Sunday, January 19, 2025

December 21, 2024 – At Sea – Atlantic Ocean – Mostly Cloudy – 77F

Happy Winter Solstice – the shortest day and longest night of the year in the Northern Hemisphere.  It's all good from here - earlier sunrises and later sunsets.

I was, as is my wont, up early - about sunrise -  and checked out sea condition through the porthole. Cloudless with mild chop.  Going to be a nice day at sea.

The room had a whine last night so I used earplugs – ship noises are very  difficult to identify - this was likely from the engines.  Maybe, the engines changed pitch resulting in noise - maybe the azipods just wanted to be difficult.

Today is Speaker Marathon Day with all four speakers giving talks – mine is the last one at 4 PM.  Crystal has several speakers on each cruise but I don't recall four of those speakers scheduled for the same day.  Anyhow, expectations are low being the last person - the anchor leg - on this relay race.  

I had breakfast on the Sunset Veranda this morning. I’ve got a new system, which I tested out last cruise.  I pick up a to-go cup and fill it myself with Coffee and then put it on a table along with my magazine to save the table.  Even though the buffet is not open the dry cereal station is open – I like to have a small bowl of frosted flakes or corn flakes to start off before the regular food opens up.  I’m going to go that route this cruise.

I have not been happy with the scrambled eggs on this ship so Ellen suggested that I get the omelet guy to make me some scrambled eggs and cheese.  I did order that but that wasn’t any better – the cheese was just sprinkled on top of some over cooked eggs.  The bagel was good as was the view.  It is still warm on the open decks.

Ellen ordered from Room Service as she should.  It's a full service menu so she has lot of choices.  I try to be back in the room to meet the delivery person so Ellen can continue to get some sleep.  That timing works out very well - although sometimes the person arrives very early.

When I got back from breakfast, my sea pass card wouldn’t open the door. Also the safe wasn’t working anymore.  It took five attempts (five new cards) until it was determined that the door needed reprogramming.  The tech came and reset the door and another tech came and reset the safe.  A crazy morning. A major effort by Kathja and Devi in Guest Relations to keep churning out keys and getting the techs out right away. 

The day was spent out on the open deck – reading and vegging.

We tried the dining room for lunch.  They had Pad Thai with Peanut Butter Sauce and that sounded good.  Ellen had the Teriyaki Salmon.  It took about 40 minutes to get our food – some kind of snafu in the kitchen.  Probably not in getting the order in since all the waiters are input the orders via a little iPad type device.  The Pad Thai finally came and it was very good (small portion).  The salmon was Ok but the wait was too long and we shared that with the staff.

I caught a few minutes of Catherine’s talk and then set up “Forensics and History: Identifying the Famous and Infamous”.  I was introduced by Symz, a very tall member of the Entertainment Department.  It was a pretty good turnout for so late in the day – everyone stayed except for one couple, who probably had specialty restaurant reservations or were simply bored. The talk ran 46 minutes long.

We had dinner in the Discoveries Restaurant and informed the waitress that we had special meals. We also had green salads. I had the goat cheese and potato appetizer which was very good.  The Fettuccini Pesto was delicious one of the best dishes we have had on any Azamara cruise.  The portion was generous and the noodles and sauce was perfect. 

Tomorrow was Taste of Germany up in the Windows Café so we checked out the Dining Room menu – we special ordered the Penne with Cream Sauce (no bacon).

We passed on the Production Show – “Groove Tonight” (disco all the time).  Passing on these shows fulfills two purposes - avoiding excessive noise (the shows are good but too noisy for us) and excessive people (COVID and flu are also sailing with ships these days).

I’ve got a 10 AM talk tomorrow so we went back to the room early.

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