Day 10
December 8th: At Sea
Bob: From Jamaica, our ship veered to the East a bit to clear the eastern end of Cuba and then swung northwest to head for Florida and the port of Ft. Lauderdale. That gave us one more relaxed day at sea. As usual, we went up to Deck 14 for breakfast at the Horizon Court, and as we walked past the pool we were greated by a glorous double rainbow over the entire ship from horizon to horizon. Wow. Naturally we stopped to take pictures of it, and fortunately it lasted just long enough that Monika could try to take some panoramic pictures because the rainbow was far too wide to get it all in one shot. |
Monika: We woke up to a cloudy last day at sea. I was looking forward to the breakfast bar, but when we got up to the Lido deck we stopped in wonder. There was a perfect rainbow. The half circle went from one side of the ship to the other. Luckily my new camera has a rather nice panoramic option which helped us get a picture of the complete rainbow. Breakfast was forgotten, we just stood there, taken pictures, and enjoying the rainbow until it slowly faded and we awoke to the reality of hunger pangs. |
Bob: Being further North, the morning was already noticeably cooler and less humid than it had been in the tropics, so after breakfast we decided to take advantage of the refreshing breeze up on Deck 15. The coast of Cuba was sliding by off our larboard side, but it was at least 15-20 miles off so it just looked like darker, more solid gray clouds out on the horizon. We chatted with a couple who had actually visited Cuba with their friend from Mexico who was purchasing his fiance's freedom to leave Cuba about 8 years back. Apparently the going price to purchase freedom for your spouse at that time was $3500, which strikes me as pretty steep, especially as the marriage ended in divorce just a couple of years later. Intertesting how much one has to pay to spring someone from a "worker's paradise"! I wondered how the price per person compared to the money that West Germany had to pay Russia for the freedom of East Germany as the U.S.S.R. collapsed in 1989. Hopefully the West German government got a group discount! We all know that freedom is never really free, but it is always interesting when totalitarian regimes put an exact price tag on it. Now I was curious as to the going price for freedom, so to speak, in all of the totalitarian regimes around the world. Has anyone done that research? The lady we were talking to about Cuba also informed me that I spoke English with a German accent. This apparent German accent also explained why in the past my countrymen have occasionally asked me what foreign country I was born in, which has always taken me aback a bit even though one could possibly define "Chicago" as a foreign country, I suppose. Although I was surprised to learn I spoke with a German accent, I suppose that is only to be expected after over 40 years of consorting with, and occasionally even cavorting with, a German girl. Really it is all Monika's doing; she emphasized clear diction, precise grammar, and even, horror of horrors, pronouncing each vowel distinctly. After 40 years of that subtle training, it's no wonder I sound like a foreigner! Hah! |
Monika: After breakfast we decided to get our excercise by walking three miles (9 laps) on deck. Cuba was off our portside and a small freighter was passing us. It was fun to see how much farther she got at each lap and how the coast of Cuba slowly passed by. |
Bob: Exhausted by either this mental voyage of self-discovery or by walking 12 laps around the deck (about 4 miles) in a little over an hour, we retreated back to our cabin to rest a bit and then attended a cooking demonstration followed by a tour of the ship's galley. The cooking demonstration was hilarious. The executive chef of the Coral Princess, who was wearing a cooking award around his neck and had on one of those high white chef's hats, must have been a really tolerant guy. He was preparing a three course meal plus a dessert while the moderator and the maitre de hotel kibbitzed. The moderator was constantly telling bad jokes and the maitre de hotel kept trying to use a big pepper grinder to add pepper to each of the dishes. Besides being entertained, I actually learned something about cooking pasta, which was to include extra virgin olive oil to the boiling water to keep the pasta from sticking together, and to remove it when it was still somewhat white as it would be hot enough to continue to cook a while after being removed from the water. Despite the heavy interference, the chef only got distracted once and that was when he almost forgot to add a layer of cherries in the middle of the Black Forest Cherry Cake. But he recovered in time, removed the top layer of cake, put on the cherries, and put the final layer back on and iced the sides and top. Then he carefully filled one of those big cloth icing cones that has a nozzle at the narrow end and tried to squeeze out a decoration to top off the cake. It seems that the icing that had been prepared beforehand was way too stiff, so despite his best efforts squeezing with both hands, he could only manage one measely little rossette before the nozzle clogged up completely. He muttered something about "sabotage" under his breath, and everybody, including the audience, just cracked up. |
