20241224 Seabourn Sojourn Grand Africa Cruise Day 29/96 - Sea Day

Grand Africa Cruise Trip Day 29/96 - Sea Day Christmas Eve

Today is Christmas Eve out here off the west coast of Namibia. With the time change last night, we slept in until 9:00. Still, I had a bit of a restless night as my knee was hurting.

Today's art project was creating beaded Christmas ornaments. 

Arlona leaned heavily on our home red/black/gray and created this beauty.

Today was a low-key day for us. The outside temperature was in the low 60s with 30-knot or better winds, so going outside was not pleasant. This was coupled with reasonably rough seas. It doesn't bother us but we know of a few folks dealing with motion sickness. The Captain keeps saying the seas will calm but they seem to be doing the opposite.

We did meet our trivia team, hoping for a Christmas miracle, but alas, we had another rough day and will drop in the standings. The lumps of coal:

• A swede or rutabaga is a cross between what two vegetables?
• We guessed turnip and parsnip - it was turnip and cabbage
• Who invented the Christmas cracker exploding novelty?
• Only one team knew it was Tom Smith, whoever that is
• Who was the first U.S. President to decorate the White House for Christmas?
• We had no idea - it was Franklin Pierce
• Who was Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer's father?
• We guessed Blitzen - it was Donner
• The Nintendo GameBoy was the #1-selling Christmas toy in what year?
• We guessed 1992 - it was 1991
• What was the ten-word greeting on the very first commercial Christmas card in 1843?
• Nobody knew it was, A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to You

We fared much better in the afternoon's Name That Tune, scoring 33/40 naming the artist and title for 20 songs. That was enough to score the win and more Seabourn swag - this time, another USB-rechargeable personal fan and power bank.

We continued our low-key evening by ordering room service and watching A Christmas Story before heading to the evening's Christmas music extravaganza. Cruise Director Nick was "home", and different friends kept dropping by, performing a nice variety of Christmas songs.

Elves stopped by our room, leaving some sweet and fluffy treats for us this Christmas Eve.

We also received a letter about the situation in Maputo, Mozambique. As expected, our stop on December 31 was canceled. Our itinerary has us in Durbin, South Africa toward the end of January. Seabourn added another day in Durbin on December 30 and we'll be at sea on December 31. Our second stop in Mozambique is still on the itinerary as that area doesn't have the same civil unrest found in Maputo.

We're looking forward to more Christmas activities tomorrow, but for now, it's time to crawl under the covers so Santa doesn't have to fly past our ship.