World Cruise Day 126/152 - Sea Day - five and counting (really seven)

Cruise day: 126/152

Ports days: 61
Sea days: 65
Countries: 22
Continents: 5
Ports: 45

We are making the trip from Monaco to Barcelona, Spain, a roughly 350-mile journey. We are taking our time, cruising along at less than 10-knots, making for very smooth sailing.  The sun is shining and the temperature is supposedly 61-degrees, even though it feels warmer.  It's beautiful outside.

What can I say about sea days that I haven't already?  For us, it is breakfast, bridge lessons, playing bridge for an hour, trivia, lunch, art for Arlona, a little relaxing time, dinner, and then perhaps evening entertainment, depending on the show.  We have a routine and today is no different. Except...the realization today that including today, we have five more sea days until we reach London, the official end of this cruise.

A little background for those that may have joined reading this mid-cruise...

This cruise is officially a 136-day cruise from Ft. Lauderdale to London.  You could also have picked it up in Los Angeles, skipping the 17-day Panama Canal transit portion, for a 119-day cruise.  In either event, you could opt to stay on for two more days as they reposition the ship to Bergen, Norway, making for a 138 or 121-day cruise.  For us, we're doing the 138-day option.  We also will continue on this ship for the next cruise, Viking Homelands, a 15-day cruise from Bergen to Stockholm.  Because it will be a continuation for us, the last day of the world cruise and the first day of Homelands is the same day, so Homelands adds 14 more days for a total of 152 days.

Back to today.  Counting today, there are five more sea days to London, one to Bergen, and one on Homelands for a total of seven more sea days.  We only have 3.5 weeks (26 days) left to go.  Granted, that is five days longer than our previous 21-day cruise record, but after 126 days, it seems like a drop in the bucket and we know it will fly by.

How did this sea day go?  Great, as always.  Bridge class was interesting today, continuing to explore Jacoby transfers.  We had fun playing for another hour with Kathy and Steve before once again finishing just out of the points in trivia.  We have suggested an alternate scoring system for future cruises that have ongoing trivia.  On this cruise, only 1st & 2nd receive points - 10 & 5 respectively.  A very few teams win a lot, so the game is pretty much over at this point for the rest of us. Our thought is to award teams points for the number of correct answers they get.  Add a few bonus points for the 1st & second place teams as well to reward wins.  That way, teams that consistently score well can compete, even if they don't win all the time, but the teams that do win get a bonus for doing so.  We'll see if anyone else thinks that is a good idea.

Our misses today:

• How many noses does a slug have?
• 4 
• What was the name of the little girl in The Nutcracker?
• Clara
• What is the highest-grossing Broadway play?
• We said Cats - it was The Lion King - my argument that the Lion King is actually a cat didn't work...
• What was Jane Austen's first published novel?
• Our literary expert, Nora, was torn between Pride & Prejudice and Sense & Sensibility - of course, we picked P&P and it was S&S
• Tiebreakers were needed - What year was Frank Sinatra born?
• 1915
• What year was Elvis Presley born?
• 1935

Lunch featured a Tex-Mex grill and was tasty as always.

Arlona's art project this afternoon was silhouetted Spanish riders.

The inspiration

Arlona's execution - I think she really nailed it - it is one of her best

After some reading time in the later afternoon, we met friends for our weekly Manhattan Friday.  Wait, what?  It's only Thursday.  Well, we have a conflict tomorrow - read tomorrow's blog for information on that - it's a good thing.  Our friends said that we could meet today so nobody misses a Manhattan Friday.  After some cocktails and conversation, we headed to dinner.  

Some other passengers got some great photos of birds that have been hitching a ride with us.  Arlona went out after dinner to find them.  Sure enough, they were still with us.  She grabbed me and we grabbed some shots of absolutely beautiful European Bee-Eaters.  Unfortunately, the light was fading, so these aren't the best shots, but you can at least get an idea of how colorful these birds are.

Now, as the day winds down, we have only six more sea days, and 26 more days in total until we head home.  Tomorrow, we will dock in Barcelona, Spain for two days.  Stay tuned for tomorrow's adventures.