WELCOME TO SANTORINO, GREECE The other day we posted photos from the Crew Easter egg Decoration Contest. These are the winners in order of ranking 1. Holy Bling - Ronnie Espina who is an attendant at the Computer University. 2. Mystery Garden - Nora Corpuz who is the florist. 3. Genuine Island Painted Floral Ostrich Egg - Liezl Tamondong who is the Librarian. In addition to showing their artistic talents these are three absolutely wonderful people who we adore. Congratulations to them and everyone who participated in the contest. You are all winners. Last evening was the one and only Black Tie Optional night on this cruise. In addition to the regular dining venues being open, the Supper Club was offered and available for 100+ guests who made a reservation to attend. These are the dinner menus from Waterside. We dined at the Umi Uma Japanese Specialty Restaurant with friends Jim & Judy. We first met Jim and Judy on the 2007 World Cruise and since that time have sailed with them on several World Cruises. They were on-board for the 2019 World Cruise and will be returning home following this voyage. We had a great time with them enjoying lots of conversation, terrific cuisine, wonderful service and the overall ambience of the dining venue. We enjoyed sushi/sashimi and a some appetizers and an entree. Last evening also included the Crystal Society Party at 7:45 PM. The original plans was to have two performance of Crystal Broadways: The Show at 8:30 and 10:30 PM. However, since the seas were very rough they postponed the show to the last night of the cruise and they went with a comedian instead. There was live music at the Crystal Cove; Palm Court; and Avenue Saloon; Karaoke and a late night Dance Party at Pulse. The movie was Puzzle and was shown at 8:00 and 10:00 PM at the Hollywood Theatre. By the time we got back to the room the seas were calmer than earlier in the evening. We slept well as we normally do and began the day with a workout for Keith followed coffee and breakfast in our room. We anchored off Santorini, Greece by 7:00 AM. Knowing that we will be there on the next cruise we planned to stay on the ship and booked a haircut for Anne Marie in the Salon for today. We ended up making the day a sea day and look forward to our visit to this port next week. We wanted to provide some information on Santorini. The total population is 16,000 residents. It is part of the Cyclades Islands. It was once an active volcano which erupted around 1500 BCE. The force was so strong that the center of the island exploded. Major attractions include: Archaeological Museum which is home to artifacts from the 3rd Millennium BCE thru the Classical Period. Megaro Gyzi Cultural Center & Museum which is housed in a 17th century mansion. It contains engravings from old historical manuscript and paintings of Santorini. Lignos Folklore Museum which occupies a traditional cave house dating back to 1861. Red Beach which has black and red volcanic pebbles and hot water. Pyrgos which is a traditional village built on the slopes of a hill. It provides beautiful views. While Anne Marie was at the Salon Keith worked out again and also did reading and writing. We had lunch at Marketplace and in the afternoon Keith played Paddle Tennis while Anne Marie walked and we are spending the rest of the day enjoying the ship. Following is the Reflections Daily Program. Cheers, Anne Marie & Keith
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ON THE ROAD TO SANTORINO, GEECE - A DAY AT SEA Serenity departed Kotor on scheduler's at 5:00 PM and we are including a couple of photos right before departure from the port. We enjoyed a pre-dinner drink in our room before we visited Apropos which is one of the on-board Stores. These are the dinner menus from Waterside from last evening. Last evening we had dinner at Waterside with friend Barbara. We have known Barbara for many years and have sailed on several cruises with her. Unfortunately she was feeling under the weather so was unable to have dinner with us. The good news is we have another dinner planned with Barbara. We dined with Head Waiter Augusto’s wife who is on board for a portion of this cruise. After hearing about her for years it was a pleasure to meet her. We had a wonderful time. Terrific conversation. Excellent service and excellent food. Throughout much of the meal Waterside was relatively quiet with many guests dining at other venues and others arriving to Waterside later in the evening. Each cruise is different. On some cruises there has been a long queue outside the doors of Waterside before the venue opens and on other voyages the queue has been shorter or non-existent. Last