Sunny Santorini

Friday April 24, 2009

Back on board after a day in Santorini. We are sitting on the sunny side of the ship enjoying a bowl of ice cream and iced tea.

Yesterday after sending the blog I did a backstage tour of the theater. There are four singers and 10 dancers that are under contract for 7 to 8 months. This production company does four shows on each 10 day cruise…..so we will see some shows repeated. Other nights they bring in entertainment such as the juggler and last night a solo male vocalist. Auditions are run by a company that represents Bruce Springsteen and there is a week of rehearsals in LA before the company takes to sea. The first week they rehearse hard on the ship but after they have the show down it seems rather easy a couple of one hour shows every couple of days. The crews board in decks A B and C which are below the main deck and there are three more decks below that so the ship is almost as much below the water as above.

The stage has several (4) hydraulic lifts for various sections of the stage that can go down 18 feet and during the show these are controlled by a rigger who sits up above the stage. The stage manager has a very impressive console with video views of the stage and controls to the technical lightning and sound guys up in a booth behind the theater. Dressing rooms are behind the stage and there is a hidden stair case in the fore section of the ship connecting all decks for the crew kind of like a servant’s passage.

I slept a couple of hours before dinner and then had to hurry to get into my formal wear…Charlotte looked lovely in a pearl sequined top and her pearls were beautiful. The four of went to the pre dinner show a very nice male singer from England who did many popular tunes from Neil Diamond, Frank Sinatra, Tom Jones etc.

Dinner is really fun on formal nights and we shared a bottle of California Zinfandel. After dinner three of us went to the Casino and Charlotte saved money.

This morning the boat was anchored in the center of a volcanic crater. The village of Santorini is perched on the crater rim and is beautiful with white washed walls and many blues as trim. It is said that in 1648 BC the volcanic eruption that created the formation is the largest hat ever happened. To get to shore, for the first time we needed tenders, which are smaller boats holding 50-100 people.

We left the ship at about 10:15 AM. There are two ways to scale the cliffs to the town walk up a twisted switch back or take a cable car…..oh.., or the donkeys. Which travel the path as well. Charlotte and I wanted to ride donkeys and Marlene and Lyle wanted to take the funicular or cable car. Well that was the last we saw of each other until just a while ago when they joined us here in the restaurant area. I have been listening to their day of shopping and eating and generally enjoying the day. The donkey ride was fine ….The donkey were really mules as they we able to carry some heavy people like me. It was a bit difficult to photograph the back of an ass carrying someone else while sitting on a moving animal headed up a 45 degree angle. But the pictures should be fine.

All in all Sunny Santorini is a beautiful picturesque place and is a vibrant economic tourist stop. We found out that in summer over 100 cruise ships a month stop here….but we are early in the season and the local said so far this year cruise ships are down 10% from last year.

Well I think the conversation is waning so I will spell check and send this as the Lido restaurant is a wireless hot spot...