Day 111, Sailing toward Fort Lauderdale

We continued to pitch with the occasional roll all night and into the morning.   It’s been a while since we have had a steady deck, but it’s not really affecting much that I can see, unless you wanted to get into a pool as they still have the net covers installed.

The wind across the deck is over 30 knots but the temperatures have warmed up, so it is fairly pleasant on deck as long as you stay out of the wind. I haven’t been down to the promenade deck but I suspect that they may be getting spray and one side or the other might be wet most of the time.

Comedian Buzz Sutherland was the guest on Good Morning Amsterdam.   This was one of the longest shows of the cruise as we didn’t get out of the theatre until almost 10 am.   Buzz likes to talk and if you ask him what time it is, he will likely tell you how to build a watch.

We didn’t do much in the morning and for lunch we grabbed some food from the Lido and took it back to the tables by the Seaview pool to eat.   By now, the ship has settled down, and we no longer had any water sloshing around the deck. Captain Mercer said that more bad weather lay ahead but he would continue to deviate to the south as much as he could to avoid the worst of it while still making it to FLL on time.

I got another haircut today- $25 plus a 15% tip.   My first two haircuts were with the male barber. Today I had the woman barber – or hairdresser as she referred to herself – as she washed my hair before she started cutting. This was a first for me, but Judy says that this is SOP for most salons.

The main event this afternoon was the Guest Talent Show. There were about 15 people participating. Show host Erin hosted the event. She stands for Gene on various occasions to get some experience as she will be filling in for Gene this summer for a few weeks when Gene takes some time off while the Amsterdam cruises Alaska.

Each guest was allocated 3 minutes, but some were less and a few ran as long as 6 minutes. No one got the hook and everyone was allowed to finish. The acts ran the gamut from standup comics, poetry readings, vocalists, pianists and ball room dancing demonstration. Everyone was pretty good and no once was wince worthy. The people who ran long were better than average so that was OK. The theater was about 95% full and every act received enthusiastic applause with the occasional standing ovation.

Judy Carmichael, the Jazz Pianist from a few nights ago, was our guest for dinner this evening. She was a lot of fun and we enjoyed hearing some of her adventures over the years as a guest entertainer. My Judy found out that they grew up about 10 miles from each other in Southern California. Small World. The main entrée this evening was the huge 24oz porterhouse steak that we had once before on this cruise. It was pretty good, but it is hard to cook a steak that big and have it end up with the same doneness everywhere, so some parts were medium rare as ordered while other parts were closer to medium well.

Island Magic, a steel drum band from Trinidad, were the guest entertainers this evening and they were fantastic. They played the William Tell Overture, Memories from Cats, Phantom of the Opera and more Broadway and classical hits. The crowd was expecting the typical steel drum calypso and island music instead of Broadway and classical but they hinted after the show that they may play some of those songs during their expected encore performance later this week.

Tomorrow is our final Gala Night and Masked Ball, the Grand Buffet and our final pillow gift. Looking forward to a great day.

• Island Magic