We all quietly meet in Ensemble and the mean Orange team
is there too. What are they there to gloat?
Wow. That’s sort of, well,
mean! Red, Green and we are here – and
it is trivia. Ugh. Well. Ok – maybe it
won’t be so bad! For every incorrect
answer we will get a minute penalty. It
ends up not being all that tough – it was fun. We did pretty well with only 8
wrong out of 20 (and if only I’d read our Rick Steve’s Poland book sooner –
then we would have only had 7 wrong because I would have known that Copernicus
was born in Poland!). So now we’re still
in the same standings: 1) Green, 2) Red,
3) Blue – it’s just a tighter race and we only have 3 minute on Orange. This is
it – our most important day!
At 12:45 we meet at the Martini bar – and also to
strategize. We’ve decided that we have to be way more calm and collected when
we get these clues. The strategy for
Green’s success is that they get the clue and take time to really read it and
figure out what it means, what to do, before they start the timer. We’ve not really been doing that – because we
keep thinking we’re on the real Amazing Race where every second counts the
minute you open the clue. Here – it’s
when we say we want to be timed that it counts.
So – Ok, we’re now the Zen team – breathe, calm, cool, read, figure out
– go forth!
Our first route clue sends us to the Oceanview café bar –
although we go to the Sunset bar (which fits the clue better) first. But
it is only one floor down to the Oceanview where we find Lisa with our clue.
Another roadblock where we can either find brassieres around in the ship in 6
different colors and take pictures to prove we have them and have put them on –
or we can dress two team mates in the 6 team colors – with a catch – the male
has to put on female clothes and the female male clothing. We calmly discuss our options, which aren’t
many – we’re not searching for bras – not in purple, yellow, red, blue, orange
or green – nope! So it is clothing Bev has a dress with virtually all those
colors, Randy has shorts and a hat, Ed has a purple shirt and I know I’ve got
some colorful stuff. Ron has a shirt with green and yellow, and red underwear.
Ok – we will all run to our rooms, get our stuff and come back here to dress
Bev and Randy. We’re off!
Turns out I have a scarf with me with all the colors, so
I grab that and my favorite other heavy scarf that has yellow and orange. We get Ed’s shirt and haul back up to the
Oceanview. Randy and Bev are already there putting on clothes. We help and get
the scarf around Randy’s neck – and voila! We’re done really, really fast! Next clue – sounds like we need our
passports- but also that we will meet in the passport bar. So just to be safe –
the guys run down to the cabins to get the passports and we all agree to meet
at the passport bar. The girls stay upstairs with me because we don’t have the
time card from the last challenge. I go back to Lisa, but she doesn’t have it
either. Oh no! We HAVE to have those or
we get penalties. Bev runs to the phone
– and luck (or Zen) is on our side because he’s still in the room. We tell him
to look for the challenge card – and yes! He has it. Bev and Prim head downstairs to tell the guys
what’s going on – I wait for Randy and get the card filled out by Lisa. Tragedy avoided!
Now – we’re all in the Passport bar and our challenge is
to answer nautical questions, then use the first letter of the answer in an
anagram. Ok. Let’s do it.
We see that someone has done it in 12 min and someone else I can’t read
– so 12 minutes is the time to beat for now.
We start answering the questions, then decide to just count the blanks
in the anagram and see what we have -
Bev writes the letters we have already and Randy says – could it be
Celebrity Eclipse? YES! We write it down – and we’re right! Fabulous!
Really fast! And that’s it – whatever the next challenge is – we’re fast
forwarding!
And as it turns out we made the smart play – the next
challenge is a scavenger hunt – and we don’t have to do it! It’s the Pit stop for us now- the Sky lounge
and our Closing Ceremonies! This has
been a blast and win or lose – it really doesn’t matter because we have had so
much fun!
Two other teams are in the Sky Lounge when we arrive –
and we all just hang out congratulating each other – chatting and waiting for
the remaining teams. We’re all early – as Andrew has told us all along – he figured
2 hours for the challenges and we’re completing them in 30 minutes. So we have
time to kill because Sue, our CD, and other staff aren’t expected until 3pm up
here. Andrew and Lisa get all the times
and convene behind the stage to finalize the winners – meanwhile we are treated
to a slide show of pictures throughout the race. They have just done an amazing job. So much
time and effort – and thoughtfulness – we can’t thank them enough (we actually
bought a little thank you gift of candy and local Azores treats from Ponta
Delgada to give to them as a small token of our appreciation from the Blue
Team).
The suspense is building and finally at 3 – Andrew begins! The long suffering Yellow team comes in 6th
place, followed by Orange in 5th (Karma, baby, Karma), then Team
Purple (they really moved up from 6th to 4th in one
day!). We know we’re next and we’re
ready to go up on stage –but no- Green is in 3rd place. No way!
It is between us and Red? We would have never guessed. Andrew has both of our teams up on stage and
he tells us that only 1 minute separates the two teams. OMG – not 1 minute!!!
Well, as it turns out, it was Red that beat us by 1
minute! Congrats to Red – we feel really good that we did so well and actually
had a chance! But oh, the mistakes, the
strategy, and the challenges we could have done differently to make up 1
minute! Oh well – it was totally, thoroughly,
fun and we would – and will – do it
again in a heartbeat!
Andrew hands out our 2nd place certificate,
and a booby prize, which is a grab bag of luggage tags, playing cards and
lanyards, then we all come up on stage for pictures. One of the players is putting together a web
site of all the photos when she gets home, we can’t wait to see that!
And so ends our Amazing Race Eclipse. One of the most fun times we’ve had on a
Trans-Atlantic cruise ever.
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