Day 28 - At Sea

 

Date:  Feb 5, 2007

 

Location:  At Sea 

 

Next Port:  Richards Bay, South Africa, Feb. 6-7

 

Quick Summary:  Well…there is no way you can win a Super Bowl with an ineffective quarterback who makes very bad decisions when rattled. Maybe his poor performance was the result of his relative inexperience, but Grossman may not begiven the chance to gain the respect of the Chicago media and sports fans after such a disastrous game. He just hasn’t improved from game to game.

 

It was about 5:00 a.m., before we turned in; so today was a fairly quiet one for us.

 

Report:  We started off our day shortly after 1:00 a.m., and joined about 40 others for a Super Bowl Pajama Party in the 4th deck conference room.

 

We had live satellite feed via ESPN Vivo…ESPN’s Spanish language network. We heard an English language play-by-play from the stadium but by a different broadcast team; and the sideline announcers were speaking Spanish. There were no commercials. Every time there was a US TV commercial break, we got loud Spanish commentators pushing all ESPN’s various international sports programming.

 

Lars Olsson, the Hotel Director, and his staff went all out to create a festive party atmosphere. There were soft drinks and beer – or anything else folks wanted. We had fresh pizza slices (with jalapenos), chicken wings, sandwiches, chips, pop corn, etc. At 4:00 a.m., Lars personally served warm, freshly-baked breakfast sweet rolls and muffins, with coffee.

 

Executive Chef Tobias was a riot prancing around denouncing both the Colts and Bears….he’s a big European football fan. Phil, our house band leader is from the Philippines and had never seen an American football game before. Several of the entertainers and other staff also attended.

 

All in all…even though we lost…it was a great event. We certainly appreciate the effort Regent made to bring us the live feed and make it a special night (morning!)

 

We used our new telephone Seven Seas Society credits to call Kristin and Heather and Ron after we returned to watch the last 10 minutes of the game on our in-suite TV. It was good to hear their voices.

 

Today we stayed pretty low…getting up just in time to catch the first of four presentations by Garrick Utley on the media. He joined us in Cape Town. Many readers of this journal probably remember portions of his 40-year broadcasting career with NBC, ABC and CNN, as well as public television and radio.

 

Larry spent a good portion of the day writing and posting the entries to this journal, as well as selecting and uploading the accompanying photos. We are doing this as much as for ourselves as our readers. It is the only way we can fixate in our minds all the great things we have done. After 111-days, it would be hard to start from scratch and record all our memories and experiences.

 

Today we cruised just a few miles offshore in smooth seas. It was fun to see Africa’s rolling hillsides, sandy cliffs and beaches, and some small (and a couple large) cities go by.

 

This evening we skipped the Captain’s Welcoming Reception ceremonies and spent the time in the Voyager Lounge. We were able to thank Lars and Jamie for their efforts around the Super Bowl event. We also caught up with Dodi and Larry and their friends from Hawaii, Cecile and Chuck, who joined the Voyager in Cape Town.

 

We then had a light dinner in La Veranda. Karen turned in early and Larry went to the new production by the singers and dancers. Entitled, “Oh, What a Night,” it was a fun show of pop music and dance from the 70’s and 80’s.

 

 

Karen and Larry

 

A reminder: Photos of our cruise are now available at the following web site:

 

picasaweb.google.com/larryworldcruise

 

Photos of our days in Cape Town have been added.