Sea Days 1 & 2December 12, 13, 14, 2023
Sea Day 1
Our first sea day was rather leisurely. Traci participated in an exercise class that focused on abdominals and stretching. We then had breakfast at the Windows dining room and lingered there until it closed for the morning.
After a nice nap, I participated in a bean bag toss and then hung around for the trivia contest that followed. This trivia contest was the beginning of a 4 PM sea day ritual. We formed a trivia team consisting of Sam, Annette, the family from North Carolina, and me. Traci rarely joined us for trivia. Our team was called DMV-NC. The DMV is an abbreviation for (Washington) DC, Maryland, and (Northern) Virginia - the region of the US where Sam, Annette, and their travel companions, who we'd meet later, live as do Traci and I. NC is the abbreviation for North Carolina. We won only one trivia session during the entire cruise. As for the rest of the trivia we played, we were normally only a point or two behind the winning team. Most important, we had a lot of fun playing and then chatting afterwards.
Traci and I finally met Chandler and Jackie. They were the travel companions of Sam and Annette. We had fun getting to know them.
Traci and I had dinner at the Taste dining room as usual and then went to the show in the Stardust Theater. The show was called "Blazin' Boots". It was a tribute to country music. I have never considered myself a fan of country music but this performance was done extremely well. There was a lot of choreography, great singing, and wonderful stage sets. I was really impressed with this show.
The big announcement of the evening was that everyone needed to change the date and time on their devices before going to bed. We would be crossing the International Date Line the next day; therefore, everyone would need to change their devices from December 12 to December 14 and to set the time back an hour. The joke was, "I hope no one has a December 13 birthday."
This date change presented a problem for Traci. She does not go to bed until she has done 10,000 steps. She tracks this with her watch. Now that we would be skipping a day, her streak of more than 920 consecutive days of getting 10,000 steps per day was in jeopardy. She dealt with this by getting her 10k for December 12, changing her watch to December 13, and then did another 10k before going to bed.
Sea Day 2
We woke up the next day thinking it was December 14; that is, until the captain made an announcement that we had not actually crossed the International Date Line yet. He told us not to worry about resetting our devices because we would eventually get there. I tried to have my phone automatically detect the date and time but it did not reliably do this while we were cruising the Pacific. Therefore, I set it manually.
I was really in relaxation mode on this second sea day. I relaxed on our balcony for a while and then relaxed at the pool deck. Traci decided to play bingo despite the $79 fee to play. It paid off. She won $165.
I met up with the family from North Carolina later. We were one of the teams competing in the music trivia. Between the four of us, we had no trouble naming the songs. It was the second and third rounds that were troublesome. The second round was karaoke to be judged by the audience. None of us sing in public. The father took one for the team and sang "Summer Of '69" by Bryan Adams. The third round was dancing to be judged by the audience. We were not comfortable with that either but at least it was not singing. Traci happened to walking through the Atrium at this time so we recruited her to join our impromptu choreographed dance. It worked! We won! It was our only win of the entire cruise.
Traci and I took a couples' massage class. I think the goal was for the ship to sell you their massage oils. We did not buy any.
After lunch, Traci joined our DMV friends (Sam, Annette, Chandler, and Jackie) to play cards. They played for quite a while. I am not a card player so I just did more relaxing around the ship. When I went back to our cabin, I noticed that we had received certificates for crossing the International Date Line. The other thing we received was our laundry that we submitted to be washed the previous day. Everything was washed, tagged, and neatly folded. We had two items that had gotten slightly damaged in the wash. We also ended up with a shirt that did not belong to us. The moral of this story is that you are taking a risk when you send your clothes to be washed.
Sam and Annette joined Traci and me for dinner at the Taste dining room. Afterwards, Traci and I finished off the evening by attending the magic show of Dala Illusions in the Stardust Theater. It was an entertaining show. In fact, our two sea days were great. I was meeting other passengers and enjoying the ship activities. Continue...