Day 07 - 10/13/23 - At sea to Manta, Ecuador

 Our day started with the interdenominational Bible study at 8:30 and all too quickly followed by the first coffee chat at nine hosted by Jeremy and featuring the hotel department management of Florin, General Manager, Joanne, Guest Services Manager, Ron, Food & Beverage Manager, Samantha, Entertainment Manager, and Metla, Executive Housekeeper.  It was one of the best coffee chat sessions we've attended.  They discussed preparations for this Grand Cruise and details about what separates a Grand cruise from traditional 7 day cruises. A couple interesting details I'll share here.  First, there was a planning meeting held in Montreal back in May to explore how they could make this Grand better than the last Grand Africa. Second, Ron shared about the challenge of discovering at 7am on embarkation day that 7 pallets of 2023 Grand Africa travel bags had been delivered to the ship and not the 2023 GSA bags. He went on to share how they solved the issue.  The overwhelming impression I was left with was they are trying very hard to truly make this a Grand cruise and different from others.





After an hour break, the shore excursions manager gave presentations about our upcoming ports through General San Martín.

Following a typical LIDO lunch, Jeremy gave a terrific port essentials talk on tomorrow's stop in Manta, Ecuador.  This is definitely his strong suit of his job description. The rest of the day was free for me except that I had three passengers meet me at the organ keyboard in the Atrium on the Lower Promenade to chat about port excursion openings.  Afterwards Patty showed a couple of us her Pinnacle Suite which was absolutely luxurious.  They got it on an upgrade and it's the only one on the ship.  It has a kitchen, a couple of bathrooms, a dining room table which seats 10, a tripod mounted telescope, and much, much more.  I'm so happy for Jon and Patty for this very cool retirement gift for them from HAL.


Because tonight is the 9pm Captain's Grand Zaandam Ball, there was no evening entertainment, so we decided to try out the Main Dining Room.

 We enjoyed a nice lobster dinner with a couple from Maple Valley, WA and another couple from Australia.  It was the fun time and the food was good and the service prompt.  However, there were certainly a number of vacant tables. The Classical Duo did do a Mendolson set at 8pm and the were very good.  We've sailed with them (a married couple) before, most recently last year on the Westerdam to Australia from Seattle.

The Captain's Ball was terrific.  All of the musical ensembles and artists participated in playing music and dancing occurred in the center of the World Stage floor.  Two couples from the production show even did a demonstration dance.  Many of the officers were dancing including Captain Smit and Hotel GM Florin and many of their supporting staff.  And let it be known that for the first time in many years of cruising, I asked my wife to dance and she was thrilled and wondered why I had held out.  We might have to do this again! And Florin will vouch for us that we did dance! 


Tomorrow is Manta and we have an excursion.This is a port we've visited before but it's been a few years.


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