Day 5 – At Sea (2007.05.22)
Today was our first full day on the ship, and one of the two “at sea” days. The ship is making its way from Civitavecchia to Mykonos, where we will hopefully find our luggage. Since tonight was our first formal night, we had to give Jeannine our measurements for rental clothes (we actually did that yesterday, since we already knew that we wouldn’t have our own clothes). There were two things scheduled for the morning that we wanted to make, so we had breakfast around 8ish, on our own. After breakfast we went back to the stateroom for a sec and found that our attendant had laid out a honeymoon gift package on the bed. So, thanks so much, Lindsay, Marc, Donie, Ryan, Randi and Lauren! (Found out after we got back that the gift was also from Scott & Jenna…given the spelling of the names on the card, I’m not surprised that entire names were left off -DCG)
From there we went to the Celebrity Theater for the Mykonos and Istanbul Port & Shopping Show. We had thought that it would be all about the sites to see, and other interesting stuff, but it really turned out to be just a guide to getting the best deals on jewelry and carpets and other stuff we had no interest in buying. It seemed kinda gimicky, too, with certain stores bearing the Celebrity Guarantee, but we stayed through the end (mostly because there was a raffle afterwards, not that we won). Abdul and Rozida were with us through most of this, since they were joining us for the next event, which was the Honeymoon & Anniversary Party at the Savoy Night Club (they’re celebrating their 17th anniversary, Mazal Tov!). We got there a little late, so missed the chance to get a photograph taken (not that we would have, since we were all decked out in our Celebrity t-shirts), but we did get to enjoy some tasty cake.
Once the cake digested a little, we grabbed some lunch, and took a nap before the next activity, $5 Bingo! I was wondering how they were going to run bingo, since it was in the theater and there isn’t a lot of “desk” space. As it turns out, they have special bingo sheets which don’t require a dobber, you just punch through the number and fold the paper behind (which we quickly mastered the art of). Unfortunately, just like in terrestrial bingo, we didn’t win. Maybe next time…
After bingo we went back to the room to get changed for the formal dinner (and hoped that we’d actually have our formal clothing, since all that was in the room before bingo was a pair of blue socks for me (um…blue socks with a black tux?) and a not-really-that-fancy black button-down shirt for Lindsay that our stateroom attendant had brought by for her, earlier. Thankfully we actually had a full outfit for each of us (although Lindsay’s outfit was more of a nicely-made trash bag (her own words) – the pants were way too big (came up to her neck) and the blouse was baggy and just plain awful), so we got ready for our 6:15 dinner (since we had fallen asleep before the late dinner last night, Abdul asked if we wanted to switch to join them for the early dinner, so he worked some magic and now we’re at the same table). Once at dinner, we met our waitstaff for the rest of the cruise:
Ben, our waiter
Recep, our assistant waiter
Dixon, our assistant Maitre d’
Dinner was very nice…if tonight was any indication of the rest of the meals, there won’t be any complaints regarding the food. Still, it’s tough to be positive when we’re wearing borrowed clothing…at least we’ll have some of our own laundered clothing to wear tomorrow. After dinner, we went to the main event for the evening, Broadway Express showing at the Celebrity Theater. It was a mish-mosh of different Broadway “classics”, like Cats, Evita, A Chorus Line, Chicago, and some others mixed in. It starred the “Celebrity Singers and Dancers”, which was pretty cool, since it turns out that when they’re not singing and dancing, they’re greeters, so we recognized most of them from just walking around the ship. Also, right before the show the Master of the ship, Captain Michail Margaritis, led a toast to welcome us aboard, which was pretty neat, although he seemed a little nervous in front of the crowd.
After the show, we were both close to passing out, so we made plans to join the Hassans at breakfast the next morning, then went back to the stateroom. The ship is scheduled to arrive at Mykonos tomorrow at 2PM, so we have some time in the morning to hang out (and probably play bingo, which is at 11:15). Til then…
Pictures for today (all 6 of them) can be seen here…
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