En Route To Caldera, Costa Rica

(Ricki, Keith And Brian At The French Fry Challenge)

(Chuck, Keith, Jim and Ricki)

(Ricki, Keith And Anne Marie)

(The First Ever Cruise Critic French Fry Event)

(Steve Performing The Song For Us That He Wrote; "The Night Crew")

Keith With His French Fry Shirt Presented By Ricki)

(From L-R Brian, Ricki, Steve, gary, Chuck, Keith And Anne Marie)

(Anne Marie)

(Keith With Steve And Ricki)

(Last Evening Dining At Silk Road With Ernie And Debby)

As a few of you noticed, there were times that we incorrectly referred to Cartagena as being in Brazil rather than Columbia. We do want to note that the city has not moved to another country and is part of Columbia. J

We wanted to mention how much we enjoy transiting the Panama Canal. It was sunny for the first two hours of the transit and then it rained for the next few hours. The rain actually gave it an interesting look as we saw all sorts of foliage on each side of the ship making it quite interesting. The last couple of hours of the transit ranged from being overcast, to partial sun to some sprinkles. All in all it was a wonderful transit.

We viewed the first portion of the transit from the open deck of the ship. When it rained we viewed the next portion of the transit from the Palm Court, which provided us with wonderful panoramic views. We viewed the last portion of the transit from the open decks as Anne Marie walked the Promenade Deck while Keith was playing Paddle Tennis and during the time he was not playing had a perfect view of the canal and all of its surroundings. It was a glorious day. Since 2007, we have now transited the Panama Canal two times and the Suez Canal three times.

We enjoyed a very nice dinner at the Silk Road Japanese Restaurant with Ernie and Debbie. We enjoyed a wonderful conversation along with the outstanding cuisine and ambience of this dining venue.

We had lots of our favorite sushi and sashimi and Anne Marie enjoyed the mushroom salad while Keith had the spicy soup and we each had the Nobu Lobster as our entrée. We ended up staying there for about two and one half hours.

This morning we awoke early. We have had a running challenge with several members from Cruise Critic. The challenge was how many members of Cruise Critic would workout at the Fitness Center with Keith and that for each person who attended Keith would have a French fry. To quality they had to arrive to the Fitness Center by 5:00 AM. In honor of this challenge Keith arrived by around 4:30 AM. Between 5:00 AM and 5:30 AM others joined in on the phone including Anne Marie, Steve, Chuck, Ricki, Brian, Gary, Ernie and Roy. It was a lot of fun and afterwards most of us went to the Lido Café and sat at a table to enjoy coffee. Ricki and Brian presented Keith at the end of the workout with a shirt that says got French fries?

We enjoyed breakfast back at the room

Many activities were held in the morning and the afternoon since today was a sea day as we sail towards Caldera Costa Rica.

We attended the French Fry Challenge in the Palm Court at 9:30 AM. We had a large turnout of Cruise Critic Members and there was Danish and of course, a vast number of French Fries. After everyone had gathered Brian gave the background to this event and then Ricki presented Keith with a hat to wear and brought over a large plate of French Fries for Keith. The agreement was for Keith to eat eleven (11) French fries and Anne Marie fed Keith the first fry. Keith did eat all eleven and afterwards there were fries available for all who wanted to eat them. We took lots of pictures along with the group photo. Afterwards, Steve performed a song for us called The Night Crew, which he had written a few years ago about the wonderful night crew who work for Crystal Cruises. Thanks to Crystal Cruises for hosting this event for us which is probably the first French Fry event held on a ship and our thanks to Ricki and to Brian for all of the planning for this very fun event.

Today is also the ultimate team trivia challenge scheduled for 5:00 PM where the winning team wins an exclusive dinner in the Vintage Room. Each winner also gets to invite one guest to the Vintage Room.

This evening we dine in Silk Road with Ambassador Ed Peck and his wife Ann. We will post more about this tomorrow.

The good news is that before we go to bed this evening, we will be turning the clocks back one hour as we sail into a new time zone.

TODAY’S THOUGHT FOR THE DAY….

“I'd rather regret the things I've done than regret the things I haven't done.”

Lucille Ball

Keith and Anne Marie