halibut (w/o smoke bacon) but with steamed spinach (the fish was a little late coming to the table but it was freshly grilled and better than the last time I had it.  Ellen had the fried Brie (the Brie was so good, it deserved a picture)

and the halibut also.  We also had a side of Pappardelle with Mushroom Sauce and Goat Cheese, which was a huge portion and delicious.  I took a bite or two of my opera cake dessert and we were done. 

Tonight’s headliner is Savanah Smith, a belter vocalist from Dallas Texas who now lives in and performs in Las Vegas.  

We got to the theater early enough to get our favorite socially distant seats.  The preshow music wasn’t loud so it was pleasant to just sit there.  Savanah put on a terrific show – the best by a female vocalist in years.  She paid tribute to female singers and some of her numbers were crazy animated and a bit loud but it was all bearable and worth it.  She did a beautiful version of Bonnie Raitt’s classic ‘I Can’t Make you Love me if you Don’t”, and incredibly loud and wild song by Celine Dion, and “Fields of Gold” (her grandmother’s favorite song).  

She finished with a tribute to Judy Garland by doing a mashup of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” 

and “Defying Gravity”.  Her take on “Defying Gravity” was amazing – she can easily hit the impossible high notes.

It was simply terrific.  There were two bits of irony in this show – three years ago, while also docked in Antigua, we passed on Savanah’s show.  Tonight, at the same port, we didn’t.

We stopped in at Eden but didn’t stay long as there was nothing going on and it was noisy.

Back to the room.

Smooth seas.