Activites for Smarties

I was pleasantly surprised by how much there was to do, especially during the two days at sea.

The activities were high-quality and fun, in a thoughtful -- dare I say intellectual? -- way that worked well for the audience onboard. These included...

• Enrichment speaker series, including "The Search for El Dorado" (conquistadors in the Yucatan) and "The Day the Earth Danced" (San Francisco earthquake). Topical material for a Trans-Canal cruise and a very engaging speaker. The main show lounge was nearly full for both.
• Kitchen tour, with intelligent narration and displays. They ran a series of small groups, so even though a lot of people went on the tour it never felt mobbed.
• Dancing lessons. We went to the line dancing lesson. I had fun, but I still don't think I know how to do it. More repetition might have helped. Or maybe I'm just slow -- my mother-in-law picked it right up.
• Cut-throat trivia every day. Literally -- any apparent cheaters faced an angry mob. Like us, the folks who packed the Crow's Nest daily took trivia very seriously. My husband and I prize our HAL coffee mugs from trivia on first cruise together. But that was a 7-night Caribbean, where the competition was a little softer. Trivia on this cruise was really fun, even though our best result was second place. Attentive bar service helped soothe our wounded pride.

Okay, there was one trivia question I thought was pretty silly: "What's the four letter word for an online diary?" BLOGgers throughout the room groaned audibly.