Celebrity Solstice - day 9 - sea day

Day 9 (Thursday) found us sailing toward Samoa. Overnight, we had crossed the 180th parallel, the theoretical International Date Line, but the date line has various zigs and zags and so we won't actually cross to "yesterday" until after we visit Samoa.

It was a sunny day...

... even though it is quite humid and hot, we enjoy being out on our balcony...

... or *viewing* our balcony from the comfort of being inside in the air conditioning!

Dr Ngare Douglas had gotten off the ship in Fiji, but new speakers had come on...

One of them was speaking on Samoa...

Title of the talk

Layout of the Samoa Islands -- showing how close Samoa (formerly known as Western Samoa) and American Samoa are to each other -- also showing how the International Date Line separates them one from another.

Samoa flag

American Samoa flag (in these pictures, both flags appear to be lighter in color near the bottom, but that's just the quality of the photo)

We would now be coming to our first Polynesian island.

We realized that we had been spoiled by how good a speaker (knowledgeable, entertaining) Dr Ngaire is as this speaker is definitely lacking (and we think she will be the speaker for the trip from now on). Maybe she will be better on Hawaii topics as for the Samoa one, she just read her notes - even during the time when she introduced herself!

Instead of "Do Not Disturb" signs for our cabin doors, the ship provides these "Deep Sleep" signs!

In the evening, the production crew did a stage performance entitled "Amade" (like a shortened form of "Amadeus"). It was not exactly to our tastes -- maybe we don't know Mozart well enough, or maybe we just missed the point... I'm not sure. At dinner, we talked with others at our table, and one of the other diners was quite adamant about how great the show was, and couldn't understand why we didn't love it. We suggested, "That's why there's chocolate and vanilla ice cream!"

Regardless of whether we enjoyed the lecture or stage show or not, we again had a great day at sea!