DAY 18 - CRUISING TO CARTAGENA, COLOMBIA

Wonderful Dinner In The Crystal Dining Room Last Evening  ✔ Great Lectures  ✔  Another Great Day On-Board The Crystal Serenity ✔ Anne Marie Tries Out The Elliptical Machine For The Very First Time  ✔

These are the dinner menus from dinner in the Crystal Main Dining Room last evening.

Before dinner, we posed for a photo outside the Crystal Dining Room.

Our Sommelier in the Crystal Dining Room for this voyage is Maria and she is from Valparaiso, Chile.  We love her passion and enthusiasm and she has stayed on top of everything and our hats off to her as the dining room is quite busy during this voyage.

We enjoyed a Chardonnay which was Stag's Leap Karia 2008 Wine.  Keith also had Atteca Garnacha Old Vines Cabernet from Spain.  This wine was recommended to us by Pierre who was our Sommelier on the Holiday Voyage. He had told us that one evening the Sommelier's did a blind fold test of several cabernet wines.  This was the lowest price wine they tasted and they all rated it the number one wine.  We really enjoy this one and it is one of many examples of finding a nice wine at a reasonable price.

Our Headwaiter, Igor, made us a delicious Caesar Salad.  Each Headwaiter prepares Caesar Salad in their own way and often there is a little competition between them as to who prepares the best Caesar Salad.  We think they are all great.  This one was milder than some of the ones we have had and we also enjoyed this one.

We each had the Fresh Salmon which was very moist and very tasty.  It was accompanied by vegetables and was served over cooked spinach.  We wish we could prepare salmon at home as they do on the ship.

Anne Marie had half of this dessert which was a sugar free Ice Cream Puff with Fudge Sauce.

Keith enjoyed mixed berries as his dessert but also left room so he could have one of the delicious Rainbow Cookies from Ricki and David.

Once again, we both slept extremely well last evening. We find sleeping on the ship much easier than on land.


We enjoyed another wonderful day at sea today even in spite of strong winds and some rough seas.  This is typical of the route we are now taking towards Cartagena, Colombia.  After Colombia the seas will likely be much calmer.

Keith enjoyed a good workout in the Fitness Center.  For those of you who workout regularly you know there are those days when it is easier to workout and then there are those days when that is not the case. Today was one of those days where it was more challenging, possibly due to all of the paddle tennis from the day before.  The good news is that about half way through the workout fellow guest Brian arrived to the center, and as Keith and Brian began to talk this took Keith’s mind off the workout and before he knew it ninety minutes had elapsed and he even went slightly beyond this goal.  The moral of the story is if you are having a challenging workout day find something to take your mind off what you are doing whether that is watching television, listening to music or reading or listing to a book or having a conversation with someone else.

Anne Marie also worked out and then we enjoyed breakfast in our room.

We enjoyed a great sea day today as we are sailing to our next port of call in Cartagena, Colombia.  Sea days are always special as there are well over 50+ morning and afternoon activities offered on the ship so there is pretty much something for everyone.  This includes various fitness classes, three lectures, classes on golf, music, language, bridge, computers, piano, art shopping in ports, gambling, along with movies, needlepoint get together, bridge, bingo, team trivia and an assortment of other activities.  At the same time one can walk on the promenade deck, workout at the fitness center, swim in one of two pools, play table (ping pong) tennis, shuffleboard, and let us not forget there is eating. 


It was fairly windy this morning and Keith and Ashley tried to play some paddle tennis together while Anne Marie watched and also worked on her needlepoint.  For those of you who play paddle tennis you know there is one benefit of playing when the ship is rocking.  Any mistake you make you can just blame on the wind and any good play you make you can just take credit for it yourself.

There were three interesting lectures given today and we wanted to highlight two of them.

In the morning, Destination Lecturer Dr. Anthony Aveni talked about two cities that Christopher Columbus explored which we are visiting on this voyage; Cartagena and Panama City and what he was able to discover and what he missed during his landings there.

He did a nice job of not only presenting a vast amount of information but also doing with a lot of good humor.  


A couple of little tidbits.  It would take 75 Santa Maria's to equal the tonnage of the Crystal Serenity and the Santa Maria could easily fit into the Galaxy Showroom where the lecture was given.  Based on the writing of Christopher Columbus the maximum speed his ship could travel was around 4.2 knots per hour, significantly less speed than ships of today.

In the afternoon, Special Interest Lecturer Robert Adams gave a presentation on the novel titled The Reluctant Fundamentalist written by Mohsin Hamid.  This novel is about a conversation between a Pakistani and an American following 911.  We have been on other sailings with Robert Adams and he passionate about literature and often if you have not yet read a particular novel he presents you’ll be so intrigued by his lecture that you will want to read the book.  At the same time if you have already read the book you will likely learn something about either the novel or the author that you were not aware of.

At Noon there was a special Asia Buffet that was set up around the indoor pool. This buffet featured a wide array of food items of Asia.  We took a few photos of the buffet, but mainly of the desserts. For those of you who know Ruel (used to work in the Lido Deck Steward but now works in the evening at Silk Road) he is standing near Anne Marie in this photo.

We decided to have lunch in the Crystal Dining Room.  We each had a Chef's Salad and as you can see the salad was topped with meat, cheese and eggs and we also shared a bowl of lettuce.  The Dining Room was fairly quiet with most guests enjoying the Asian Buffet.  We had our regular waitstaff, Senior Waiter Jijo and Waiter Vicente so that was nice and we chatted with our Headwaiter Igor and also Headwaiter Tall Peter as well as Maitre d' Mario Gallo.

Keith tried to play Paddle Tennis in the afternoon but between the wind and rolling of the ship he decided to pass on the tennis knowing that he will play tomorrow.


Instead, he went with Anne Marie to the Fitness Center to show Anne Marie how to use the Elliptical Machine.  Keith watched as Anne Marie used the Elliptical Machine for the very first time and she passed the test with flying colors.  One fellow guest came up to Keith with a question thinking he was one of the Fitness Directors.  Afterwards, Anne Marie went on the Treadmill for an hour.


Later on Keith got together with friend Bob and some fellow passengers.

This evening we will once again dine in the Crystal Dining Room and will post about that tomorrow.

TODAY'S THOUGHT FOR THE DAY...

“Following the light of the sun, we left the old world.”  -  Christopher Columbus

Keith and Anne Marie