Celebrity Solstice - day 12 - sea day

After leaving American Samoa, we were on our way to Kona, Hawaii, with 5 sea days to get there.

We attended a lecture by Susan Dixon on the Samoan island of Upolu that we had visited on the first Good Friday two days before...

It was unfortunate that this happened after we had already visited the island as she had information about several places on the island that we could have visited (hired a taxi to drive us there)...

A positioning map of Samoa and Apia, the capital city and where we docked

She described this as a sinkhole that has ocean water in it -- I think it is more a sea cave with an open roof that can be accessed from the island above...

... via ladders down to the pool. (https://www.samoa.travel/plan-book/activities/to-sua-ocean-trench)

Natural rock slides (https://www.samoa.travel/plan-book/activities/papaseea-sliding-rocks/)

https://www.samoa.travel/plan-book/activities/lalomanu-beach/

Now we need to go back to see the things we missed!

We next went to a presentation by the Celebrity Cruises Future Cruise group on Future Cruise Vacations: Exotic Destinations... one of the destinations the speaker talked about was...

...a Grand Voyage on this ship on which we are traveling, the Celebrity Solstice -- combining together multiple different individual cruises into one 110 night whole!

Carl is concerned that, if we went on a 100+ night cruise, we'd need a crane to lift us off the ship if we continue to enjoy the meals!

We then took a waltz dance class done by two of the show dancers (no pictures!).

Lunch was an Asian inspired menu in the buffet, and I got a "hot pot" soup that allowed me to select the vegetables that I wanted, they "cooked" it quickly in hot broth, and then put it into a bowl, I could add meat, and a vegetable (or pork) broth -- it was yummy!

We attended an afternoon (matinee) performance by Patrick Roberts (https://youtu.be/TqRfNy96JQ0)

We decided to go to early dinner in the dining room so again sat with folks that we have been with in the past. We were the first ones to get there, and the fellow who was seating us shared that it was our waiter's, Mark's, birthday -- so we shared that news with our table partners, and we all sang Happy Birthday to him when he came to our table.

He was very surprised and embarrassed (his face is still rather red in this picture!).

The evening show was Andrew Lee, a magician...

Andrew and his assistant

In this picture, a member of the audience appears to stay up in a prone position as the board under him was removed (it appeared that he was somehow hypnotized during this).

Cruise director Angela briefing us on the evening's and next day's activities

 So many things to do -- it is hard to pick which!