Notes from Steve

January 28, 2018

Leg #1 of 6 or 7. Left LA on Tuesday, January 23 and here it is already Sunday afternoon and still no sign of land. The captain has promised us some of that come tomorrow when we get to Lahaina on the beautiful island of Maui.

Since boarding the beautiful Crystal ship, the Serenity, it has been non-stop eating, drinking, reading, sleeping, watching movies, going to live theatre, attending enrichment lectures, etc followed by more eating and drinking.

It is hard to believe that Maui is 6 days distant from LA by water!  Days without making land are called “sea days” and a lot of the older folks like them better than days in the various ports. We will have approximately 40 of those over our 112 day voyage.

Live Entertainment is a big part of the Crystal experience and the consensus of those who travel a lot is that they do it better than any other cruise line. No real Vegas headliners yet but top notch shows nevertheless. A great comic, John Joseph, last night.

Laurie and I regularly attend the sea days lectures. Topics can range from self-help sessions to understanding our skies and oceans to politics of the day. Today we got a glimpse into the tyranny that is North Korea. Fascinating stuff.

As it is an Olympic Year, Crystal brought in two Olympian champions to tell their stories. Below is a pic of me chatting with Dwight Stones (L) ... just one of the best high jumpers ever - he set new world records 10 times in his career; and John Naber who won four gold and one silver in the pool at the ‘76 games in Montreal.

The three Olympic medal winners onboard our ship.

We are just settling into our own Olympics events here at sea. The events I will be participating in are pretty certain to leave me played out at the end of the day. First, there is cribbage followed by the putting event (on artificial turf). The last Olympic Games were held four years ago and I was the bronze medal winner on the putting green. Really working hard on my game as want desperately to bring home the gold this time around. There is a lot of pressure on Olympic athletes such as myself to repeat!