Wed July 29, 2026
Hi Folks! Day 2 of the Oceania Riviera was another fun day. But we actually changed our cruising routine up a bit. (Yes, we can change! But not by too much!). Believe it or not we did not play all the passenger games today! We decided to get educated instead!
But by not changing much, I meant we still played one game (Kathy’s favorite! NOT), Axe Throwing! We did win four “Big O” points (helps that we had 154 days of practice on the World Cruise!) but we decided due to the short length of this cruise as well as only two sea days, we’d never earn enough passenger game points to get anything worthwhile.
So as part of our education we went to two lectures. The first one was called “The Magnificent Pacific Northwest”. The speaker’s name for both lectures was Jonathon Malay. He was an excellent speaker and had an interesting background as both a Naval Officer and working for NASA.
In his first lecture he talked about all the various ports we’ll be going to and how beautiful the scenery and wildlife is. It got us really fired up to explore this amazing part of the world again!
The second lecture was called “The Magnificent Geology of Alaska”. He called the fjords and mountains of Alaska the “Rock Stars”. He also talked about the major earthquakes and volcanos in not only Alaska but all along the Ring of Fire around the Pacific Ocean (Hope they don’t happen this week!).
He discussed in detail the various tectonic plates along Alaska and how those plates here and everywhere around the world are constantly moving. It was really interesting but I thought I was in a Geology 101 class!
After the second one we checked out the afternoon tea. It was very classy with the string quartet playing in the background and the cart of delicious sweet and savory goodies being pushed around. So yummy!
We then went to the Captain’s Reception where he introduced all of his officers. A couple of the Oceania singers sang some songs and the band played some great tunes and they had lots of canapés to snack on. It was a fun event!
After that we went to dinner in the Grand Dining Room. Between the afternoon tea goodies and the canapés, we weren’t really starved but we gave it the old college try! I only had one appetizer (Chicken Ballotine), the Steamed Whole Main Lobster for my main and NO DESSERT! Yes, I must have been full!
After dinner we went to the show which was a Guest Vocalist named Chris Burke. His show was called Legends of Soul. He had a silky smooth voice and sang songs from the likes of Otis Redding, Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye, etc., etc. Such great classic songs!
After the show we listened to Tony again tickle the ivories in Martini’s Lounge. Like last night, he did a lot of great sing along songs. He’s definitely a crowd pleaser!
We called it a night after that. Tomorrow we’re in Ketchikan, Alaska. Hope everyone had a great day!
PS: Bonus is we get an extra hours sleep tonight! YAY!!
The Wandering Italian 