evening it was non-existent. We both had a Duo Of Crab Appetizer. It was a first time for us and in addition to the crab it sat in an Avocado sauce. We each had salads. For the entree Anne Mari had the Sautéed Tiger Prawns and August's wife did the same and Keith had the Ahi Tuna. We were each pleased with hour choices. The only bad news of the evening was forwarding our clocks by one hour to get on the local time zone for Greece. LOL. We slept very well as we sail to our first port of call in Greece. The seas were relatively calm when we fell asleep. Early in the morning the sea swells picked up and the ship was rocking a good deal more as was the case when Keith went to the Fitness Center. It was a bit more challenging for Keith to start the day as he always does but he succeeded and was up at the Fitness enter for an early workout. After his workout we had coffee and breakfast in our room. Today is the only sea day of this cruise. After breakfast Keith took an indoor cycling class while Anne Marie walked. Six people took the class out of the twelve who signed up. This was not surprising given the moving the clocks back by one hour. In fact, the Fitness Center was relatively quiet. Fitness Director Melanie taught the class and it was a challenging class. There was lots on the program. Destination Lecturer Marcus Sherwood spoke about our upcoming ports in Santorini and Nafplion and World Affairs Lecturer Ken Walsh spoke about Donald Trump. We enjoyed lunch at Marketplace. It was the Asian Buffet. After lunch Keith hoped to play Paddle Tennis. Unfortunately, it was too windy. He thought about playing by myself as with the wind he could have served the ball and it might have come right back to him if he hit it high in the air. We ended up walking together. Daily we try to post the dinner menus at Waterside. Today we thought we would post the Breakfast and Luncheon Menus. Whereas the breakfast menu is the same each day the luncheon menu changes daily. Below is today's daily Reflections Program. Cheers, Anne Marie & Keith WELCOME TO KOTOR, MONTENGRO Doris we feel the same way as you do. The crew did an amazing job decorating the eggs. They are all winners in our humble opinion. These are the dinner menus from Waterside. We enjoyed dinner in our room. We had one guest for dinner. We ordered food from the Waterside menu and one item from Umi Uma. We both had appetizers from the Modern Menu of the Seared Sea Scallops. We had two different salads from the Classic Menu. Anne Marie had the assorted greens and Keith had a dinner sized salad that was featured as a Salad Entree without the Roasted Chicken. Anne Marie had the Nobu Style Lobster from Umi Uma and Keith had the Chilean Sea Bass from the Modern Waterside menu. We slept well as we are sailing to our next port of call of Kotor, Montenegro. We began the day with our normal routine that you have come to know very well starting with an early workout for Keith followed by coffee and breakfast in our room. It was only one week ago that we visited Kotor for the first time. We wanted to recap Kotor. Kotor is a coastal town of Montenegro. It is a secluded town with a population less than 15,000 residents. Starting in the year 2000, Kotor has seen an increase in tourism brought about mainly due to the expansion of the Passenger Cruise Ship industry. The area which surrounds Kotor included fortifications built during the Venetian period. The town which was first mentioned in 168 BC was settled during the Ancient Roman era. The town was fortified during the early Middle Ages when the Emperor built a fortress. Kotor is considered to be the best preserved medieval old town in the Adriatic and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Major highlights include: Maritime Museum which includes many portraits and other items related to vessels. Sv. Tryphon which is one of the oldest monuments along the Adriatic Sea. Gradska Kula which is a central clock tower in the old walled town. We walked into town shortly after Serenity was cleared by local authorities. This worked out well since as we were returning back from town guests who are sailing with MSC were coming ashore on tenders. There is a third cruise ship which was scheduled to be in port today. We walked all around the Walled City visiting some places for the first time and revisiting other locations where we had seen last week. The locals were friendly and the weather was perfect. The original plan was to have lunch in port with a married couple from the crew one of which comes from this town. Unfortunately, the husband had to see the dentist so we plan to take them to lunch in another port