Day 21 At Sea

Today was a sea day which give me an opportunity to talk about the program the ship puts on to keep us entertained, informed and fed. Every evening we receive two new pieces of information in our room. One is the menu options for the next days dinner for the four restaurants on board, so you can determine where you would like to eat. This also notes what the dress will be for the two formal restaurants. The choices are: Black Tie Optional, Elegant Casual or Casual. The other two restaurants allow casual pretty much all the time. Casual means you must look decent and bathing suits are not allowed.
The second piece of information we get is the "Seabourn Herald". This provides us with the scheduled activities for the next day. Typically, there is a "enrichment" lecture in the morning, sometime two and another in the afternoon. These lectures feature some very qualified speakers and last about 45 minutes to an hour. There are Bridge classes and duplicate bridge contests. There is our favorite trivia contest which is only held on sea days and always at 12 noon. Also at noon we get a short 5 minute message from the Captain. He was born in the UK and now makes his home in New Zealand. My favorite is his phrasing as we just past noon which he refers to as "it has just gone noon". The afternoon often has the arts and crafts that Chris enjoys; dance classes for those wanting to learn some basic dance steps. There are some competitions (mini golf, shuffleboard, etc.) and often game show opportunities. Always, there is "Afternoon Tea Time" from 4 to 5. As you would expect this is replete with scones, clotted cream, jams, finger sandwiches and small pastries. It is all very sophisticated.
After such a tiring day we must then get ready for dinner, which for most guests means getting dressed and finding one of the bars to hang out in until they are ready to eat. At 10 pm in there are "Showtime" performers. These entertainers range from magicians, vocalists, piano players, comics, and tonight a flautist.
Well you can imagine that we all crash in to bed after expending ourselves to take advantage of such a rigorous schedule. Just before we go to sleep we must read the "Herald" to determine what will sap our strength tomorrow.

Chris - "It's Showtime" - To piggyback on Paul's theme today I thought I'd briefly mention the performers they have brought on to entertain us every night. A few groups stay for the whole cruise. They would be 3 singing groups/duos, a professional dance couple and a 5 piece band. The one singing quartet, soprano, alto, tenor and bass, we like a lot due to two of the performers (Adam and Sarah) that we are particularly fond of, we are having dinner with them again tonight. In addition, they bring entertainers on in ports and have them stay about a week and then replace them at another port. We have found the entertainment excellent and they all have notable resumes.