Enjoyed A Fabulous Dinner In The Crystal Dining Room Last Evening ✔ Enjoyed The Captains Welcome Reception ✔ Fantastic Day In Melbourne ✔
As we've been doing, we sat at the bar and we each enjoyed a drink. Anne Marie had a Chardonnay while Keith tried a 007 Martini on the rocks in lieu of his normal wine.
We spoke with several people including Joe and Maria Kita. Joe teaches Memoir Writing and Joe and Maria teach Yoga jointly We have known Joe and Maria for several years and we look forward to getting with them sometime soon to have dinner together. We also spoke with Lynn and Buddy and several other guests and members of the crew.
Maria Kita and Anne Marie
After the reception we enjoyed a spectacular dinner in the Crystal Dining Room.
These are the dinner menus.
From L-R Our Head Waiter Salvatore, Anne Marie, Our Waiter Marina, and Keith
The night before we had spoken with Head Waiter Augusto and made arrangements for a couple of special items.
We began the meal with Tuna Tartare for Keith that our Head Waiter Augusto made for us. It was delicious. He changed up the recipe just to do something different for Keith and it was fantastic. Anne Marie also tried some of it and also enjoyed it. We just want to note that this is something that we would not have on land nor on any other cruise line. We only have this on Crystal Cruises as we know it meets very stringent requirements and it is the same Tuna that is served at Silk Road.
Anne Marie had a Shrimp Cocktail for her appetizer.
We then had a Caesar Salad which Augusto also prepared for us table-side. It was also superb.
On the first formal night Crystal always serves fresh lobster. In many areas of the world this will be Main Lobster which will be flown in to board the ship on embarkation day. However, there are a few places where lobster will be brought on which is either Australian or South African Lobster because this lobster is also of very high quality and very tasty.
We actually prefer the Australian Lobster which we had last evening over the Maine Lobster. We find it to be even more tasty and moist and much easier to chew.
For dessert Anne Marie had the Coffee Ice Cream and Keith tried a little bit.
After dinner we stopped by the second seating Captain's Reception just to speak with guests and crew members who we did not see in the First Seating. We will do this from time to time. Rather than sit down we just walk around the room a couple of times and we do not drink anything at this reception. It's just provides a nice opportunity to chat with other guests who are on a different schedule than us as they are more likely to wake up later than we do and go to sleep later.
During Captain Glenn's welcome talk he noted that the sea that we are sailing in can be rough and that this time around we had very calm seas. He also spoke about how one can approach cruising as he often does during the first reception of the cruise. We wholeheartedly concur with his view that goes something like this. As the Captain says, when you come on board the ship if you want to have a great time you will and if you don't want to have a great time you likely will not. To us, it's analogous with the half glass being half full rather than half empty. We focus on enjoying all aspects of the cruise each and every minute.
When we were in Sydney we posted a photo of the Celebrity Century Cruise Ship. Since we left Sydney we have seen the Century in one of the cruise ship lanes the entire time and we have also seen a freighter. At times we get slightly ahead of the Century and other times the Century gets ahead of us.
We slept extremely well last evening. Sometimes the sea that we are sailing in can be quite rough but we were fortunate to have very calm seas as we had mentioned so we just had a gentle rocking of the ship to put us to sleep.
Keith was up first in the morning for his early workout at the Fitness Center. He watched the lecture about mistakes that executives make and that included a wide range of examples from Netflix to Wang to even the Boston Red Sox back in the late 1940's into the late 1950's. Afterwards, he enjoyed coffee at the Lido Cafe. With an early arrival to Melbourne the Lido Deck Stewards were busily getting the array of full breakfast items set up. Keith spoke with some of the Lido Deck Stewards such as Ray and also Leibert along with one of the night crew members who has assisted Keith from time to time with milk for his coffee.
A short while later Anne Marie worked out for an hour. We then enjoyed our breakfast in our room.
We arrived to Melbourne, Australia at around ^:00 AM. This is our third visit to this wonderful city. We last visited here last year and, as such, we did not book any shore excursions.
Melbourne is the capital of Victoria. It is the second largest city in Australia, with a population of over 3 million people. This city has a very diverse population with almost a third of its residents born overseas. An example of its diversity is the fact that more people who are Greek descendants live in Melbourne than in any other worldwide city except for those who live in Athens. Many immigrants settled in Melbourne from a variety of places such as China, Vietnam, Italy and Lebanon.
Its architecture has a European flair. This city is also well known for its large number of restaurants, stores, entertainment, and nightclubs. Throughout the year it hosts major events from concerts, to plays, to sporting events, including the Formula One Grand Prix.
The locals take great pride in their city just as those who live in other cities around the world do.
We enjoyed a superb day in Melbourne. We walked and walked and walked. Rather than take the shuttle bus from the pier into the downtown area we decided to walk into the city which we have done on some of our previous visits. It's a nice walk of about an hour to first reach the downtown area. We walked by some residential areas and some areas with local establishments. The weather was great. The original forecast called for rain but there was no rain. At times it was sunny and at other times it was cloudy but overall the temperature was moderate. We took in all of the sites as we walked. Once downtown we walked around a range of areas and went inside some of the locations that we took photos of from the outside.
Melbourne is very vibrant and also a very cosmopolitan city.
This was one of the many nice views that we had as we walked into town.
Once we made it to the downtown area we stopped into a Hotel where one of the Nobu restaurants is located. Nobu created Silk Road on the Crystal Serenity.
Melbourne is home to a very nice Aquarium. It is also home to a very nice zoo.
It's Summer here so there are lots of flowers to view.
Melbourne has its own China Town.
We walked back to the ship for lunch. As we made our way onto the ship we ran into a couple who we first met in November of 2010 on the Crystal Symphony. They are Dorothy and Barrie Hocking who were visiting the ship today and they were getting ready to disembark the ship. It is a small world. We chatted for a little while and it was great to see them.
Once on the ship, we ate lunch with one of the ships Senior Officers in the Crystal Dining Room. Afterwards the three of us went up to the Scoops Ice Cream Bar. While Keith had passed this area before he was laughing because he really hadn't thought about them serving ice cream there. The officer got an ice cream and Anne Marie had a low-fat yogurt and Keith went over and got some fruit. We sat outside under an overhang near the pool area and we ran into lots of guests while we enjoyed our snack.
Afterwards, we went back off the ship and we walked along the path by the beach. This path goes on and on into other towns but we didn't have enough time to do that today. Anne Marie enjoys collecting sea shells from our various trips and that is exactly what she did.
A view of our beautiful ship, Crystal Serenity, in between the Celebrity Century and the Spirit of Tasmania.
We love Melbourne and we love Australia.
This evening we will have a World Cruise shore side event in Melbourne and we will post all about it tomorrow.
TODAY'S THOUGHT FOR THE DAY.....
“Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened.” – Dr. Seuss
Keith and Anne Marie
Dear Anne Marie and Keith,
ReplyDeleteAt last, calm seas!! Melbourne looks like a beautiful city, and your walk must have been perfect. Please tell Anne Marie that she looked smashing in her gown!
Love,
Ricki and David