Since this was a totally "at-sea" day we took advantage of the opportunity to sleep in. At 11:30 I went up to the Windjammer in search of a coffee fix and the Russos. While sipping my coffee I listened to the captain's noon report: 65 degrees, calm seas, halfway between New Jersey and our final destination, Bermuda, 300-plus miles off the coast of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. When I had finished my coffee, I called Kommander Ken from the Windjammer's "house" phone (would that be "ship" phone?) to get the day's marching orders. The six of us then had lunch together. After lunch we went down to the Art Gallery to review our pictures. The Russos were highly steamed that they could not locate their welcome-aboard picture. Diane theorized that it had never been printed. (They never did find it.) Stephanie, Lisa and I donned our swimming suits and headed for one of the hot tubs on the pool deck. Jill preferred to camp out in one of the nearby deck chairs while Diane and Ken opted for working out. Stephanie, 25, and Lisa, just turned 21 in May, made up for lost time by having two drinks in the hot tub. I called out to Jill, "Can you believe these two lushes?" I then turned to Lisa and announced, "I am resting my liver for tonight." "Where is the sport in that?" Lisa immediately quipped back. After leaving the hot tub and drying off, we reassembled in Studio B for the ice skating show, "Spirit of the Seasons." My personal favorite was Larissa the hula hoop girl, whom we would later meet in person on Thursday on the shuttle bus from the ship to US Customs.
It was then time to take showers and dress up for the one and only formal night of the cruise (thank you, Jesus!) although I had bought two shirts on the mean streets of Newark, risking my life! Several lines had formed for formal pictures so, rather than try to locate the Russos, we just picked one line and got into it. The little Asian photographer was very exacting but we would later be delighted with the results. We soon found the Russos swilling free champagne near where the captain would soon be delivering his welcome-aboard address. He would also go on to introduce his chiefs of staff, some of whom were German, explaining why we have never been disappointed with Royal Caribbean Cruise Line. "When the Germans do something, they do it right."~Harry Vlahos At dinner Komang continued to tell tales of Indonesia to Lisa and to us. I did not notice this myself but I was told that, at one point, the head waiter became concerned with the disproportionate amount of time Komang was spending with Lisa. This development took me down memory lane back to the Mexican cruise of 1997. Most of the waiters paid special attention to surgically-enhanced "Barbie" [not her real name, just a nickname we gave her]. However, the head waiter not only had no objections to her distracting his wait staff but even wanted a piece of the action himself! Diane and Ken took us by surprise by telling Darryl that they were very interested in India and even wanted to visit there. This is news to us, thought Jill and I. Diane and Ken later explained that it was only so that Darryl would not feel left out of the "Komang & Lisa Show." I neglected to introduce the third member of our serving team, Jason the "shooter boy" from Mauritius [an island nation 500 miles east of Madagascar]. After each dinner Jason would appear with a tray of the "shooters" [shots] of the day in commemorative Royal Caribbean shooter glasses. Each shooter consisted of Bailey's Irish Cream and one or more other ingredients. "Everything tastes better with Bailey's in it."~Ken The concept of "shooter person" was introduced to us on Diane and Jill's 50th birthday cruise in 2006. Our first shooter person was a girl, Hangmi, from India, although she looked Asian. To this day I am still highly steamed at Ken for not snapping a photo of the super cute Hangmi. (Hey, I write; I don't do pictures.) Diane, however, thought Jason was cute as well.
As I started typing this posting, I became excited when I noticed that I had a follower! It turned out to be me. LOL! I have met the enemy and it is myself!
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