city on the next voyage. We had lunch at Marketplace and stayed on-board Serenity in the afternoon. Keith played non-stop Paddle Tennis and Anne Marie walked. We are enjoying the rest of the afternoon on the ship as we post. This is the daily Reflections Program from today. Cheers, Anne Marie & Keith WELCOME TO DUBROVNIK, CROATIA Thank you Doris. The humor is great and thank you for the good wishes. We wish our family and friends a Happy Easter and Happy Passover. A candy bunny along with another gift for our Penthouse and Assistant Penthouse Attendants. Before dinner we enjoyed a pre-dinner in our room. We also attended a cocktail reception at Captain Birger's Quarters along with several other guests. Anne Marie with Crystal Society Hostess Alissa and the Captain and Vice Captain. There were less guests there than usual. We suspect some might not have been able to make it if they were in Split in the late afternoon. We enjoyed speaking with fellow guests and officers. These are the dinner menus from Waterside. We dined at the Prego Italian Specialty Restaurant. We enjoyed the dinner. The food was terrific along with the service. We slept well as Crystal Serenity sailed towards our next port of call of Dubrovnik, Croatia. We visited this port just a few days ago. Keith began the day with an early morning workout followed by coffee and breakfast in our room. We have been on Serenity several times over Passover and Easter. Often the World Cruise includes these Holidays. In the past we have received an Easter Basket. Butler Rao told us the other day that those in the Crystal Penthouse receive a large candy Bunny. When Rao said large he was not kidding. This is what we call "Texas" large. When Rao arrived with breakfast he had the Easter Basket along with our newfound Easter Bunny. LOL. We think the grandchildren would have really loved the bunny. LOL. Outside Waterside there was a large display of Easter Candy in all different shapes and sizes. Guests could be the judge for the best decorated Easter egg. Some members of the crew have decorated Ostrich eggs in various themes (an example was "What A Wonderful World") and they were on display for most of the day. There were cards for guests to fill out selecting the egg they thought was decorated the best. Decisions...Decisions. They all looked like winners to us. We wanted to recap Dubrovnik as we mentioned the other day. Dubrovnik is located on the Adriatic Sea. It has become a major tourist destination attracting many people by cruise ship plus those wanting to spend time in the beautiful country of Croatia. The city was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site beginning in 1979. Major attractions included: Wall Walk which we did in 2005. The walk provides the opportunity to walk around and view the old city from atop the ancient wall. Placa Stradun which is a pedestrian limestone-paved street running that the Old Town and the historic part of the city. We walked this in 2005 when we enjoyed the Main Street of the city with all of the shops, restaurants and cafes. Dominican Monastery which was built in the 14th century. Rector's Palace which was one the home of the state government and theme of the Rector of Dubrovnik. The palace was built in the 15th century. Maritime Museum which was founded in 1949 and is located inside St. Ivan Fortress. The items on display related to the history of the Ragusa sea industry. Rupe Museum which was open in 1991 and has 5,000 exhibits about the Dubrovnik region. Our original plan was to take a tour that included a visit to a couple of Vineyards. However, with today being the Easter Holiday several of the Vineyards were closed so we decided to cancel the tour and to make today a sea day. We took into account that this voyage has only one sea day and our next and final voyage has one sea day. We ended up taking along walk towards the old town. We didn't make it all the way but enjoyed the scenery, particularly walking along the water. The weather was perfect. We enjoyed the ship for the rest of the day. This included lunch at Marketplace, Paddle Tennis for Keith, a walk for Anne Marie along with reading, and writing. Following is the daily Reflections Program. Cheers, Anne Marie & Keith WELCOME TO SPLIT, CROATIA Doris, you asked about the clothing store. Can you mention which port? Catherine, thank you so much. Gilly, thank you very much and we both wish you a wonderful trip. Happy Pesach to family and friends around the world from Crystal Serenity. Last evening a Passover Seder was held on board Crystal Serenity. We wanted to begin by adding a couple of photos from earlier yesterday. We had a visit