September 25, 2016

Today is a Sea Day en route to Lisbon, Portugal, where we dock tomorrow.  The clocks were moved back an hour to synchronize with Portuguese time for the next three days.

We climbed up to deck 14’s walking track to walk about 2.5 miles before breakfast in the dining room.  The temperature was 18 C with very little wind.  Being after 8 a.m. the sun was shining, we had forgotten our sunglasses and there were more people walking around the track.  All four of the outdoor hot tubs were being used and a few swimmers were in the indoor pool. 

When we tried to turn on the TV this morning nothing happened.  We had heard from other people that they had trouble with their TVs and the problems were fixed quickly by the housekeeping staff.  After breakfast we stopped to visit our hosts, Christine and Jared at the Hospitality Desk.  They reminded us of the whole group’s Specialty restaurant dinner on the next Sea Day.  We will also be going with them and two other couples from our group on a full day bus tour in Lisbon tomorrow.

We decided to book a cruise for next fall from Fort Lauderdale to Valparaiso, Chile travelling through the Panama Canal and stopping at Georgetown, Grand Cayman; Manta, Ecuador; overnight in Lima, Peru; Pisco, Peru; and Arica, Chile. When that cruise is completed, we will have sailed along the coast of South and North America from Buenos Aries, Argentina around Cape Horn to Glacier Bay, Alaska, on five different trips. We have visited Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, Columbia, Panama, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Mexico and the North American west coast.  We will add Grand Cayman island, a British dependency; Ecuador and Peru to countries visited in the Americas.

After lunch, we walked on decks 14 and 15 as the ship entered a fog bank.  The ship sounded its fog horn periodically.  The temperature in the shade was about 22 C, but it was warm in the sun. The ship was still traveling through the fog bank when we went to a Wine Tasting.  There were 6 red wines and 6 white wines from the States, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Australia, New Zealand and France.  There was cheese and bread sticks to eat between wines.  Each sample was about two ounces.  There was water to rinse out the goblets and a pail to pour out the water. We liked the Spanish wines best. 

The ship had passed through the fog bank during the hour when we attended the wine tasting.  After the tasting, we went to the theater to listen to a presentation about the history of the Spanish Empire.  Then we went back to the stateroom for a nap before dinner.

Pat and Frank joined us for dinner again this evening.  Our choices were appetizers of Minestrone soup or Chicken Gumbo soup followed by Veal Cordon Bleu with carrots, potatoes and broccoli or Steak Diane with roasted potato, carrots and green beans.  The desserts chosen were Passion Fruit mousse or Mango Sorbet.

Tonight’s theatre production was a Broadway Cabaret with the Equinox Production singers and Orchestra.

We did not take any pictures today, but remembered to charge our cameras for tomorrow’s shore excursion.

Today we logged 5.4 miles.