Monika: During the morning we watched the cooking demonstration. On this ship, the executive chef did the cooking and the maitre d' and the assistant cruise director were trying mightily to distract him. The maitre d' had one of the large pepper mills and was trying to grind more pepper into any and everything including the black forest cherry tort. If you ever have been on a cruise ship, the waiter always comes around with one of those big pepper mills and tries to put pepper on you meal. So this evoked lots of laughter. |
Bob: The galley tour was quite interesting. Everything was in spick and span stainless steel, of course, and folks were busy working away as over a hundred of us trouped through the narrow aisles oohing and aahing. I was amused to see the wine locker locked with two big, sturdy padlocks! We also saw many of the decorations they used as centerpieces for special events such as Oktoberfest sitting on the floor, and some freshly-carved fruit sculptures that I suppose were going to be used that evening. |
Monika: After the show, we went on a galley tour. Everything was of course of highly polished stainless steel, and people were actually working, preparing the lunch menu. The galley tour ended in one of the dining rooms, where they had a "warehouse sale". In particular, their trinkets from Alaska were cheap, so picked up an earwarmer for Bob and a couple of nice Alaska mugs. |
Bob: Seeing all the food made me hungry, of course, so we had a nice lunch and then went to a ballroom dance class given by Crystal, one of the ship's dance troupe. She had picked an easy-to-learn choreography and Cha-cha music with a very noticeable beat, so we just had to concentrate on following the step patterns. In fact we learned a side-to-side "transition" step that allowed an easy entry into either the "New Yorker" step or the "Outside Partner" steps that lead off to the right and left sides. I returned to our cabin for a nap while Monika went to the final art auction, and then we faced the sad task of packing for our return journey. Sigh. But we finished by dinnertime and put our bags in the hallway as we trundled off for our final dinner on board. In the evening we took one final stroll on deck (romantic certainly, but the main purpose was to keep me awake), and then went to the "Ballroom Blitz" hosted by, naturally enough, Crystal. Basically, she turned the dance into one final lesson where we reviewed the meringue and cha-cha steps we had learned during the cruise. The meringue steps were a basic marching step, 8-count underarm turn (2 cycles), double push away with "sunshine" move in the middle, and the "snuggle" or roll into and then back out of a parallel dance position, much as we once did for the Lindy. Since we knew we had to get up early to leave the ship, we turned in right afterwards. |
Monika: After lunch we had another dance lesson. This time Crystal was teaching us the Cha-Cha-Cha. Again she did such a great job, that we felt perfectly comfortable dancing the four steps she taught us. At one point she and Sam demonstrated all four steps, and at the end I was thinking "why didn't you get your camera out and take a movie, dummy!" But I did not feel as if I could ask her to do it again. Sigh... She also told us that there would be a "Ballroom Blitz" in the evening where we could practice the steps some more. I was late for the final art auction but did manage to snag a glass of champagne, so it was worth it. Afterwards, we had to pack. This is always a sad occasion, since it really did mean the end of the cruise is near. Since we had kept our souvenir purchases to a reasonable amount, we did manage to get everything back into our one suitcase, thinking that from Ft. Lauderdale we would have to pay the baggage charge. After dinner it was the "Ballroom Blitz" and Crystal and Sam were there to help with the review of meringue and cha-cha. It was lots of fun and surely helped solidify our prowess with those two dances. After that it was off to bed, since we were in one of the earlier groups to leave the ship. |
