Icy Point Strait, Alaska

Hello from Wyona in Icy Point Strait in Alaska

I was up at 7 am this morning as we arrived in port. I threw open the blinds so Greg could enjoy the view also, but he put the pillows on his head and refused to recognize the view outside. Last night I just quit at 8 pm after dinner. I went up to room and laid on the bed with my clothes on. Greg put a blanket on me and then left for the magic show.

I woke up later and noticed him reading from his reader with a small light over his text. Why do I throw open the curtains to bug him when he tries to be polite to me? Oh well. I really wanted him to wake me last night so we could go dancing for two hours.

The night before we left on this last minute cruise I never got to bed at all. I was just doing last minute stuff that had not been done since our return home on June 5th. So for the 80 minute plane ride to Vancouver I slept. Then I conked out again on the ship for an hour before we had to do the fire drill and exit the ship. I think it was just like a jet lag from London.

This is the Celebrity Millennium that we are on, the ship that Greg, Arta and myself are going to spend 30 nights on starting Oct. 6 from Barcelona to Singapore and then again on April 11, 2013, 37 nights in SE Asia going to Vancouver. We are just scouting out the works here.

I watched a blurb on the TV about the refurbishing of this ship in May of 2012. Most of the money was spent on restaurants and the Olympia restaurant plus new beds in the staterooms. The ship was built in 2,000 so it is older. However, the more I am on this ship the more I love it. It holds about 1950 passengers. We are elite members so we get a few perks, like a continental breakfast in the Olympia Restaurant every morning. This morning is the first time we went. I will take pictures of it tomorrow to send out to you. We had all kinds of fresh fruits including superb papaya, frothy hot chocolate to die for, freshly squeezed orange juice, two sorts of smoothies, small pastries not to be equaled anywhere and even alcoholic drinks which we passed on.

The wood paneling in the Olympic room was on a Celebrity ship in the nineteen hundreds. When the ship was old and put to rest, this paneling was sold to a builder who used it in his house for a few decades. Then when this house went up for sale on the market, Celebrity Cruises purchased the house and took the paneling out and put it back in this ship.

The Olympic room is exquisite. It is one of the specialty restaurants where you pay a booking charge and then eat for four hours while they flambé and cook your food at your seat. Well, we don’t pay for the specialty restaurants because the food is so good everywhere else we feel no need to do that. However, when elite passengers can attend for nothing, we go.

Yesterday afternoon we were invited to afternoon tea in the Olympia. Of course we went and ate fancy sandwiches, petits-four and scones drenched in jam and whipped cream (we did miss the clotted cream). That tea is only once in the cruise.

The scenery outside the ship is exquisite; just like driving from Calgary to Shuswap except we are cruising on a ship.

However, nice this is, a big part of me would rather be at Shuswap watching Greg do the ceiling in the basement while I get the loft put back together. In time that will happen. This cruise was higher on Greg’s priority list than working on the house at the lake.

Love to all of you,

Wyona

(Pictures to be posted tomorrow or thereafter ...)