Sailing the North Atlantic

Hello from some whether off the coast of Miami!

Currently it's 22C, breezy and the waves are between 1.5 and 4 ft. The ocean is a dark blue, but getting lighter with flecks of dark turquoise. This must mean we agree heading in the right direction!

The past two days have been sea days. Yesterday it was quite cool and windy, though we spent some time in the morning in the Solarium, listening to our iPods and reading. We signed up for a meet and mingle event through CruiseCritic a website for cruising, our meet and mingle event was scheduled your yesterday morning, so we got up at an un-godly hour for a holiday and had a lovely breakfast in the dining room and went to one of the lounges for the event. This was apparently one of the biggest groups registered, about 110 ppl. Royal Caribbean staff drew ballots and gave away a number of prizes, 2 free in room movie rentals, $50 worth of Internet, hats & bags etc. The event was an opportunity to meet other cruisers and it also included a gift exchange. The gift was to be something representing either your home country, state or city...we brought maple syrup that Peter's boss made last year. Due to the larg size our group, the Capitain came by and introduced himself and took a group photo. Apparently this never happens!

Oddly enough the largest group on board this sailing are the Canadians! The are apparently approximately 3300 passengers about the vessel and 1200 are Canadian. What does this mean? Well it means maple syrup was not a thrilling gift for a Canadian....it means that at our table for 6 at dinner, the other two couples are from Vancouver (actually Mission) and Kitchener respectfully.

The majority of the passengers are French speaking, and oddly enough remind us of Peter's mother everywhere we go! (Not in a good way...) last night at the first formal night Peter and I were in stitches over all the ladies who were dressed very much as he would expect his mother to dress...oh well...

This cruise has a much older demographic than the last time we sailed this cruising. We would hazard a guess that the average age is about 75. Unlike the last sailing, which had 800 kids, this one only has 200.

This afternoon we are heading to one of the ice skating shows. Apparently they brought in a trapeze artist from Paris, France. Not sure how she does the trapeze on skates, but I guess we I'll see!

Tomorrow we are in Labadee, Haiti....Come on warm Carribean weather! It's expected to be about 30C in Haiti!

Megan & Peter