She Sails Away

Something interesting about this ship, reservations are not required for a show. You just come and it's first come first served. Of course people begin lining up way before the show starts so you may find yourself standing at the end of a long line, waiting for doors to open, but the theater is really really large and can accommodate a lot of people at once. And they show the shows two times each night that they have a show. I kind of like the no-reservation thing. It's one less anxious detail to take care of before your cruise or the minute you board.

It's really reminding me why I like land vacations, too. Love my cruises but the last four have been something else. When we cruised Symphony in the Mediterranean last spring we left port on embarkation day four hours late because two separate people needed to be evacuated onto an ambulance. I'm not sure why this took hours to do but it did. And that was before we had left port on embarkation day.

Someone in our Facebook group just posted that they went to next cruise and added the cruise for next week so they could just stay on the ship. The only rooms left were Oceanview interior. This was a downgrade for him because I think he's in the highest suite you can have but he took it anyway and he's excited about it. So it sounds like @MaryS sailing is nearly sold out! I skipped breakfast this morning and for lunch, had snacks and iced coffee at the coffee shop on deck five. I had planned to go to the main dining room for lunch but the menu was not in the least appealing to me. I did an hour long escape room type thing with a group of nine strangers. It was way too many people. Kind of fun but way too many people and we couldn't work together as a team very well and we didn't make it. We're doing a Facebook group slot pull at two and I have a massage this afternoon. It is very gray and drizzly outside all day today. Captain Dimitri made an appearance at the stage show last night before the show began. He had a whole little comedic bit he did. He made an announcement today regarding the weather. He said that he is continually asked why don't we have a weather report every four hours. He said the weather report is get out of your room and go up top and check for yourself.

Ok, a report on my medical visit. FYI, $160 to walk in the door, plus any extras like medicine or whatever. (I do have travel insurance, though.) They gave me antibiotics to take and the hope is that the antibiotics will just make the whole thing melt away into nothing. If that does not happen I'm supposed to come back in a few days and they will do something to it to speed up the process. They did not want to do any procedures on it today because it's "too early," and messing with it would somehow only create more problems. So that's that, and I feel better (at least psychologically) and I have taken my medicine for the day. But there's more to tell. First of all, they took my blood pressure and talked to me for a minute and then told me to go back to the waiting area while they got the room ready. So I returned to the waiting area and now there's an elderly man there with his wife and he is struggling to breathe and he occasionally coughs and man is it a nasty cough. His wife goes to receptionist and says he needs to be seen right away, he's having trouble breathing. She goes on to explain this is the third day in the row they've come, he's been given oxygen every day and a nebulizer every day and they think he needs oxygen again today. I was thinking to myself why are you even still on the ship. (would you not have gotten off yesterday and tried to get home to a hospital? Just a thought.) And they went ahead and hustled him into the back. (I passed his room later and saw him lying on a stretcher covered with the blanket and hooked up to an oxygen tank.) After he disappeared, one of the doctors came out and talked to the receptionist about arranging private medical transport off the ship tomorrow for someone who needs to go to the hospital. And it was NOT the man that I was just describing it was somebody completely different. I mean we are on day *three.* What in the world. Scary!

One of the specialty dining venues here is called RAW on 5. (Deck 5). This is a pretty good sampling of their menu.

I am so interested to see how the windjammer accommodates the extra large crowd. I have visions of staff constantly replacing food. I'm also interested to see or hear what the seating area is like, surely it's massive.

Fellow Long Islander here! Currently enjoying a solo cabin on the Ascent (as you know) and we are just going to miss each other when I disembark and you embark! Really looking forward to your blog and hearing all about your cabin, it sounds amazing. I also really like your itinerary, completely different than the one we're doing right now. Safe travels! ( I love cruising solo and do it all the time.)

PS: regarding the infinite veranda. You have the option of closing these glass doors if you want and sealing off the little veranda area. I have found that doing so really helps keep the room much more cool. I definitely close these off in the evening and sleep with them shut and I feel it makes a big difference in the temperature in here.

