Days 26-27 At Sea, Happy Halloween

Sunrise Oct 28th

On our first Atlantic crossing day we took it easy. I did get up in time to video sunrise. After posting the last blog, I went to the gym and the whirlpool for a little while. We spent the rest of the day on the verandah, reading and enjoying the ocean sounds.  In the afternoon we finally got to see the ice show.  Yes, I said ice show.  This is one of 10 Royal Caribbean ships that have an ice skating rink on board.  They put on a wonderful show called "Ice Dancin'."  We put off seeing it the first cruise because we were so much on the go that we skipped all the shows, but now we are making up for it.

Our door Decorations

Royal Caribbean is running a fund raising campaign for Make a Wish Foundation.  One of the things they are doing is selling cookbooks with the proceeds going to Make a Wish.  I bought one during dinner last night and got the chef, our waiter, assistant waiter, and all the women at our table to sign it.  Before the evening show last night the cruise director auctioned off a bunch of perks, including bridge and engine room tours, lunch with the chief chef, dinner with the captain, and other stuff, with all the funds going to Make a Wish.  They also have a treadmill set up on the main promenade and people are donating $10 to walk on it in the Walk Across the Atlantic promotion, with cameras filming everyone who does it.  It's a good cause and the goal is to raise $15,000, enough for 3 wishes.

The show last night was pretty good. Singer Julie Grace did Broadway, pop, and country love songs .  Tonight is a production show and we haven't decided whether we are going or not.  

Carvings at Buffet Entrance

Today I got up and videoed sunrise again.  My goal is to get a sunrise every day as we cross the Atlantic.  After breakfast we read for awhile, then I went to Bingo.  No, I didn’t win.  After Bingo I went to a lecture on the 20 most important artists in the last 500 years.  That was really interesting.   There were a few on the list I didn't know that I plan to look up when I get home.   The most interesting note was that Andy Warhol painted works in every one of the styles represented by the other 19 artists on the list, so his work could be considered an encyclopedia of artistic styles for the last 500 years.

Royal Caribbean's frequent cruiser club is the Crown & Anchor Society.  Since Celebrity and Royal Caribbean are owned by the same parent company, our Celebrity "Captain's Club" status transferred over and we joined this cruise as Diamond members of the Crown & Anchor Society.  For that we got a few discount coupons (laundry & internet are some of the important ones), and invitations to a few parties.  This afternoon we had an invitation to a cocktail party at the ice rink.  There were free drinks and hor'douerves, plus a special demonstration of the skaters' skills and a speech by the captain. 

Black Widow

Today is Halloween.  I was hoping for some daytime events, but the costume party doesn't start until 10:30PM.  Since we moved the clocks back an hour today, we already have an extra hour in the day so it will feel like 11:30PM.  We can't manage to stay up that late.  Some people came to dinner in costume tonight, but we didn't.  The sleeve of my dress would have been difficult to deal with at the dinner table, so I changed after dinner and wore my costume to the show.   Ray decided he didn't want to put his costume on.  I brought a cape for him, so the rest would require him to put his tux on again and he didn't want to do that.  He's already worn his tux 5 times this month and we have one more formal night to go.

Tonight's show was a cast production of rock songs.  Some they did ok on, but I thought their interpretation of "Bye, Bye, Love" was way off and some of the others were a bit over-produced.  They did sing some good stuff.  

Time to go to sleep now  I'll try to post this in the morning.