Eschew Obfuscation

Day 5 and 6: 2 Days At Sea

Posted by Max Dunn Tue, 01 Aug 2006 15:02:00 GMT

July 30/31, 2006 – Sunday/Monday: “But I don’t want to go, Daddy’s making me.” “Just give it 3 days, ” I said, “That’s all I ask and if you don’t like it then you won’t have to go anymore.” Hearing those words at the start of a 14 day cruise was not what I wanted to hear, especially with the first 2 days out at sea. But knowing Claire, and her past cruising experiences, I knew that the odds of her not having fun were next to nothing. We’ve hardly seen her (and Maxie) since.

We’ve been trying to catch up on sleep (again) these past few days. Staying up late (mainly due to the kids wanting to stay late in the Fun Factory) and moving our clocks 2 more hours ahead doesn’t help. Reading is always a nice way to pass the time away. I’ve also managed to take a few Photoshop classes and am learning how to do things the right way (as opposed to the “let’s see how I can do this by clicking here” long and laborious way). We also got in a very exciting game of Family Bingo. And I ACTUALLY won something. The downside (or maybe upside) is that I had to do a dance in order to get the prize. The things parents do just to win something for their kids! Well, I got a tiny little stuffed unnamed starfish (not a real one), Celebrity’s equivalent of RCCL’s Inky. Maxie won too and got a mug so, being the nice brother that he is, he gave it to Claire and got my starfish. Max also won a piece of crystal for me at a crystal talk. And to think that we never win anything…We also caught a few shows (Lindsey Hamilton, who’s had major parts in West End’s “Les Mis,” “Evita,” and “My Fair Lady,” who sang; and the Celebrity singers who did a salute to Broadway), two of the best that we’ve seen on a cruise.

So far we’ve cruised up and around Denmark (basically made a giant S turn) and are heading toward Tallinn, Estonia, our first stop. The sea up here has been really calm—you can hardly feel the ship move. It is a very busy sea, a superhighway of sorts for a lot of ships moving cargo here and there. At one point I counted 11 ships looking from our balcony (and that’s just looking from the back of the ship). There could have been many more. The weather has been surprisingly nice with a freak rain storm that we hit but didn’t last very long. Maybe 5-10 more degrees higher and it would be right in my comfort zone. I’ll take this weather, though, any day over the heat wave that we had in California.

Meals have been good, except for the fish that I had Sunday night. It was just rather plain.