A cold day on the Atlantic Ocean called for warm air. That’s what led us to Celebrity Life’s Hot Glass Show yesterday, even though it was outside and 13 stories above the churning sea waters. Some of the observers were wrapped in plaid blankets, but that doesn’t mean much because they’re wrapped in the same blankets when sun-bathing around the churning waters of the pool, too.
The Eclipse is the third Celebrity Solstice-Class ship on which passengers get to watch fancy glass ornaments being made…and then bid on some of them at an auction.
Like so many niche activities, glass-blowing artists have a community all their own, which made us intruders. What is common knowledge to them was interesting to 
us. Did you know, for instance, that once the glass has been heated and molded, it must maintain a temperature of at least 900 degrees Fahrenheit or else it will crack or explode? On a cold day on the ocean, that can be tricky because the glass cools quickly.
And did you also know that once these artistic masterpieces are complete, the cooling process takes over 10 hours in special ovens?
Or that the three Corning Museum of Glass artists on the Eclipse had to haul five tons of glass up the elevator, in two days and by hand, before the ship left Miami?
While there’s a lot we didn’t know, we did know a good deal.
The two-hour demonstration comes with being on the ship. At the museum in Corning (N.Y.), the same demonstration costs $14. As an aside, there’s an even better deal on the Eclipse — High Tea on the Sea, more properly known as “Elegant Tea” at a cost of $25. At Canada’s premier’s afternoon tea facility, the Empress Hotel in Victoria, an “elegant tea” tab is at least $56.
Hot tea wasn’t a bad idea on a cold and windy day, either, but the glass demonstration allowed somebody else to be in charge of blowing hot air.