DAY 98 - CRUISING THE EASH CHINA SEA

NOTE: We will be unable to access the Internet from March 29 thru April 2 ships date/time as we sail Japan waters.  This is a requirement of Japan which will preclude the ability of the ship to provide Internet connections.  

Wonderful Time At Prego Last Evening With Good Friends  ✔ Enjoyed Another Nice Day At Sea ✔   Excellent Presentation By President Of Crystal Cruises, Gregg Michel and Senior Vice President Operations, Thomas Mazloum  ✔


Although we dined at Prego last evening, these are the dinner menus from the Crystal Dining Room.

Before dinner, we had the pleasure of meeting the new Hotel Director who was recently hired due to the passing of Hotel Director Herbert Doppler last year.  The new Hotel Director is on board now so that he can essentially shadow Hotel Director Josef  Lumetsberger throughout the remainder of the World Cruise in preparation for him performing these functions on his own .  We wish him all the best.


We dined at Prego last evening with good friends Jim Brochu and Steve Schalchlin.  Jim is the Celebrity Entertainer on board the ship who performed Zero Hour the other evening and also has also given some lectures on this this segment about some famous Hollywood Legends.  We have sailed Jim and Steve on several cruises, starting in 2007.  We had an absolutely wonderful time with Jim and Steve. We could have talked for hours until the restaurant closed.


From L-R Anne Marie, Keith, Steven and Jim

Our waiter for the evening was, once again, Costa who took wonderful care of all four of us.

We let Christian, the head Sommelier, in Prego order the wine for us and he paired a very nice Italian Red Wine for our meal.  Almost every time we have dined at Prego over the last couple of segments we have let Christian pick out our wine.  We just give him our preference for white or red for that evening along with the entrees we plan to order and he works his magic.  We have been very pleased with his selection and it has allowed us to try a variety of wines that we likely would not have ordered on our own.

We each began our meals with a salad as we always do.  Keith had his standing order salad of lettuce, tomatoes and fresh mushrooms while Anne Marie had a Caesar Salad.

For our entree, we each had the Chicken Cacciatore  which was one of the two additional entrees on the menu.  We have never had this entree on the ship and it was absolutely wonderful.  We asked for just white meat and the breast was boneless and the sauce was just outstanding.  Since none of the additional entrees was a fish this was a great opportunity to try something different and we were very pleased with our choice.

For dessert, Anne Marie had a small scoop of Vanilla Gelato and Keith had a fruit plate.

We passed on the evening entertainment and decided to get a good nights sleep.  We fell asleep quickly and slept well.

As usual, Keith was up early and began his day at the Fitness Center with a very nice workout on the Elliptical Machine.  He was alone for about half his workout until Brian arrived.

Afterwards, he changed and went by the Lido Cafe and had coffee as he read e-mail.  He spoke with some of the Lido Deck Stewards including Glenn, Nat and Alvin.  Like many positions on the ship the retention rate for the Lido Deck Stewards is quite high so we have know these three stewards for quite sometime as we have many of the other stewards.  They really do a remarkable job.

We had mentioned that the very nice member of the Night Crew went on holiday in Hong Kong.  We wanted to note that his replacement, Anthony, took over where he left off.  When Keith arrived to the Cafe the cream was not yet out for the coffee, and without Keith saying anything, Anthony, noticed this and cleaned up and then brought Keith out some cream.  It's obvious that the other Night Crew Member had let Anthony know to be on the look-out for Keith.  This is just an example of how dedicated the staff is and even if it is "not their job" they don't approach it that way but rather stay very focused on the guest.

Before breakfast, Anne Marie worked out for an hour and then we enjoyed breakfast as we watched the Daily Morning Show hosted by Cruise Director Rick Spath and World Cruise Hostess Elise Ivy.  They had a special guest; Regis.  There was lots of jokes and great laughs.  During the show they announced that Librarian Liezl Tamondong was selected as the Crystal Serenity Employee Of The Year for 2011.  The announcement was made last evening to the members of the crew while the President of Crystal Cruises and Senior Vice President Of Operations were are on board.  Congratulations to Liezl who has been with Crystal Cruises for twelve years and is a terrific person.

It was nice to have a sea day given all of the ports on this and the previous segment.  On the fifth and final segment we will have a nice mix of sea days and port days.

There was a spin class offered at 10:00 AM today but Keith passed on it given some of the other daytime activities that we wanted to get to.

Instead, we attended the morning lecture given by Ken Rees about how Japan rose from the devastation of world war to create a world-beating economy.  He also spoke about our upcoming two ports of call along with the diversity of Japan.  It was a great talk.

Right afterwards, we attended a special presentation given by Crystal Cruises President, Gregg Michel and Senior Vice President of Operations, Thomas Mazloum.  This was followed by a question and answer session.  Gregg Michel covered a lot of ground in his talk including changes planned for this year from the refurbishment of several public areas on the Crystal Symphony to some new enrichment programs.  He also announced the itinerary for the 2015 World Cruise which marks Crystal Cruises 25th anniversary and the 20th year of World Cruises.  It will be their first circumnavigation of the globe and will be 108 days round trip Miami.  It was a great session and we enjoyed hearing about all of the future plans and changes planned for this year and beyond.

After that, we went to Team Trivia.  We came in second place today with several other teams.

Following Team Trivia it was lunch time.  As we do most days, we each enjoyed an ice Salad Entree.

In the afternoon, Celebrity Lecturer Neil Leifer presented his new 30 minute documentary on the fascinating world and world of blind photographers.

Anne Marie worked out for another hour in the afternoon and then did some writing and reading.

Keith also read and wrote and met with friend Bob and then took care of a couple of items on the ship.

Before dinner this evening we will attend the Captain's Farewell Reception as we are getting close to reaching the end of this segment of the World Cruise.  We will then dine at Silk Road by ourselves.  This evening is a Formal Night.

This will likely be our last post for a few days unless we can post early tomorrow before nearing Japan.

TODAY'S THOUGHT FOR THE DAY......

“Word’s may show a man’s wit but action his meaning.” -   Benjamin Franklin

Keith and Anne Marie