Day 8 – May 26 (Saturday) – At Sea

Today we planned a lazy day at sea.  We got up, had breakfast in the Lido, and then went to hear General Zinni’s discussion on the state of the world from his point of view.  The main point of his talk was how after World War II, the Americans under Marshall essentially put into place mechanisms on how the world was going to operate for the next many, many years (such as world organizations).  That plan was effective and lasting.  General Zinni was a newly promoted brigadier general and during his training to be a general, he had to go to Berlin.  This happened right after the wall fell.  He observed that although the “hot war” of World War II had a clear ending and the creation of the Marshall plan followed, when the cold war ended no such thing happened.  He feels that because no plans were really put into place, the world is struggling to find its way (an international based plan was attempted by Secretary Baker, but nothing really came of it).  Now, with globalization, the changing face of power, the environment, and others, the world is struggling.  It was quite a good talk.

Next we had the President of Crystal Cruises speak.  He talked about the renovations to the ship and his view of the future of Crystal (they have many new improvements in the works including a new marketing campaign).  Q/A followed including the annual is there going to be another ship question (yes was the answer, but no time table was given, mostly because the NYK that owns the line would like to see better financial numbers before embarking on the construction of a new ship). 

We then went to team trivia (scored a 12 – should have been 13, but let’s not go there (ha ha)).  One team won with a perfect score of 17, so we pretty much were out of it.  Lunch followed (Asia café but we opted for the Grill). The only pain was we had to eat outside as both the Lido and the covered area by the grill were full and it was a bit chilly outside.

Next was the port talk through the eyes of Monet and a talk on Saudi Arabia and its future.  Next up was the Crystal Society reception.  After that, at 6:30 we had dinner in Silk Road (our first opportunity there this cruise).  We are missing French night in the dining room.

The entertainment was the production show “I Write the Songs.”  After, I heard many people say that they liked it, while others didn’t care for it (I think that they didn’t like that it was so “modern” with things such as Little Shop of Horrors, Avatar, etc.).  We enjoyed it (so did the kids).