Nana and I love our sea days. We’re so busy with things to do that we can’t fit in everything.

Our sea day starts with Nana taking her walk around the deck and then going to daily Mass. Papa just relaxes and meets her for breakfast unless it is Sunday or a Holy Day of Obligation — this cruise we’ve been having breakfast in the Orange Club. We always come back to the room afterward and play a round of cribbage.

Our mornings vary. Papa tries to get some work done on his computer — this trip I’m working on the Tanzania Education Fund, my blogs, some Behnke Trucking business, and updating my train programs. The internet has been spotty when we’re out to sea, so some mornings I don’t get much done. Other mornings Papa heads up to the exercise room to work on the weight machines, or sometimes gets a massage.

Nana meets with different people to try to help them out. She works to arrange the crew dinner — more on that in another blog — and sometimes she just rests and relaxes.

We go up to the Lido deck for lunch, then it’s off to dance lessons: the waltz, the cha-cha, and other styles. After that, it’s time for duplicate bridge — Papa is getting better all the time.

One of the sea days we had a reception for Mariner awards. Nana and I are close to 500 sea days, but we’ll have to wait for our next cruise to get there. There were 16 President’s Club members on this cruise, each with over 1,400 sea days. The second-longest tally was 3,186 days, and the longest was 4,566 days — 12.5 years at sea!

We then head down to the Ocean Bar, where we sometimes listen to music or just hang out.

Next up is dinner in the main dining room. We asked for a table of six and have met a lovely couple and a teacher traveling on his own. We have a great time at dinner, sharing stories about our day and talking about what’s coming up. Larry, Gabriele, and Terry have been great!

Every few days the ship has a formal night, and we love to dress to impress. Our friends in the crew love to take pictures with us.

Then it’s off to take in the music venues around the ship. Our favorite is the string trio, though it’s a challenge to catch their full 45-minute set since we sometimes have to squeeze it in around the main stage show. There’s so much variety — we’ve enjoyed a flutist, a cello pianist, singers, musicians, harpist, and of course the ship’s singers and dancers. Some truly great shows!

After that, Papa tries to catch the dueling piano act or the rock ‘n’ roll band. Sometimes he can talk Nana into staying, but other times Nana has been so busy that she just heads back to the room and gets to bed early. One night Nana agreed to stay out and she danced with the officers

We always get surprises — each day is different, both inside and outside. Being in Iceland and Greenland makes it especially so. Sometimes we wake to heavy fog, with the ship sounding its horn every few minutes. Other times we look out and see glaciers the size of our cruise ship gliding past us. Certainly not what we’d see outside our windows in Georgia.