New Jersey

We flew to New Jersey and boarded Royal Caribbean's Explorer of the Seas for a New England cruise. Our car service driver was a young guy from Queens with a thick accent. A New Yorker Queen's accent, complete with "fugit about it" attitude. It was clear as we boarded that this cruise clientele would be different from other cruises we had been on. After counting several wheelchairs and walkers and Rascals (those motorized carts) we felt like the kids on the ship. Later we did see some younger people and maybe 4 kids under 10 years old. The weather was not that great, but it did stop raining long enough for a not-so-great shot of the Statue of Liberty with the New York skyline in the background. I have to say, as we passed Long Island, I was kind of melancholy thinking of David in Flushing just a few miles away.



As you leave the New Jersey harbor area, you have go under the Verazzano Bridge.



Laura will be running over that bridge in just about a month as she does the New York marathon. Our ship doesn't clear the bridge by much, at least it seemed that way.



Our first full day of the cruise was a sea day, so we went to the gym in the morning and relaxed and read, walked around the ship, and prepared for our first formal night. Also, Mark went to a trivia challenge. Here are some pictures of what I ate:











That last picture is a chocolate soufflé that they pour warm delicious cream over. This is the first cruise that we have taken without our family and extended family or friends, so dining has been a different experience. We are at a table with a British couple (John and Jean)that have been living in Spain for the past 8 or 9 years. They live near Malaga and say that there are probably 250,000 British living in the area, which I thought was interesting. At first it was just us and this couple at a table for 10, but then they put another couple from New York (Harriett and Ron) with us. They have very thick New York accents and are very agreeable as well, so it has been fun chatting about lots of things. They have been on 18 cruises and said that this one has 700 less people than capacity. It hasn't seemed very crowded, so I guess that is good for us! Our waitress is Fan from China. She is a very cute young girl who has been working on the cruise line for 3 years. She said when she first started working, she didn't know any English. She has a heavy accent now, but is doing fine communicating with us. Certainly much better than I would do in Chinese. Here is one of the obligatory towel animals that our room steward left for us:



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