Today could also be labeled at Cabo St Luca. It is a tender port. I was trying to think if I had ever been on a ship that docked here but I don’t think so. I looked back then pulled up some photos from 2015 – my one and only Princess Cruise trip that I took with Carmen out of SF. Why? The whale photos. Showed them to the members of the fiber group who, like me, aren’t bothering with the tenders.
Instead it was a day of relaxing, reading a bit, listening to an old favorite audiobook, stitching, and fighting off a migraine. The last was mostly my fault since I had forgotten about the time zone change back to Pacific Daylight time. End result is that I am more than a bit sleep deprived.
As I found out, there seemed to be more than 30 Israelis on the ship. One woman seemed to be in charge an had made arrangements early with the ship in order to be able to hold a seder. I hadn’t twigged to the notice in the daily program about sign up since I almost never bother to read the daily program. But there we were, in a back area of Taste at 2000. Three long tables of at least 16, several round tables holding six, three more tables of four each. The room was crowded to say the least.
There was a special menu which included gefillette (sp) fish, chopped liver, matzoh ball soup, a chopped veggie salad plus roasted chicken. I had been standing in line with a couple from Virginia waiting to get in. We heard “Seder” from the front of the line. The hostess figured out she could clear her line by asking everyone who was there for the Seder to follow her. Turns out it was most of the line. I joined the two behind me; we joined three already sitting at one of the round back tables. There was also a guy from Calgary and a couple ex-New York now in Florida.
It was actually fairly well organized- someone had brought those paper napkins with the seder elements printed on them. The kitchen furnished the seder plate elements and a couple of people ran around distributing them. There was even a printed 30 minute Haggadah provided. By unspoken agreement, we elected the New York woman to lead. She grew up Orthodox (better Hebrew than the rest of us). Besides, she was a retired teacher and more than happy to run things.
The Israelis did their own thing at several tables complete with a hard bound Haggadah. When someone at my table asked why we didn’t do the whole service together, I told them about my experience in Budapest back in 1998 where it was even more of a DIY. Food had been furnished along with the seder plates, but (and we hadn’t been warned) it was a bring your own Haggadah. Of course, considering that it is extremely hard to run a service in more than two languages, I completely understood the why…
I left right after desert and coffee was served. It was late from my perspective, hiked back up to Deck 12 and went right to bed.
