4-7 Day 92 At Sea

Busy and fun day at sea.  I started my day earlier so that I could go to the coffee chat at 9:30 a.m. with the crew’s human resources manager.  I wanted to learn more about the crew and how they are motivated to be so pleasant and upbeat on such a long cruise.  It was interesting and helpful.

Bridge at 10. At 11 Doug went to hear the exploration speaker talk about where modern Japan came from.  He thought it was good, but too broad and fast.  It would have been better had he concentrated on a smaller segment.  I went to see the culinary demo with our new chef, Denise Vivaldo.  She has cooked for and with many famous people.  She made pear bread pudding with a caramel sauce that was quite good.  She seems a bit hyper, so we’ll see what it will be like to actually cook with her on our next sea day – which is about a week away!

Doug and I had a quick lunch in the Lido and then went for a tour of the ship’s Bridge at 1 p.m.  It was very interesting.  Of course, almost everything is done by computers, but we learned that there are always 4 people on the bridge working at a time – two of whom are “look outs.”  We took lots of pictures of equipment, etc.  But here is one of my favorites!

This is our captain, Olav van der Waard.  He is rather good looking, rather young, very capable and single at the moment!  I was able to catch him in his office on our way out.

We lost another hour today, so I only had an hour to catch up with e-mails, etc. before the 4 p.m. book club.  It was a great discussion (a smaller group) about the book almost everyone had finished.  I highly recommend Gardens of Water by Alan Drew.

After dinner, I went to see the movie, The Lovely Bones.  I was disappointed that it didn’t follow the book’s ending.  Doug went to see the comedian, Rikki Jay, and thought he was pretty funny.  I think he made the better choice for entertainment tonight.

This will be our last sea day until April 14th.  I think we will miss the relaxing days between ports.  So, the next 6 days will be really busy and full! 

NOTE:  Just heard that while we are in Japan, we may not be able to use the ship’s Internet due to their laws.  We might be able to use it while we sail between ports if we are not in their restricted areas.