Jan 12 – Monday
Up at 8:15. I had worked until 2:30 so I was exhausted. We ran to the fencing class!! There are only 12 allowed at a time. We had partners, learned how to hold the foil and wore the white jackets and helmets. Then we all hollered “on guard” and learned to “lunge”! We were quite a sight. We were really sweating by the time we came out of the straight jackets (yes, they are actual straight jackets) and it was something we would not normally have learned.
Over to the computer room and Mitch is a very patient man. If you can just imagine everyone boarding the ship and wanting to have their laptops working – immediately! Myself included! He helped each one of us and I am now able to upload, work and then send so I can use fewer minutes of connection time for less cost. We’ll see….it took us a few hours to figure that out! Everything seems to take longer but it does eventually get accomplished! Had some meetings and there is still much preparation for the first event on Saturday night.
Still gray and misty out but they are claiming 80 degrees tomorrow in Ft. Lauderdale. The sister ship, the Queen Mary 2, will be docked near us and several are transferring to her. We board her on April 20 in Southampton for the trans-atlantic crossing so it will be a thrill to see her up close!
The hallways are decorated in black and white photos of past stars who have sailed on the Cunard Line. The photos are a trip down memory lane…Bing Crosby, Buster Keaton, Clark Gable, Bob Hope, Rita Hayworth, Charlie Chaplin, Debbie Reynolds…I love reading, seeing and living the history of Cunard! There is an entire museum onboard dedicated to Cunard memorabilia.
Had an interesting dinner as we were joined by Giacomo, an Italian opera director in Milan. He is working on his next production in Milan and hopes to contact his preferred female “star” for casting from Ft. Lauderdale tomorrow.
The show was a full production number of Irish dance and how the Irish left their land to go to other countries for work. All the dancers are top notch – beautiful bodies, excellent voices, many many costume changes, complicated dance routines, professional sets and lights…it was as if we were looking at pre-Broadway talent just waiting to be discovered. They ended with the typical Irish dancing and it was excellent.
Seas are calmer now and it should be a beautiful day tomorrow. Missed the lecture today on maritime history but it will hopefully be repeated. I forget that we are on for such a long time and with different segments where new people are coming and going, they will offer the same speeches a few times – thankfully!! I may not miss anything at all this way. I still have the mentality that this is a 7-14 day cruise…
