Wanderings and Ramblings : A rocky day at sea

We slept until nearly lunch time on Friday. This was due largely to the rocking of the ship. I woke up several times, but felt how rocky it was, knew Dave was likely to not feel well if he was up and about, and was tired myself, so I just kept turning over and going back to bed. By the time we were up and out, to let our stateroom hostess in, it was 11:00.

We headed first to deck nine, where David laid down for a bit longer in the fresh air to get his sealegs before we headed to the MDR for lunch. We had not missed much in the morning. The 4 meter swells and 40 knot winds caused all of the outdoor areas on deck 10 to be shut down (rock wall, jogging track, mini golf, shuffleboard, etc) and all pools and hot tubs to be closed off as well.

Here is a photo of the "wave pool" that the main pool had become, it is pretty clear that there was a safety issue and it could not remain open:

Then we found the kids and headed down for lunch in the main dining room (which is only open for lunch on seadays). I love the salad bar they do there on sea days (so does Marika--she has them make her a salad without lettuce, but with pretty much every other veggie, and lots of shrimp).

We enjoyed a nice lunch, and appreciated how quiet the MDR was. In fact, even with so much closed down, the ship overall was very calm and quiet. We think many people were feeling seasick and not coming out of their rooms at all.

The kids and I darted off for some trivia, while Dave took a nap in the solarium.

Afterwards, the kids had something going on in Optix (which I finally snagged a couple photos of; here is also a photo of the tiny arcade next to Optix; the teens had a few times to use it free of charge during each week):

I wandered into the Centrum to watch the "World's Sexiest Man" competition, which had been relocated from the pool deck. It felt a little "odd" having that indoors, but David from the cruise staff did a nice job of making it interesting in the space he had to work with. He brought in "props" for the guys to hamm it up with--some small weights, a beach towel and sunglasses. Here's David demonstrating to the contestants how to "work it"

There were a variety of men of all ages and builds "competing" As usual, some really hammed it up and some were far too reserved. Hamming it up is always what the crowd and the judges are looking for. Here are the finalists waiting for the results. The man on the right, the last to go up, did something I have not seen previously, He literally ripped is t-shirt in half to take it off, thus why he had no shirt to put back on after his performance.

Hmm, was it worth sacrificing a shirt for a cheap medal? Hard to say, but it sure was fun to watch, and I think "Nathan" is the first younger, buff, guy I have ever seen win this game.

After the competition, I met up with Dave and the kids at the theatre for the Crown and Anchor Society (repeat cruisers) question and answer session with part of the production show staff. On stage were two of the singers (Amy and Reece), the dance captain (whose name I forget), the youngest dancer on the ship (19 year old Ashley) and my favourite dancer onboard (Winchester). That is Winchester speaking in the second photo. He was an incredible dancer, and he pretty much ALWAYS had that "thrilled to be here and doing what I'm doing" smile--on stage and off, every time we saw him.

The cast were all very nice and friendly, and it was interesting hearing about their different audition processes (RCI has only done open auditions in The Philippines once, at that point ONE dancer was chosen, but he informed the other dancers from his area that they could audition via DVD, which is how Winchester and 2 of the other male dancers onboard were hired). They also did a reasonably decent job of handling a rather "difficult" audience. First, a couple stormed off loudly when they realized there would be no Italian interpreter. Then a lady went on and on about how they should all move to the US and be on Broadway and if they could not make it there on stage in Chicago. They tried to politely explain how difficult it is to get visas to work and live in the US an that the West End is also top quality--but she insisted it would not be difficult for talented actors and that Chicago must have better theatre than London. Not that Chicago doesn't have great theatre, but really, the west End is incredible-and YES the US does make it that hard to get visas. They stayed so patient throughout that, and maintained their composure when the next person told a long story which he thought was very funny, about his jokes he told the captain earlier that day--no question or connection to song, dance or theatre was involved at all.

We stayed at the meet and greet for about an hour, so it was time to get ready for dinner by the time we left. The seas were just starting to calm down, so that was a big relief.

Having dinner at that central table really paid off; we were sailing the straight between Sardinia and Corsica and had gorgeous views out the bog picture windows on either side.

(port)

(starboard)

We had to say good bye to our tablemates Mike, Tina and Alex at dinner. Even though they boarded with us in Genoa, they were disembarking in Civitavecchia the next day so they could make it back to Germany in time for a birthday party. We hated to see them go.

After dinner we very much enjoyed the "Seasons" show in the Centrum. It involved aerialists as well as singing an dancing. We got there early the next week (we REALLY enjoyed this show) and snagged one of the few seats an then had a better chance to get photos. From our stance on the balcony two levels up, I did get a semi decent photo of the aerial stunts though (hard to do with lights and fog machines, etc):