We are at sea today. I got up early and did some filming and photos on the lower decks. By 9 o'clock, all of the breakfast seekers were out. So many older folks, I believe I've mentioned that a few times but it's just a bit of a wake up call for me as I've never sailed a non-family line that had this many elderly folks on it. You need to be careful where you walk because there are scooters and walkers and people shuffling along the best they can with canes and you just generally have to be careful. I guess that goes for life in general, don't go crashing into people, but just in general on the ship it feels like you really need to watch where you're going. And to also be patient. A lot of folks here that are hard of hearing who try to give a coffee order or a pastry order for example, and it just takes a little longer than maybe you might think it would. The film crew is out taking up half of the main pool and there's a lot of folks sitting around in swimsuits looking unhappy about it. I have no doubt that Celebrity is going to get a slew of angry surveys and emails demanding some sort of compensation for the film crew being here and taking out prime spots on the ship for 1 to 3 hours at a time. I skipped breakfast and I'm planning on making it to the main dining room finally. I'm going to have lunch there today. I was able to get photos of two of the main dining rooms this morning because they were empty. Tuscany and Normandie. Very classy. The focal point chandelier at the bottom of the atrium in the middle of the ship is kind of cool. It strobes throughout the day in different patterns.

They would not allow me to punch a hole on symphony last spring. They said that it interferes with whatever coding is in there and then the card can't be read.

That is so sad about those two kids. I hope they're OK!

Room service menu! Night ambience and a few things around the ship

The show tonight was called Bridges. It was terrific. Really wonderful. The theater has this amazing stretched out movie screen behind it and they projected all kinds of famous bridges on the background while the singers sang and danced. It was a collection of pop songs with dance numbers which is exactly what I just said I don't like. But I like this. That cast was phenomenal, they all sounded like they belonged on Broadway. They had a ton of energy and the songs were familiar songs so they were catchy. Plus they threw in quite a bit of acrobatics which was really fun. I would say at the very least 50% of the crowd on this particular sailing are over 70. Lots and lots of older people. So sometimes they would finish a dazzling high energy amazing number and then stop for applause and the applause would be smattering and light. Hate that for them. I think the cruise demographic might change during the summer but it's definitely a much older crowd, like a Holland America crowd, right now. some of the numbers were aimed for a younger crowd. There was one number where the men were grabbing their crotch repeatedly. I saw a lot of shocked faces in the audience. The guy at the end the aisle a few seats down for me looked to be at least 92. He was filming the whole show on his phone and he was actually doing a darn good job with a steady hand. And I should mention that before the show they announced that we were encouraged to take video and photos and put it on social media. I went to the 730 show and every seat in the theater was taken. I sat in the front row and there were a handful of empty seats by me. As to be expected, a large group came in four minutes before Showtime and went straight to the front row and then stood there having a long conversation, trying to figure out how they could all sit together. (They couldn't.) That led to another conversation about how they were going to divide. And even though the show was only 45 minutes there were many many people who could not possibly sit through the whole thing, they had to get up and leave and then come back. I went back, toying with the idea of going to the 930 show and seeing it again, but I went back at the last minute and it was sold out audience. i'm back in my room for an early evening and I'm so thankful the room is not rocking very much. Tomorrow is sea day, and I will be waiting around for my doctors appointment and I hope I come away satisfied.

I was wrong about no t shirts in the shops. For $30, they have t shirts!

I really appreciate the advice. I'm getting nervous and upset over this thing. in hindsight, swimming was the worst possible thing to do today. My little tiny cut has turned into a big problem. OK this is what I did this evening. I had a few antibiotics with me left over from an illness a few weeks ago. I brought them just in case. So I took an antibiotic tonight, washed my hand many many times this evening and applied Neosporin frequently. In my mind there's no question this cut is infected, it's really hideous. But at the same time it's not one of those super tender throbbing infected cuts that you just can't put out of your mind for five seconds. I have high hopes that if I see them tomorrow they will treat it. It's pretty raised and puffy. But not the alarming I might get staph infection of thing. Yet. Any case I'm on pins and needles till 1030 tomorrow to see what they do for me. My main concern is that they will do very little and this will get worse, but hopefully that won't be the case. Surely they see infections all the time. But underreaction from them would be my big concern right now.

