March 27, 2023

Last night was the Oceania Club Cocktail party. I mentioned before that the number of returning guests is so high that they need to do two parties every segment. Last night was the first of this segment. We are always invited to both. But last night was special because we reached the President’s Circle level of membership, the highest level on Oceania. There are only 19 at this level in the whole world. We chose to receive our pins at this party because we wanted to have Ray, our cruise director present. He was with us on all of our world cruises. So we were surprised and delighted when he actually presented our pins instead of the usual procedure of having the general manager, Claudio, do the presentation. It was a nice honor and thanks to friends Marilyn and Ellen, we do have pictures.

Today I had a Board meeting for ICF scheduled at 1 PM my time, so we didn’t have a scheduled tour. There is not pier here, so we have to take the tender (aka one of the lifeboats) to shore. We then took the shuttle to Independence Square, walked through a market and wanted to see if the famous chocolate place was open. No on the chocolate! And it was very hot, so after about an hour of walking, we returned to the ship. The tender takes about 30 minutes to go from ship to shore, so we were back in time for lunch and my Board meeting.

Here are some of the pictures from the ship as we arrived, in the town and when we returned from shore.

When I tried to get on the internet for my meeting, the internet was not working at all. I went all over the ship to find someone to help, but no one was available, so on my cell service, which wouldn’t support zoom, I managed to get a message to ICF. Needless to say, I was pretty unhappy but you never know what kind of service we get anywhere.

About 30 minutes after the meeting started, Norm let me know he got a message over the internet, so I was then able to join the meeting for the remaining 90 minutes. No way of knowing what happened, but all’s well that ends well!

We cross the equator this afternoon, and for the first time since COVID, they are allowed to do the crossing ceremony in which “pollywogs” (those who have never crossed) become “shellbacks” (those who have crossed). We have crossed many times, but we will witness the ceremony from the deck. There are several crew member pollywogs and I am sure a big initiation is in store for them. The band usually marches around the deck, King Neptune arrives and the ceremony involves kissing a fish and being douse with some substance, often pancake batter. I will post some pictures tomorrow.