20240512 Sunday May 12, 2024; Mother's Day at Sea

 20240512 Sunday May 12, 2024; Mother’s Day at Sea

The seas have become noticeably heavier as a low pressure system had developed in the eastern Atlantic between the Açores and Ireland, so we are heading into a storm.  The Captain did come on the overhead speakers to advise passengers to use handrails and avoid the outside decks for their safety.  There are white caps, but more noticeable are the bigger swells.  But this is nothing like the Drake Passage.  So far, no smashed windows.

 

We were back to trivia for the morning “warm up” session.  We ended up 2pts off a win, so a pretty typical performance for our morning trivia.  

The ship had a Mother’s Day brunch in the buffet, and fancy Mother’s Day cakes on display at each dining room.  There was an ice sculpture in the buffet commemorating Mother’s Day.  

Next we did a pop diva’s music trivia with Mike and had a decent score but someone did come up with a perfect score for the win.  

Our team probably managed to hold our ground in the Progressive Trivia, missing only 2 questions out of 20.  Tomorrow is probably the last Progressive Trivia session for the cruise since they will announce winners at the last session.  

After Progressive Trivia, we zipped up to our Stateroom to hop on a Mother’s Day Zoom conference with our kids who are scattered between the UTC-7 to UTC+2 Time zones.  It is good to stay caught up on where everyone is at and what they’ve been up to.  We are going to be rendezvousing with two of them in  Lyon, France in just a couple of weeks.  Their travel plans have yet to be cast in stone.  

We finished up the afternoon with the 4PM general trivia, playing with Mike, a single gal Karen and a couple from England Mick and Sue.  We managed a win with 19/20 for more coasters, which we donated to Karen and the English couple since we have quite a pile of them by now.  We didn’t know what color a hippo’s milk is (pink- must be strawberry flavored).

The waiters had to watch their steps as the ship was rocking a bit as they carried trays through the dining room.  On this cruise, our waiter has had to manage his section without an assistant for the most part.  Usually on other ships they have always had an assistant waiter paired with them.  Because of this, and perhaps our table being far from the kitchen, our dinner service has generally taken longer, but Umberto has been getting more efficient, and we generally have nothing better to do than to enjoy dinner and dessert at a relaxed pace.  

The Princess Theatre Showtime featured Georgina Jackson, a Londoner who is both a talented jazz singer but also a remarkable trumpet player who put on an entertaining show.  Most people would tend to underestimate the potential of a female trumpet player, but she showed she was a real virtuoso. 

On our way back to the stateroom, we caught a pair of dancers/acrobats doing some dancing and circus like acts in the Piazza, including the lift from Dirty Dancing.  

Then Janet got swept into the Effy Jewelry store with some raffle tickets.  It’s been a while since that’s happened.  Ben caught some of the new comedian’s act while Janet was tied up in the raffle.  

Doug Funk is a Canadian who had some more contemporary material than the last comic, and also incorporated audience members to participate in some comedy ad lib exercises which were fun to watch.  And he looks and sounds a lot like John Stewart to boot.  

We finished the night watching “The Help”.  It’s such a good story about how one person can lift so many spirits, and how terrible and sorry it is to see so much of this country wanting to head back into those dark ages to Make America Great Again, as in back in the good ‘ole slavery days and before women had the right to vote.