Activities on the Ship

Slightly over half of the total days we have are “sea days.” The ship has lots of activities, so these days are also okay.

I have been sitting in on the intermediate bridge lessons. There will be over 60 different hour-long lectures, so that could be just enough to get me confused. They offer duplicate play in the afternoon. I’ve not done that yet.

Kathleen has sat in on the beginning bridge lessons and has played some party bridge hands with her group.

They have some very interesting visiting lecturers. They currently have a British expert on the history of espionage. He has great stories and has an amazing ability to answer questions with remarkable detail about months and year of all the key events in whatever the espionage topic.

The ship has 3 possible dance areas…each about 30 feet by 25 feet. This is a nice size. On the main dance floor they have a group that typically does 3 sets of 45 minutes each, so Kathleen and I have been catching one set on each night. There are usually only 2 to 10 couples, so there is lots of space.

Kathleen has been going to line dance lessons periodically. I’ve not done that.

There is a special area in the front of the 9th deck that has a hot tub and deck chairs that is restricted access. We are allowed to use this because we have a suite. Others have to pay several hundred dollars if they want to use this, so it is nice and quiet. We’ve used it some, but our private deck is so nice, we don’t use this other one a lot.

The gym is nice, but there are folks that walk on the tread mills far past the requested 20 minute limit, so I have to time my visit so that I avoid saying something that I might regret. Kathleen and I have done a decent job in keeping up with exercise.

Lots of people also walk on the track area above the pool. It is not unusual to see 30 people walking at 7:00am. (It looks like zombies since most walk with their arms straight down by their sides.)