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Summit in 2010 at King's Wharf: Summit at Cartagena nine days ago:

I learned something about the basic physics that creates the green flash during Kelly Beatty's lecture this morning. Marcia and I seen it twice, once from the Los Angeles coast and once on a cruise--but not this cruise.

Today's weather turned decidedly cool and windy--perhaps to get any back to back to back passengers ready for their Alaska leg. During his 9:45 am bridge report, the captain said it was 64 degF outside. And the steady wind is not helping things either. We can hear a constant low volume howl coming from our balcony door. The bright side of this is that I get to wear my long sleeve shirt and a sweatshirt--I thought bringing both items was a waste until today. And I am on a cruise, so there's that!

We received our disembarkation instructions and luggage tags last night and I have included the scan of that document below as well as the Celebrity Today for today. Disembarkation Information Celebrity Today Day 13 At Sea 7 of 8 Celebrity Today Day 12 Puerto Vallarta Celebrity Today Day 11 At Sea 6 of 8 Celebrity Today Day 10 At Sea 5 of 8 Celebrity Today Day 9 At Sea 4 of 8 Celebrity Today Day 8 Puntarenas Celebrity Today Day 7 At Sea 3 of 8 Celebrity Today Day 6 Panama Canal Transit Celebrity Today Day 5 Colon Celebrity Today Day 4 Cartagena Celebrity Today Day 3 At Sea 2 of 8 Celebrity Today Day 2 At Sea 1 of 8 Celebrity Today Day 1 Miami

Here is a photo that I took of Happy tonight:

While sailing back to the marina, we saw Summit practicing their lifeboat drills. After getting off the sailboat at the marina, we boarded a mini-bus to drive us back to the cruise terminal. A crocodile was on hand to say goodbye to us. The cruise terminal has a lot of shops.

The snorkeling on the other hand was abysmal because of poor visibility. My wife said that the viz was about 5 feet which is not good. Consequently there was little to see. You would hear reports from the other passengers that they saw "a fish". When I heard that report, I decided not to even bother going in the water partly because it was so comfortable on the sailboat. But again, the sailboat ride was very pleasant and there were many nice views of the developed coastline and the surrounding mountains.

We sailed along the coast line towards Los Arcos. The rocky islands that make up Los Arcos were a nesting site for pelicans and consequently when we got there we saw hundreds of them on the rocky cliff or soaring above us. Kinda reminded me of our Galapagos trip from November.

The sailboat ride was awesome. The crew was friendly and attentive. Drinks and food was served pretty much during the whole time. I do not have a photo of the shrimp ceviche that was served. There was covered seating up on deck for about 6 people. Everyone else was seated out toward the bow of the boat (photo) or in the 1-2 person co-pilot's bench at the back of the boat.

We took this sail and snorkel tour this morning. The tour started at 9:15 am in the Celebrity Theatre and we were back at the cruise terminal by 2:15 pm so it was a 5 hour tour from pickup to drop off. There were approximately 13-15 passengers for this "Small Group" tour. This tour is offered by the tour operator listed in the above photo on their website. We arrived at the Celebrity Theatre at about 9:12 am and I was told that we could go ahead and disembark as our group number (28) was called. We got onto a small boat that was docked at the pier next to Summit. The boat took from the cruise pier to the marina which is on the other side of the harbor where our 50 foot catamaran was waiting for us. Here is a photo taken of the boat marina from Summit as it was docked in Puerto Vallarta: Our walk to the shuttle boat and the ride on it gave us nice morning views of Summit. The day was just beautiful--warm but not hot and no humidity. Here is a photo of the catamaran which was taken at the end of the tour:

I went up to Deck 11 to photograph today's sunset: Earlier I took a self-portrait:

I went to Guest Relations twenty minutes ago and asked them if they had mahjongg sets. They brought one out for me thinking that I wanted one, but I told them I just wanted to know how many they had. Answer: 3-4 sets

I’ll look into it. If you don’t hear from me by day after tomorrow which is our last full day of cruising, please remind me on the off chance I forgot.

