21 June - Day At Sea

June 21, 2019

It’s Summertime! I won’t have a whole lot to write about today. We have been at sea since we left Salerno last night. Honestly, I’m not sure why they didn’t just advertise this as an eleven day cruise and head straight to Civittavacchia today. We have been going so slow, we’ve barely even made a mark on the sea. Heck, we’ve been going so slow that, to quote an Australian man at our dinner table tonight, “If we were going any slower, we’d be going backward.” I mean, this evening, we went out on the deck, and instead of the breeze coming from the front of the ship, it was coming from the back. Anyway, we did see a pair of dolphins in the sea just outside our room.

We started the day with breakfast...eggs Benedict. It was really good. We’ll have to learn how to make a good holondaise sauce at home. We tried to stay out of our room so that our cabin steward could attend to the room. So, we took our Rome map and made a rough outline of what we will be doing for the second leg of our journey. It was very productive. We started out doing this outside, but like I said, we were going so slow that the air was not moving at all and it was very hot outside, so we moved our operation into the lounge. It was much cooler in there.

We were still feeling a bit warm even in the lounge, so when we finished we went back to our room. We have been keeping it nice and cold in there. Unfortunately, I fell right to sleep from the heat outside. It was about noon at that time, and next thing I knew it was 15:00! 3 hours had gone by! I felt so bad for boring Sherry Ann to death. She even turned on the TV for the first time since day 1! All we really get are things related to the cruise.

Anyway, we took some cards up on the deck and played Phase 10. It was so hot, and the air was still just as still as it was in the morning. When we finished the game, we went back to our room and did our packing before going to dinner. We had to have all of our bags out in the hall to be picked up before 22:00, so we decided that we’d get it done before dinner. Dinner, by the way, was great! Sherry Ann had prosciutto and melon and some escargots for a starter, then had turkey with cranberry sauce and a sweet potato something on the side. I, on the other hand, enjoyed a spinach and ricotta turnover (it was like a ravioli in a puff pastry instead of pasta) for a starter, then Steak Dianne for my main course. For dessert, we both had cannoli “Tutti-Frutti.” They we’re okay...nothing like we had in Messina! Near the end of dessert, the whole dining room staff paraded through the dining room, and we were able to applaud them for all of their efforts over the past 12 days. All of the chefs, sous chefs, servers, assistant servers, you name it, they went through and we applauded. They really did a great job. The Australian man had his camera and we had a group photo taken with our new Canadian, Australian, and English friends and our Server, Michael, and his assistant, Dmitryo. We gave him our email address and asked him to send us a copy of the picture.

After dinner, we went to the final show. A comedian act. Honestly, that was an hour we wouldn’t be getting back. We kept thinking it would get better...but it didn’t. Kind of disappointing for the final evening of entertainment, if you ask me. We left the theater and went back to our room to finish packing a couple of things, then went to the top deck and walked around the ship for about an hour or so. We took pictures of 2 couples (with their own phones) along the way.

Back in our room, we prepared for bed, put our luggage in the hall, and are now settled in ready to go to sleep. It’s been a relaxing day all-in-all.