Monday, Oct 20 (at sea)

Good sleep. I woke to an announcement from the ship's captain that due to problems with blah…, blah…, blah our arrival time in our first port, Samana, Dominican Republic, has been changed from 10:00 AM to 1:00 PM. Our departure time remains the same, at 6:00 PM. That pretty well cancels the excursion I had booked for Samana. Wonder if I will still be charged. It was booked directly with the tour company, a group of ten of us from CC. The tour was a taxi ride from the pier to the other side of the island, boat trip with snorkeling, and taxi ride back. I think the taxi ride alone was about 45 minutes to an hour each way.



Missed breakfast, had early lunch at 11:00, with a couple from CC (Dave & Ann – Pennsylvania). Lounged on upper deck for a long while. Late second lunch, with four other people from CC. Changed into bathing suit and hit the pool. Nice, not super big, started aboutt 5' deep, went down to 8 feet deep. Lounged in the sun for a while, I think all of three minutes, when I said to my self this is too hot, moved to shade. Spent several hours between shade, pool and hot tub. About 4:30 back to room to get ready for dinner. The whole CC (I think) met 5:45 for a group dinner in the main restaurant.
About 30 of us from CC were there for dinner. Had some nice conversation. Most people were concerned about the short amount of time we would have in Samana the next day. After dinner we gathered on stairs outside the restaurant for group pictures. I wonder how they came out. I'll get a look at them later. Then some of us gathered in one of the bars where the ship was hosting "Weakest Link." Several of us put our name in the hat. I was selected. I lasted until the third round. It started of with 3 guys, and 3 ladies. We all think the ladies ganged up, because all three guys were voted off, one at a time. I got a deck of NCL cards, but it was fun anyway.