Good morning from Puerto Vallarta! This was the first port of call on our very first cruise in Jul 1991. We were onboard Carnival’s Jubilee. I was very wide eyed when I saw Puerto Vallarta back then. The mountain backdrop was very impressive to me and there were musicians playing mariachi music on the pier. We have a sail and snorkel excursion through Celebrity today.

We did have this card in our stateroom tonight when we returned from dinner:

I ventured out into the casino tonight for a couple of hours. You have to play at the $25 multiple deck table to get the "normal" 3:2 payout for a blackjack. At the other lower limit tables and the $25 single deck table, you are only paid out 6:5 for a blackjack which is just plain evil. So I intended to play at the $25 table to get the 3:2 payout even though I prefer a lower limit game. For the times that I have passed through the casino during the past 8 or so days, I have only seen one player at the $25 multiple deck table. That table tonight was empty when I arrived but it did have a dealer standing there ready to go. The dealer's name was "Happy". He was from South Africa and started on Summit this past October. He was really looking forward to seeing Alaska as he did not enjoy the heat in the Caribbean or on this Panama cruise so far. He told me that South Africa does not get that hot. I remarked how dead the casino seemed to be on this sailing and Happy told me that the casino typically was a lively mad house during the Caribbean sailings. Case in point, the $25 table that I was sitting at was usually full during those cruises. Different clientele I guess. When you play alone with the dealer like I did tonight (aka playing head-to-head), you go through a lot of hands in a very short amount of time. I lost half of my $500 bankroll pretty fast. But after an hour and a half of play, I fought back to being up by a $107. I had a small "I Love Lucy" moment. I was starting to get tired and noticed that I couldn't even add up the card totals correctly/quickly and so I was thinking about finding the right moment to quit for the evening. I glanced at my chip stack and realized that I was actually ahead a little bit after being down for most of the night. So I looked up at the dealer and I said that I was quitting and I wanted to color up my chips. Unfortunately by then she had already dealt me a hand because I left my $25 chip in the betting box (I Love Lucy moment). To make matters worse I was dealt a hand that called for doubling down and so I put even more money on the table. Well somehow I ended up winning and then I pushed all my chips to the dealer to have them colored up. Whew. Tomorrow we will hit our last port, Puerto Vallarta, and then we get two more sea days before we arrive at Los Angeles. From onboard the Summit, good night everybody.....

Here are photos of some of the food that was served in the Normandie restaurant aboard Summit when we sailed on her in 2010: This was the famous goat cheese souffle: I believe this was the lobster bisque:

Tuscan Grille is located at the space formerly occupied by the Normandie Restaurant. All four Millennium class ships had Celebrity's first specialty restaurant--each of them with a classic cruise liner theme. Michel Roux supervised the installation of these specialty restaurants. As I mentioned, Summit had the Normandie Restaurant and she was adorned with some of the beautiful original wood panelling that was on the iconic French oceanliner, SS Normandie. I believe that it was in 2016 that the Normandie Restaurant was discontinued--re-decorated and given a different menu. Here are some photos of the Normandie Restaurant when we were on Summit in Aug 2010:

I took a few photos of the Tuscan Grille dining room: This is where the Chef's Table was conducted for the ten of us on embarkation day:

Here are some photos of the dishes we ordered at Tuscan Grille tonight. Berkshire Pork Belly: Broiled Filet Mignon: Polenta Fries: Broccolini Aglio E Olio: Strozzapreti Carbonara: Zabaglione Strawberry Shortcake: Spumoni Donuts:

10 and 7 That’s the number of kids and counselors, respectively, onboard Summit for this sailing. This information came from one of the counselors.

We’re having dinner at Tuscan Grille again tonight (630pm). There are 53 seated guests including ourselves. Seeing that the Chef’s Table is still being advertised in the Celebrity Today, I asked the maitre d’ how many Chefs Tables were they doing on this fourteen night cruise. He said only two times—embarkation day and Cartagena day. He said they tried to organize a third one for tomorrow, but there are only four passengers that are interested and the chef wants a minimum of six.

Perhaps it’s because the telescope was used for evil……