from Executive Housekeeper Maria and Assistant Executive Housekeeper Sneha. We have known Maria for many years and when we celebrated our 100th Crystal Society Milestone Maria was in attendance. Sneha was our Penthouse Attendant several years ago on several voyages. Also, Penthouse Attendance Lunghar came by. Anne Marie had seen her the day we moved into our new accommodations but Keith had not. Lunghar took care of us on a couple of World Cruises and other voyages. The Housekeeping Department at Crystal Cruises is wonderful. We wanted to mention that when Keith was leaving Marketplace yesterday he spoke with Captain Nenad of Crystal Symphony who was visiting the ship. The Captain lives about one hour from Kopor. We sailed with the Captain on several voyages when he was Vice Captain of Serenity and we sailed with Captain Nenad last year on Symphony. It was great to see him and we look forward to sailing with him again the next time we return to Symphony. Before dinner last evening we attended the Cruise Critic Meet & Mingle Party hosted by Crystal Cruises. These are the dinner menus from Waterside. We dined at Waterside and this was another terrific menu with lots of great choices. We had three courses starting with an appetizer. We both had the Warm Seafood & Asparagus Salad. Our second course was the Spinach Salad. For our entree we had the Broiled Fresh Swordfish Steak from the Crystal Classic menu. We slept well as we sailed to our next port of call of Split, Croatia. The seas were calm. We began the day as we always do. Keith worked out at the Fitness Center followed by coffee and breakfast in our room. This was our second visit to Split. Our only prior visit to Split was on our first sailing on-board Crystal Serenity in 2005. Split is the second largest city of Croatia. It has a population of 175,000 residents. It is located on the Eastern Shore of the Adriatic Sea. It is a popular tourist destination. Major highlights include: Diocletian Palace which was built by the Roman Emperor at the turn of the 4th Century. We visited the palace in 2005. Riva which is the promenade stretching along the waterfront from the Diocletian Palace. Fruit Square which is an areas of several buildings including the Venetian Castello and Tower, the Miles Palace and the statue of Marko Marulic. It got its name as it used to be home to a major fruit market. Mestrovic Foundation Gallery which was originally a place and now his home to material and documentation related to Mestrovic's life and work. Ivan Mestrovic was a sculptor and architect. Ethnographic Museum which was founded in 1910 as the first museum of ethnography in Croatia. Shortly after the ship was cleared we took a walk over to the downtown area. We walked by several ferries and other vessels, then across the street and passed by numerous buses and a train station. It's a good location for those arriving on ferries and then having buses and trains convenient to the ferry drop-off. We walked the markets. One of them sold predominantly clothing items and the other one was enormous selling fruit, vegetables,bread and other foods along with a large range of flowers. From there we waled the old town where Diocletians Place and Sveti Dujam Cathedral are located. Since today is a Saturday a lot of locals were out shopping and eating. We couldn’t get over the size of the bread. We'll do a "split" for Split. LOL. We took Senior Head Butler Rao and Head Butler Jaison to for lunch. Jaison took care of us for the first few cruises before Rao came back from Holiday. Jaison will be going on a well deserved Holiday at the end of this voyage so we thought the timing for today's lunch was perfect. The weather was gorgeous and we sat outside. We had a wonderful time. When we returned Keith was able to play Paddle Tennis and we are enjoying the rest of the day on-board Serenity This is the daily Reflections Program. Cheers, Anne Marie & Keith WELCOME TO KOPER, SLOVENIA Catherine thank you for your comments. This suite had a washer/dryer added to it when it was redone. Subsequently it was removed and complimentary laundry provided. On Crystal Symphony they added two types of suites (not one this large) and on one type of suites (Seabreeze Penthouse Suite) they added a washer/dryer combo. By late yesterday afternoon we were all settled in our new room. These are some photos. There was a muster drill for all newly embarking guests at 5:15 PM. We enjoyed a pre-dinner drink in our room realizing that the bars are closed starting fifteen minutes before and fifteen minutes following the muster drill. These are the dinner menus from Waterside where we dined last evening. It was