Cruises and Gems
Hi Readers! It is me, Finn R., at my computer. I have just gotten home from Europe last night. On my trip, I rode the Independence of the seas around Europe and met many interesting people onboard.
I was able to buy a model of the ship at the gift shop, located on the promenade near the Pyramid Lounge, an Egyptian themed lounge aboard the ship (On one of the days of the cruise, I went to a special dinner "Ba da bing, ba da boom" Which was a murder mystery dinner.) The Promenade is a large area on the ship which you can walk down on deck five. It is about 4 stories tall and can be seen best from one of the glass elevators at either end of the ship.
On the ship, I spent most of my time on three of the decks; deck 5, deck 9, and deck 12. I also spent some time on deck eleven. Below, I will talk about the highlights of my cruise.
On the first day, I boarded just after a long day, so right after dinner was done with, I started getting ready for bed. The reason I didn't do it after the muster drill (Which I wasn't allowed to sleep through, attendance was required) was because aboard the ship I had dinner at a specific time and wanted to meet my waiters. At dinner, my family had a few issues with the brightness but besides that, it was incredible. We had a seat with a beautiful ocean view, which allowed us to watch as the boat left port.
Over the next few days, I spent a lot of time in the elevator, which was where I met about half of the people I met. In the glass elevators, I was able to watch over the ship and get an absolutely incredible view of the promenade. Also the outer elevators helped me remember which end of the ship I was on because there were two outside elevators at the front of the ship and four in the back. There were 14 guest elevators in total.
Eventually, I got bored of the elevators and started spending more of my time in the gifts and jewelry store, which was on the promenade. The promenade was the main reason I spent so much time at deck 5. Also, one day, after needing some time by myself, I spent a period of time in my parents stateroom where I used the computer. That was where I picked back up on my blog and made many of the changes that I made. My parents stateroom was room 9634. Me and my sister shared room 9632. The rooms were connected with a door, which was next to the doors to the balcony.
On the cruise, I spent multiple hours in the Gifts and Jewlery store in the promenade. What attracted me there was the color changing diaspore labelled as Zultanite by the company that mines it. Besides the name being just a cover to make it more valuable, the stone highly interested me. Below is a link to the site of the company that mines it made for the stone.
Click Here
At the store were also multiple other sets of gems available that interested me. I will list them below.
Anyway, that concludes this post. I will talk more about other details of the cruise in the next post.
-F. B. R.
I was not paid to mention any of the gems listed above. I only listed them because I enjoyed them and they were a major part of my cruise.
Over the next few days, I spent a lot of time in the elevator, which was where I met about half of the people I met. In the glass elevators, I was able to watch over the ship and get an absolutely incredible view of the promenade. Also the outer elevators helped me remember which end of the ship I was on because there were two outside elevators at the front of the ship and four in the back. There were 14 guest elevators in total.
Eventually, I got bored of the elevators and started spending more of my time in the gifts and jewelry store, which was on the promenade. The promenade was the main reason I spent so much time at deck 5. Also, one day, after needing some time by myself, I spent a period of time in my parents stateroom where I used the computer. That was where I picked back up on my blog and made many of the changes that I made. My parents stateroom was room 9634. Me and my sister shared room 9632. The rooms were connected with a door, which was next to the doors to the balcony.
On the cruise, I spent multiple hours in the Gifts and Jewlery store in the promenade. What attracted me there was the color changing diaspore labelled as Zultanite by the company that mines it. Besides the name being just a cover to make it more valuable, the stone highly interested me. Below is a link to the site of the company that mines it made for the stone.
Click Here
At the store were also multiple other sets of gems available that interested me. I will list them below.
- If: By Lance Fisher - This set of gems, which comes from the company that owns Zultanite, includes Blue, purple, and pink sapphires along with beautiful red rubies. This is one of the only sets of gems that looks as picturesque as it does. When talking to one of the workers at the gem store, Sal, I learned about different colors of Sapphire. (I knew about 2; blue and padparadscha, experienced two more; pink and purple, and learned that sapphires come in all colors, including grays and whites.)
- Larimar from Marahlago - this rare Caribbean gem is a beautiful shade of blue, formed during the creation of the Caribbean. Click here to learn more
- Tanzanite - This beautiful, ocean blue gemstone is from Tanzania by Tiffany & Co. This stone, which is a pretty blue variety of Zoisite. The most famous thing about this gem is that is shows different colors from different viewing directions.
- Diamond - this one obviously made my list of gems. It was quite common in the store, and was in six varieties - blue, green, yellow, red, white, and black. At one end of the shelf that the diamonds shared with Tanzanite were a set of beautiful black and white diamond rings, which contrasted the two colors perfectly. Next to that were some aqua blue diamonds next white diamonds. Finally were my favorites, a beautiful mix of blue, red, yellow, and green diamonds. These rings contrasted the colors of the diamonds so well that they were my favorite gems in the store. While talking about them with Sal, I learned about artificial coloring through extreme heat and pressure exerted on the gems.
Anyway, that concludes this post. I will talk more about other details of the cruise in the next post.
-F. B. R.
I was not paid to mention any of the gems listed above. I only listed them because I enjoyed them and they were a major part of my cruise.
Hey Guys! Hopefully you enjoyed the post!
ReplyDeleteAwesome post, Finn. I really liked the colored diamonds, too. I know you weren't paid to write about Zultanite, and your audience (mainly friends and people who don't have enough money to buy fancy gems) probably won't give them a lot of business, but they should still be grateful for the free advertising!
ReplyDeleteI wrote that in case people who don't know I'm a kid stumble into this blog and think I was paid to advertise gem companies.
DeleteGreat job! We saw the murder mystery dinner as well and loved it! All through the trip we would run into the performers and even did some excursions with some of the folks that sat at our table. One of the couples we did a scavenger hunt with and won! As for the jewelry, I loved the Tanzanite so much that the only ring I wear is Tanzanite that we bought on one of our cruises. I'd love for you to blog about some of the places that you visited and what you liked and didn't like about them.
ReplyDeleteThanks a lot for the suggestion! I think I'll talk about the Eiffel tower. I still need to add the photo I got with the other people at the gem store and want to write a second post about the cruise so I would love to talk about the Eiffel tower. Also, since I am not going to put every post I write on google plus, you might want to click the subscribe button. Doing so will allow you to get an e-mail subscription to me. Anyway, see you!
DeleteI subscribed. I enjoyed your description of the Eiffel Tower, it sounds awesome, but I think I would be afraid to look through the glass floor!
Delete