We need to see photos of all that your brother consumed for breakfast if it made him too full for lunch! your brother might like these infinite verandas on Celebrity. You can sleep with the half window open for the fresh air deal. You don't have to have the whole entire sliding door open.

PS, the casino is non-smoking! The whole thing. There is no rancid cloud of smoke anywhere in the ship.

More photos from around the ship. I went to a complementary stretch class that turned into a sales pitch for some shoe inserts for $200. I did not buy them. I'm making it to the first show of the cruise tonight. I mean there was a show last night but I was up on deck watching the bills game and trying not to throw up. It's called Bridges, I will let you know what I think. The theater here is really nice. I went to the juice bar today and it was not nearly as good as the one on Oasis. Plus they were only open a couple of hours. buffet food is so so. The poolside grill is so so. They have pizza here available for long periods of the day. It is comparable to Sorrentos. they have tons of desserts and they look so pretty. I heard someone say "the desserts look so much better than they actually taste." That sums it up perfectly. All of the desserts are super bland. we are sailing and the ship is doing that big up-and-down thing again. Not as dramatically as last night but pretty noticeable. Since I was slack-jawed and doped up most of the day I took a nondrowsy Dramamine this evening. Let's hope that does the trick and doesn't leave me in a fog all day tomorrow. The wind was a presence all day today, nothing that ruined anything but most definitely an all day presenceand chilly. Tonight the wind is so fierce I honestly don't think it's safe to be out on deck.

yes, a high number of walkers and over 80's. 6 o'clock is right when the rocking started and that's when I got seasick myself! I wonder if everybody that went down there was hit with the same thing.

Interesting situation. I have a cut on my finger and at this point it appears to be infected. It has really blown up and become painful in the last 24 hours. I went down to medical at 11 o'clock this morning and they had just closed for five hours. They were open from 4 to 7 tonight. There was a sign saying to call for an appointment. I called twice and no one answered and there was no voicemail. So I went back down there at 4 o'clock to just ask for an appointment. Staff was blocking the doorway with their back to me and made it very clear I was not welcome to walk in and talk to the receptionist. I came back upstairs and it is 410 and I called to make an appointment at some point this evening before they close at seven. I was told there are no more available appointments for the day. They have three hours worth of appointments booked up? On day TWO? What on earth is happening on this ship? Also she didn't even ask me what was wrong with me before telling me I couldn't get in until tomorrow. I find that unsettling. I mean not alarming or anything but just not exactly reassuring. I've only had to use ship doctors three times on other cruises and I've always been able to get in when I go to them with a problem. Not so on this ship for some reason. Is this normal and it's just my first time running into this? Three hours worth of people already booked? Anyway, the soonest they can take me is 1030 tomorrow.

Sort of. That's their deck 5. There is Eden at one end, the back end of the ship. That's the earthy large common area I mentioned. And then if you walked from Eden to the front of the ship you would walk what is the equivalent of their promenade. But it meanders. It's not so obviously a shopping area with everything condensed in one long stretch. but that's where the majority of the shops are, and then they have a three-story small round atrium reminiscent of princess ships. At the bottom of the atrium is that chandelier and a bar and then three levels of seating surrounding it. Lots of live music happens here. deck four has casino and specialty dining and main dining all kind of lumped in one area.

I can just picture that and I know exactly what you mean. I've been in similar situations with my kids. yes, the apps are almost identical!

Also, a paper compass is delivered each night even though I did not request it. I kind of like having that paper compass to take home and look back on.

And look at the smokers area outside! They got a very very nice prime spot. No forgotten corner on the ship for them.

Yes! It was a two-Red Bull day. I could feel the life returning to me with each sip.