Today was the day of our second bridge visit. We woke up at 9am in order to have a quick (pastry and coffee) breakfast in Sabatini's. We had to be at the deck 14 elevator lobby at 10:25 and we were right on time. At about 10:30 someone came to check off the names. We were soon led into the bridge and given an overview, similar to what we had on the Ultimate Ship tour but slightly different. Once again, we could wander around. Captain Fortezze was there (I think I mentioned earlier that he was the captain on our Alaska cruise). We chatted with him for quite a while, he's very personable once you get him talking - we talked about his family (when we went to Alaska we spoke to his wife a lot, and met his baby girl who's now 3 and a half. She also now has a baby brother). He also told us about the decision not to enter Iceberg Alley - apparently they were faced with almost solid ice and complete darkness - making it impossible to distinguish icebergs from white caps, so the decision to not go in had to be made. We also discussed the fact that it was good we did Alaska before Antarctica. It was a nice chat. We then looked at the flags - the alphabet flags and country and state flags - they fly those when visiting a port. Here's the Falklands flag.
This was taken on the day we visited the Falklands. They had just put the flag up. A trivia question. What animal is on the flag? See bottom of post for answer.
By this time it was getting close to noon, and their shift switch. I got my picture taken with the captain, we thanked the crew and headed out.
And here I am with Captain Perrin. Woo hoo.
Captain Fertezze was behind us on the stairs, so as we said good bye we asked him about the wave height on the Alaska cruise. His only answer was "It was bad. It was very bad". I guess we'll never know, but we were on deck 14 and getting sea water on the balcony. Definitely worse than anything here (actually, the water was never that bad it was wind).
We went back to the room, and then to the dining room for lunch. We had lunch with a woman from Canada and one from Alabama and had a very pleasant chat. After lunch, we dropped by the ballroom class, but it was in Explorers Lounge and the floor was very, very crowded. So Glen left and I stuck around for a bit to help one of our CC friends with her waltz and to figure out exactly what Rumba he was teaching. I learned the basic and then Clare, a young lady who was apparently a competitive dancer in Canada did it with me, as her partner was helping my CC friend. I also ran through songs on my Ipod.
After the dance lesson, at 2pm, we had a meeting with Ben of the cruise staff to go over what dances we'd be doing that night and to download our music. Because there were only 3 or 4 (he didn't have the right cabin number for one) couples, we got to select two dances each. We decided to do Tango to an Elvis Presley song, and Nightclub Two-step to our favorite Mana song whose name I never can remember. The other couples there were from the East Bay, and one was very experienced, and very very strong Latin dancers. Both of those couples chose rumba and cha-cha.
The tango couple was giving a lesson during that time, so we went to the class for a bit. It was, like before very crowded. We took part for a bit and then went up to the carpeted area to practice. Joan and Rich were there and we helped them for a bit. We also told them that we had to be out of dinner by 9:25 because our event started at 9:30. That's my biggest complaint with the cruise - most of the "fun" events began at 9:30 so we missed most of them. And the cruise staff has not been very responsive to that. Their attitude is that there is "only so much time". So fine, make late seating earlier.
After the meeting, we wandered around and headed upstairs. Linda and Bob had left a bottle of wine in our room, and we'd invited them over to drink it. We also invited Terri and Rod over because they didn't make the cabin crawl and want to see a suite.
We enjoyed the wine until about 5:20 when we decided to go up to Skywalker's for the elite lounge. We stayed until 7, with other friends joining us, practiced a tango on the way out and went to get ready for dinner.
Dinner was a rushed affair because we had to be out by 9:25 - usually it's around 10. Our waiter was fast and efficient, and we arrived just in time. We were ushered to the "green room" a corner of the Explorer's Lounge with a single entrance. Couple number 4, Dottie and Carl (very good west coast swing dancers, but not really ballroom dancers) arrived. Soon after, Ben and Veronica (dance instructors) showed up with some champagne.
At 9:30ish they played ballroom blitz. Then Ben announced that they found the four best dance couples on the ship (my comment - did they check every cabin - somebody else said something about the only 8 people willing to do this) and then the audience would choose the best by paper ballot, one per group, not person. They also stopped giving out ballots once the dancing started.
We were all introduced, and then we did a group waltz. Then each couple did their first dance. The first couple was one of the two east bay couples, and relatively new, but they did nicely. Next, Dottie and Carl did a very good west coast swing. Lily and Johnny went next and did a technically good rumba. We then did our tango, pretty good, not as strong as I would have liked, but no major mistakes. After the second dance, we were to be interviewed. Elaine and Gary, couple 1 did a nice cha cha, Dottie and Carl a good waltz, not as strong as their west coast, though. Lily and Johnny did a cha cha that was almost certainly choreographed and probably for competition, as it was that style, and technically pretty close to perfect. Cha cha is clearly their money dance. We finished with our two step, which I think we did well. Ben asked us how long we'd been married and dancing and where we danced. Of the four times he asked that, we were the third to answer California. Once we were done being interviewed, there was a swing while they tallied the votes - and the crowd was invited to join in.
The results were announced, and Johnny and Lily won (rightly so) and we were second so we are now the proud owners of a bottle of champagne and a second Princess dance trophy.
We then wandered around talking to people. There was a balloon drop at 11:15, so at 10:45 we went upstairs to drop our stuff and then came back down. By then, the atrium was packed and the Groove Babies (rock band) was playing. We would have gone to the dance floor if we could have got there, but we couldn't so we danced at the periphery. At 11:15 the balloons dropped, and we got one to pop.
To bed after that, with some internet time.
Trivia answer: A sheep.
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