1050 - At Sea North of the Dominican Republic Good morning all! As you can see, I have some idea of where we are! That is another feature of the TV system here - the ship's location on a map. Yesterday morning, it showed us as still docked in Ft Lauderdale. Looks like they have that running. We are headed on a southeasterly course (a heading of 121.2 to be exact) at a leisurely 16.9 knots. There is a gentle 8 mph breeze coming from the port bow, and it is finally warming up! 79F! It also rained, so its a bit muggy and cloudy out. The seas are nice & calm with 3 foot rollers. A near perfect day to be at sea! Here is the morning view. Last night, as I think I mentioned, was our first formal night. It was quite nice. Unfortunately, I did not take my camera with me, so there are no pictures of the festivities. We met up with Millie and Joe (aka Mom and her husband, for those without scorecards), and went down to get our picture taken. The guy who was doing it was trying to turn each couple or family into a full blown shoot. The line got really long behind us, and I was laughing saying if he worked for me, he would have been fired already. After we got our large group/small group/individual pictures done (and the ship has a bias of taking individuals of only the women, which is funny), we went to dinner. They asked us if we would be interested in sharing a table with others, and we said sure - after all, if they are annoying, it is just for the one meal. Well, they turned out to be a couple from Seattle, and they were great. I think the Milster and Joe might have convinced them to look at moving to the Villages. We had a great dinner. Speaking of food (sort of), I do have to say that the food here is top notch. We have been on cruises in the past (most notably when we were cruising with Carnival, and were going to have our first RCL cruise) where people told us how much better the food was on this line or that, and how much we would love it. It turned out that the food was good, certainly better than most chain restaurants that we would go to, but it wasn't like you said "Oh my god, that was so much better that other places/ships we've been to." Well, the food here really has been taken up at least one level - probably at least two. And I have gotten to try some things I have seen on the Food Network, but never would order out - like carpaccio last night. And it was really good. Wasn't sure how I would feel about raw thinly sliced steak. Ah, cruising - I do it for the education....! Anyway, after dinner we went to the show, which was packed. We even went with our new friends, Mike & Deb. Luckily, we found 6 seats together in the second row, off to one side. They weren't bad seats, and you were close to the Broadway themed show. The show was quite good - call it an 8 on a scale of 10 - and they also had the Captain's official welcome aboard, along with the introduction of the senior officers. Good way to start the evening. After the show we said good night to Mike and Deb, and discussed what we were going to do for the rest of the night. There was a comedy showat 12:15 that we decided to go see (it was almost 10 at this point), so we went in search of our embarkation and first night at dinner pictures, which we found. The embarkation pics were actually pretty good, and my mother was going to buy her's - but then the girl at the counter tried to sell her on a package of pictures (they had pre-paid packages that you could select different images for), so my mother being practical said she would wait and see if she liked enough pictures to fill in a package as the cruise went on. Sale lost for that girl! Then we went to a disco, because earlier in the day, my mother and Joe had taken cha-cha lessons, and the DJ was playing cha-chas. The class was taught by one of the dancers from the show, and my mother got to say Hi to her as we left the show earlier (that might have gotten her thinking about dancing). So, they were dancing, and Joe got a little flustered, so I got to cha-cha with my mother for a couple of dances. Now, I didn't take the class, and I used to teach cha-cha in my misspent youth, but I am sure there were differences in the steps we each knew. Luckily, there was only once when my mother stopped (you should never stop) and got a toe crushed (I felt bad about that - but she never stopped moving her feet after that!). One thing about me is that as I move around a dancefloor, I am always looking out to see who else is around, who we are going to crash into, etc. Its kind of like driving in rush hour traffic - its a habit. Now, there were not a whole lot of others on the floor (we're talking maybe another couple), but I did notice that one of the video guys from the ship was at the edge of the dancefloor, pointed at me, with the light on. Just what I wanted, to be videotaped!!!! Joe decided to come back on the dancefloor, so I got to foxtrot with Carol, and we had a good time - and we had people watching us, too. After that, we went to the martini bar, where Carol got a grapefruit cosmo (we just had to have the guy add grapefruit to their standard cosmo, and it was pretty close to what we have had on previous cruises (and if you are a longtime follower of the blogs, you know how important that drink has been!). I tried a different martini, which was nice (passionfruit and something), and we hung out there for a while, before heading to the theater to see the comedy show. When we got tot he theater, we were naturally a bit early, but we were the only people! Eventually 4 other people came in - they were from New Bedford (okay, one had abandoned New Bedford for Florida, but she was still a New Englander). Then came in a group of Cannuks (sp?) - about 8 of them, and the talk turned to the hockey game that we can't watch because Celebrity doesn't want to pay for the rights to show it, something they were not happy about. Then a small stream of people came in, and we had a nice intimate group (call it 50 people or so). The comedian was Kevin Flynn - I had never heard of him, but he apparently was on Sex in the City and a couple of other things. He was very good - and quick on his feet. Thanks to the small size of the crowd, they were rather vocal and interactive. It was a really good show. The funniest part was where one audience member said something, which prompted another audience member to reply to it, and he is standing there going "This is great - the audience is heckling itself! I love this audience!" He isplaying again tonite, so we will probably go see him again. Then we went to bed! We have also shifted time zones, so we "lost" an hour of sleep last night (that just means we slept later, according to the clock, not that we slept any less!). So now we are one hour ahead of most of you. Well, time to upload and get lunch. See you all later! Keep Smiling!!! Your Intrepid Servant, the Timethief Beachbum

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