Happy New Year! I hope you enjoyed your celebration, wherever you are, as much as we did in Rio de Janeiro. For me at least, Brazil was magical, and I leave it with fond memories. But now Rio and Brazil are behind us, and we’re on our way to our next port of call, Montevideo, Uruguay.
According to the sea distance calculator I consulted, it’s 1181 nautical miles from Rio to Montevideo, and we’re covering it over a period of three days. We haven’t had any problem filling the time, and while there’s certainly plenty of downtime, there are also a lot of lectures, activities, shows, and even meetings to keep us occupied.
On a typical Caribbean cruise there are port talks, but they usually focus on shopping at establishments that have a relationship with the cruise line, and you don’t get a lot of history or cultural information. We certainly had those talks while we were in the Caribbean (though I didn’t attend them), but on this cruise we’re also getting destination lectures to prepare us for the things we’ll see and do in each port. They’re interesting and helpful, and I make sure I don’t miss them. We also have enrichment lectures on all kinds of subjects, sometimes unrelated to our cruise. For example, on Monday we had a lecture from Spero Lappas, an attorney and law school professor from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, who discussed the effect the CSI TV shows have had on the actual practice of criminal law. A few lifetimes ago I spent a couple years as an assistant district attorney in Pennsylvania, and I found the lecture to be fascinating, though it didn’t have the slightest connection to our cruise.
Things also seem to pop up to keep us busy, the same way they do at home. For instance, on Tuesday one of my crowns came loose during lunch, a situation that on many cruises could be a real problem. Fortunately, Royal Caribbean understood that on a nine month cruise things like this were bound to happen, and they arranged to have a dentist on board. I was able to get an appointment for the following day (today), which is a sea day, so it won’t impact any of my shore excursions. I will incur a cost for the service, though my cruise insurance should cover it.
Another unexpected situation came up while we were in Rio. I got a notification from Wix, the host website for this blog, that I had used up all my free storage space, and would have to buy additional storage if I wanted to keep posting. No problem, as the cost was reasonable and I was happy to pay it. But here’s where it got interesting. Wix apparently knows where you are, determined that I was in Brazil, and it wanted me to pay for the additional storage in Brazilian reals. Imagine that. Happily, Michele quickly figured out the solution by simply having my daughter log on from our home in the US, where she was able to purchase the additional storage in US dollars.
We had a great show in the main theater on Monday night, when we were entertained by two Brazilian tenors, Jorge Durian and Armando Valsani. The power of their voices was really something, and they sang several well known songs, often inviting the audience to sing along. A couple hours after the show I went up to the snack bar in the Solarium to grab a late night munchie and ran into the two tenors, who were doing the same thing. Despite the language barrier I was able to get across how much I enjoyed their show, and they were very gracious in return.
Today Michele and I spent a good chunk of the morning at the cinema watching Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. I don’t go to a lot of movies at home, and I’m enjoying catching up on some of the bigger movies of the past year or two on our sea days. After lunch I walked for an hour, while Michele joined me for the first forty minutes and then headed off to the gym. Later in the afternoon I got my crown reattached, and after dinner we went to a musical performance by the in-house orchestra and singers in the main theater. Then it was putting this blog post to bed before hitting the bed myself. Busy day.
Today was the third of three consecutive sea days, and they’ve gone by in the blink of an eye. Any concerns I may have had about being bored on sea days have quickly been dispelled. I’m always doing something, and I’m enjoying the sea days almost as much as our days in port. Tomorrow we’re in our ninth country, Uruguay, and I can’t wait to see what Montevideo has in store for us. I’ll be back to share it all with you, so stay tuned, same bat time, same bat channel.
We sailed through quite a squall on Tuesday, and it was fun to watch the waves from our cabin, which is down near the water level on deck three. I’m sure we’ll see bigger waves when we get closer to Antarctica.
These world class Brazilian tenors put on an incredible show for us. What a great way to say goodbye to Brazil.
All of us photos I’ve shown of the main theater have been closeups of the performances on stage, so I thought I’d add a wider angle shot that shows you what a great venue it is. Michele and I like to sit up in the balcony.
And yes, sometimes we even have meetings. When we get to Buenos Aires some of our passengers who only booked shorter segments will be leaving us, and other short segment cruisers will be boarding. That process does require some things that involve those of us who are going the whole way, and this meeting was to educate us as to how that will work.
Michele loved Rio, forwards and backwards.
Speaking of Rio, this photo was taken as we were leaving after the fireworks. You can see the smoke over Copacabana Beach in the background. I couldn’t stop smiling.
This morning we went to the theater and saw Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. The cinema runs a new movie several times a day every day. I’m definitely going to catch up on top movies that I missed over the past few years.
This was the view from our lunch table today. I try to never forget how lucky I am to be doing this.
Tonight the in-house singers and musicians put on a great show. They surprised me by doing, and doing well, some big hits by the Stones and Deep Purple. I’d just as soon not see any real “Smoke on the Water” on this cruise, though.
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