Ahoy!

Your exciting poker cruise will start soon!
We are looking forward to hosting the HPT tournament and having Maria Ho sail with us.

Jan Fisher and I are traveling this week on what is called a “FAM” trip. This stands for familiarization trip. When you take as many customers as are typical for a Card Player Cruises trip, there is a lot of preparation that must be worked out in advance, thus someone needs to go a week early. On the FAM trips, I spend a lot of time going to shows, sampling restaurants, and checking out the ports and activities since I will be staying in the poker room most of the time during the poker cruise next week.

Below is a blog that will be added to and can be viewed online at http://www.cardplayer.com/poker-blogs/83-linda-johnson. Please check it out daily!

Day 2: I slept in and got out of bed about noon to go to the gym. Jan is a good inspiration in this regard! After a quick lunch in the Windjammer, Jan and I played trivia in the Schooner Bar and went to the ice skating show in Studio B. The show was SRO since it only plays 4 times during the week. All popular rock and roll music (from the 70s) we enjoyed it a lot! The day goes fast when you don’t get up til noon!

We had received an invite for cocktails and dinner with either the hotel manager or captain and so decided to accept for this first at sea night, which also was formal. They only send invites to the most senior cruisers, those with more than 340 frequent cruiser points. Only 16 people on this sailing qualified, including us, and so we dined at a huge table with other seasoned travelers. Dinner was amazing and the hotel manager was charming. He was engaging and fun, even goofy, like we like. He made a point to include everyone in the conversation and we were each given, gratis, a copy of the lovely photo they took of the group before we began dinner. This “souvenir” included a menu, place card, and list of all of those in attendance. We were seated next to a poker player who thought the idea of a poker cruise was pretty cool. Obviously we gave him our business cards and hope he’ll travel with us in the near future.

We just got back from the show, featuring the Royal Singers and Dancers. The talent can vary from ship to ship: this was one of the best casts we’ve seen. We are heading off now to the midnight adult comedy show. We saw this same comedian last night at the family show. While last night’s show was enjoyable, we are hoping  that she’ll be edgier and a bit funnier due to the adult audience.

Tip of the day: Even though we are heading to the hot Caribbean, bring a sweatshirt or jacket for the ship. There are overly air-conditioned areas that can be quite cool. Better to be prepared.

See you soon!

Linda
Card Player Cruises