Day 1 At Sea – December 3, 2013

After leaving the port of Civitavecchia, the seas were not as rough as we had anticipated although the wind was blowing as hard as reported.  We were now heading mostly with the wind and with the seas, with the wind and waves coming from slightly to the the port side of straight astern. It was the smoothest night we have had since boarding the ship in Barcelona.

It was also our first opportunity to sleep in, without any worries about lost baggage or port day travel plans. In addition, it was also our first sunrise at sea, and we were able to take pictures without leaving the close proximity and comfort of our balcony. Of course, Stephanie was really sleeping in. I was awake early as usual, but at least we were not on any rigid schedule for getting ready, eating breakfast, and getting ashore.

I am feeling much better today, less of the runny nose, and a lot more energy, hopefully the head cold is past its worst and I am heading toward full recovery.

We went to the breakfast buffet at about 9:00 AM, then walked around the ship. It is sunny today, and probably the best weather day since we arrived in Europe. With the wind direction and the ship direction being mostly the same, there is very little relative breeze, and it was really very pleasant on deck as long as you were in the sunshine. Temperatures are forecast to be in the low 60’s for the highs, balmy compared to the last several days.

The ship was having a sale of Mediterranean “merchandise” in one of the dining rooms, there were quite a few tables covered with junk, oops, I mean inexpensive items. Everything was $10.00, but probably worth about $3.00. They were trying to get rid of all of the merchandise for their cruising season in the Mediterranean, which was ending with this cruise.

We then attended a “Lecture at Sea” on Flying Boats, anticipating a really interesting discussion on the early days of luxury travel on the large flying boats operated by Pan Am in the late 1930’s and early 1940’s. The lecture was given by an author of novels based on the days of flying boats, so he had spent some time investigation the history of flying boats for his fictional works. Unfortunately, he did not discuss the largest and last of the Boeing planes the Boeing 314, which dad had flown on as a Pan Am contract pilot in the early 1940’s when the military had taken over the Pan Am flights for military transports. I guess most of his books were on the planes used for the Pacific routes, most famous of which was the China Clipper, so he focused his information there and not on the planes used for the Atlantic routes which Dad had flown, and which were much larger in size.

After the lecture, we headed back to the room and Stephanie put on her bathing suit and sat out in the sunshine on the balcony while I worked on the blog and photos, getting us caught up for a large upload late tonight when the internet connection is not being used as much, and is dramatically faster.

We ate a late lunch in the buffet, and relaxed before going to the hot tubs near the spa at the front of the ship. Fortunately, they were refilled and open today, and we really enjoyed the therapeutic soak. There was a couple from Canada in the hot tub when we entered, and we ended up talking to them a lot about cruising and various destinations they have been to. We did enjoy one of our chilled bottles of Asti Spumanti while relaxing in the tub. At around 6:00 PM, we headed back to the room to get ready for dinner. Tonight was the first formal night, it was the Captain’s Reception in the Atrium area, complete with the ever famous champagne glass fountain. We definitely wanted to go to the reception for some champagne and light appetizers.

We were a little late going due to a malfunction in my ability to tie a bow tie. We had gotten a “genuine” blue bow tie which was not pre-tied, but we had forgotten to take the time to make sure I could remember how to tie it prior to having to do it in a rush and make it to the reception on time. We downloaded some instructions from the internet, but I could just not get it tied, so I had to resort to a second option, one that was pre-tied, not having realized earlier in the day that tonight was blue dress night for Stephanie, and I was supposed to wear the color coordinated blue  bow tie. It was very frustrating since I had been able to tie them in the past, but it was not happening tonight, and I was not happy…..

None the less, with my black vest and matching pre-tied bow tie, we headed to the reception.   We happened to run into the couple we had first seen in the duty free shop at the Barcelona Cruise terminal who had informed us that the security for bringing on adult beverages was not going to be an issue. They were Mike and Barb from Canada, Halifax to be exact, and they were fun to talk to. We ended up joining them for dinner.  Since they had been on board for  the previous cruise, they had already gotten in good with one of the Head Waiters, and we got a nice table near a window. Two other men joined us, they were a “couple” cruising together from Oregon, and were really entertaining. We all ordered bottles of wine, and had a great dinner, actually staying late enough to necessitate the wait staff having to tell us to leave the dining room.   Everyone else was already gone, and we were the last ones inside. It was not that late, but I think most of the older folks go to early seating dinner, or eat early using the “personal choice” dining option, which was option for dining room we were in. We have been at dinner much later on other cruises, so it was not that we were there excessively long, at least it did not seem so.

After dinner, Barb, Mike, Stephanie and I went to the Princess Theater to see the entertainment, which we found out when we arrived was a violinist. This was just not the type of entertainment we were interested in, it was too slow, but great if you needed an aid to make you sleepy before turning in for the evening. We did not.  After one song, we all left and went to the Wheelhouse Bar and had a couple of drinks, talked, and listened to the music.

At about 11:30 PM, Stephanie and I headed back to our room and changed into casual clothes, picking up the camera equipment for some photos of the atrium area in the middle of the ship. It had been decorated for Christmas, as were other parts of the ship, during the port stop in Civitavecchia.  With the late hour, there were hardly any passengers in the Atrium to disrupt the photo shoot.

Afterward, it was back to the room to load up the blog postings and pictures through the ship’s internet service. Even though it was late, we have our first change of time tonight to move the clocks back one hour, so tomorrow, we will now only be 5 hours ahead of Eastern Time.