nice to return to Waterside. We enjoyed three courses. The menu featured several nice choices. Decisions….Decisions Anne Marie had Roasted Portobello Mushroom and Keith had Seared Ahi Tuna for our appetizers. We each had a house salad. We chose the Fresh Halibut for our entree. The entree is accompanied by a wonderful sauce below it which enhances the taste of the entree fish. We thought the entrée and appetizer were both delicious. Our Sommelier is John. We took a photo with John and with Ricardo. They both live in Colombia. We have had Ricardo in the past as Sommelier on many cruises in the past. This is the first time we have had John. Head Sommelier Tilmar stopped by the table shortly after we were seated to check on us. In the third photo, John is on the left and Ricardo on the right. The first two photos going left to right are the Portabello Mushrooms and the Ahi Tuna Appetizers. The third photo is the Halibut from the Modern Menu. We had Sommelier John decant half the bottle of the Cabernet. We slept well as we sailed to our next port of call. Serenity left Venice at 9:00 PM. Although we are in a new room we began the day as we always do with an early morning workout for Keith at the Fitness Center followed by coffee and breakfast in our room. Aside from being on a different floor and in a different room we are also on the starboard side (right side of the ship) of the ship. Keith is very used to the port side where I make a right turn out of the room to go to the Fitness Center and when staying in our preferred room making a right hand turn for the laundry room. A couple of years ago when we were on the starboard side for the first few days Keith kept going in the wrong direction. This morning he actually got it right. LOL. This was our first visit to Koper, Slovenia and to the country of Slovenia. Koper is the fifth largest city of Slovenia. It is located in the Southwestern area of the country. Koper is bi-lingual as both Italian and Slovene are spoken. The population of Koper is 25,000 residents. Highlights include: Praetorian Palace whose current structure dates from the mid-14th century. Cathedral of Mary's Assumption which is Solvenia's largest cathedral. Tasso Palace which s the Municipal Museum of History. The museum covers the archaeological history of the coastal areas. Almerigogna Palace which is considered to be the most beautiful building of Koper. Bell Tower which rises to a height of 177 feet and provides excellent views of Koper. Shortly after Serenity was cleared we went ashore. We had to bring our passports for a face-to-face with local authorities when we returned to the ship. As it turned out when we returned to the ship no-one asked to see our Passports. We walked to the town which was a short walk. The old towns is one level up from where we were docked and we took an elevator to that level. From there we walked the old town. We visited the Pretorian Palace, the Cathedral of Mary & Assumption, the Tacco Palace and the Bell Tower. We walked along side streets where many apartments and homes were located and the Main Street which contained restaurants and stores. The old town is lovely. We walked back to a Main Street from the old town by walking down steps in lieu of taking the elevator. We then proceeded on the road parallel to the other side where Serenity was docked where we saw several restaurants and the Kotor Hotel. We then crossed the street and came to a marina. From there we walked an outdoor market which had fruit and vegetables. Adjacent to that market was an indoor seafood market with a wide range of seafood. We also saw a couple of different locations selling cheese and a butcher. There was a small grocery store. As we walked the area we thought about places such as New York City and other major cities on the East Coast of the United States of America when the immigrants arrives from Europe. Some of them worked in small markets, bakeries, and restaurants and some started these businesses. We walked in some bakeries to smell the bread and desserts. The weather was perfect. When we began our walk the temperature in Fahrenheit was in the low 50's and by the time we finished walking it rose to 65 degrees. The sun was out. When we returned back to Serenity we enjoyed lunch at Marketplace. Our friend Barbara who boarded Serenity yesterday joined us mid-way through lunch. After lunch Anne Marie walked and Keith played Paddle Tennis non-stop. Weather was a delight. As we post this, we are enjoying the rest of the day on Serenity. This is the daily Reflections program from today. Cheers, Anne Marie & Keith |
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