The reason we chose this cruise was because we were able to book an aft room which looks out of the rear of the ship and has a larger balcony. (roughly 12’X12′) We decided to spend some time watching the waves and had a glass of wine while we were on our balcony. It was a sea day after all so we didn’t have much planned for the day.
We headed off to the Meet & Mingle for the Cruise Critic group where we met a few people who had been chatting about this cruise on the board. It is nice to go and meet people at things like this because you will see them all over the ship. They you don’t feel like you are on a ship with a bunch of strangers.
After another trip to the buffet for lunch we headed back to our balcony to read for a while. I don’t know about everyone else but it seems that the only time I ever actually sit and read anything is when I’m on vacation. Today I was continuing “Emergency” by Neil Strauss which I had started last July (6 months ago) on our East Coast Road Trip.
We decided to give the Thermal Suite another try before getting ready for dinner. The steam room was much warmer but not entirely steamy yet so we opted for the heated tile lounge chairs. So far on this trip we had calm seas and not much rocking at all. While we sat overlooking the northern coastline of Cuba however the ship shook as if it hit a large wave. I jokingly told Sandra that we must have hit a small fishing boat. Then we felt it again two more times a little later. Without thinking much of it we headed off to the Captain’s Reception before dinner.
Our plan was to go to the first Captain’s reception then relax before our dinner which was 2 hours later. We ordered an appetizer from the early dinner menu and were organizing the room when the Captain came over the ship’s speakers and told us of the 7.0 earthquake a few hours earlier in Haiti. We turned on the news which was clueless at this point because it was so early but we couldn’t help but wonder if those “fishing boats” we had hit earlier were actually shock waves from the earthquake.