Day 19 - at sea, yes, again.

Sea days don’t generally have many photo opportunities other than within ourselves, so those reading it to find out about exotic locations may as well skip this page. After yesterday’s adjusted programme due to pirate drill, today was back to normal.  It is now consistently warm but there are still many dedicated sun bunnies making the most of it. Neither Paula nor I have skin that copes well with too much sun and regular visits to the skin specialist can turn out expensive when he puts away the liquid nitrogen and reaches for his knife and fork.

HORIZON COURT BUFFET – part 8

After the fresh fruit station are the tinned fruit plus a daily muesli of some sort.  In this pic, it is a hazelnut and cocoanut concoction, plus tinned pineapple, some sort of figs and the old timer’s ever present – prunes!  The tinned pineapple and figs are usually rotated with pears, apricots, peaches, grapefruit, oranges etc.

 

Although the top score at morning quiz was a lowly 14/20, it wasn’t us.

We skipped the dance revision but we headed for a light lunch at 3pm.  It seems late (it is late!) but it still gives us a five hour break before dinner.

Even though Captain Ros was back, we still didn’t win afternoon trivia.

We charged into Jammers nightclub for another informal Dawn Nomads get together, before heading for the early show - “Maggie”.  She is a ship favourite and a little difficult to describe, but I’ll do my best.  She is part comedienne and part singer, with a penchant for wild, colourful hairdos and shiny way out dresses.  Her first show (which we skipped) was “Life is a Lemon” and this was the continuation.  Her oral delivery always reminds me of a genuinely female Dame Edna (she is Australian…).  As with one or two other acts, we had seen it all before, which is a shame, as there are so many serial cruisers around, that we can’t be the only ones who enjoyed it the first time, (or even the second time) but two years later the third time with the same show, it all starts to fall a bit flat.  There is no excuse for a solo artist who does not need a band score for each number, to keep on with the same old material.  So much as the audience (several of whom are first time cruisers of course) enjoyed it, I can only give it a 7/10.

A quick change for dinner and once again, two mains and a starter for me…  The second main was chilli sweet and sour pork and rice.  It had quite a kick.

On then to the theatre for the late show, where two previous performers – Nathan Foley and Van-Anh, had put together a show at short notice.  (We were too late for Ace McDermott’s casino card show.)  Good performances from both and a well-deserved standing ovation, but most commented that maybe the backing music was a tad too loud.  Prior to the performance, a fairly recent addition to the cruise director team, Alex, from Canada did a great job of communicating with the audience as he tried to usher people to the few vacant seats, but it was a full house.

Even though the clocks are going back yet again tonight, we crashed about 11:30, after spectating in the casino for a while, watching one older guy betting very well at roulette.  I couldn’t work out his system but as he put less than 30 counters down and seem to win at 35:1 more often than he lost, it was good to see him doing well.  Others seem to think they have a system – but lose anyway, and others just seem to throw their money away.

Land tomorrow to the tiny island of Male, in the Maldives, before a really long sea spell, right through Canal  to Ashdod.  We are just doing a walkabout in this Muslim country and as it is Ramadan, we are not expecting too much.  Others are heading to one of the many smaller islands for some snorkelling. 

 

Day 18 - part 2... At sea July 29th - watching out for pirates

The previous post was supposed to include day 18, but as it was already long, it got posted anyway.  So this is not an error, more of a continuation.  A fairly lazy day again so a light breakfast, despite the temptations…

HORIZON COURT BUFFET – part 7

Reading through yesterday’s diatribe, I realised that I’d missed off half of that first station on the right, so part 2 of it (after the breads) is one of the fruit stations. This is the fresh fruit.  Yesterday’s selection appeared to be three types of melon, plus pineapple and a fruit salad. On other days it could be papaya (paw-paw), or whatever is in season locally.

Moving on to station two, this caters very much for those of a continental disposition and is usually a mix of cold meats, cheeses, fish - and smoked salmon (very popular).  Butter and margarine are both supplied and from a casual observation, it appears that butter is the more popular.

 

We had an early quiz time of 9:15am, which didn’t do us any favours.  We didn’t win.  It was early as we had tp slot in a pirate drill.

PIRATES!

As we enter pirate infested waters, each ship carries out its own specific pirate drill.  Passing a tanker yesterday, they use vast quantities of water sweeping over the upper deck, presumably to wash away the pirates. It goes without saying that for a passenger cruise ship, swamping the upper open decks with water wouldn’t be the best method to adopt, so on deck seven, they install water cannons and on the rear deck, a large audio transmitting device that blasts the eardrums of anyone approaching who looks suspicious.  The general feeling on board  is that anyone daft enough to try and capture a cruise liner containing 1500 Aussies and 1500 others, wouldn’t be too successful, but we still have to have the drill. 

From a passenger perspective, when the alarm sounds, we have to make our way to our cabins via internal passageways only, close the curtains (well, those who are lucky enough to have them!), leave the door ajar and keep away from the windows.

The drill went exceptionally well, much to the delight of Captain Pickford, so it only took about 20 minutes.

With a rearranged day, we took it easy as Paula’s throat was a bit off.

We headed up to deck 12 (one below the traditional buffet) for the fresh tropical fruit buffet.  This was a great opportunity to sample all sorts of exotic fruit so if you didn’t like any of it, it didn’t really matter. Star fruit (bland) longan fruit (similar to a lychee), dragon fruit (bland), mangosteen (nice), paw-paw, durian (the fruit that smells like **** but tastes OK), persimmon,  pineapple and now and again, mango.  By the time we got there, the mango had gone but we were aware that they had sent down for more, so we just had to wait. We joined Norm, Marion, Tina and Trevor at a table.

Afterwards, we played a new game of fruit golf - rolling a longan fruit down the hole in the centre of the table…

We then grabbed a drink and headed for the theatre to see the movie “Parental Guidance” with Meryl Streep and Billy Chrystal.  Most enjoyable.

As Ros was off colour (she isn’t having a very good run this year) it was just two of us who appeared to defend the reputation of the Guessalots at trivia.  We didn’t win.

We dressed up for formal night and Jo was in seventh heaven – lobster with monkfish, potato and asparagus!   I managed it for my second course and also managed an extra one with my very tender chateaubriand beef. I think Jo managed it for all three savoury courses.

On to the Vista lounge where Sarah and the orchestra were playing for dancers from 9:15pm to 10:00pm, immediately before Ace McDermott’s show. It was hot dancing wearing a jacket.

Magic, illusion and as last year, Ace did the slowing of the pulse and then walking across broken glass in bare feet.  He also lay down and had a member of the audience stand on his back and side of his face, which was laying on the broken glass.  Although the act still entertaining, it was essentially the same as last year, so I am only giving it a 7/10.

We then headed up to the casino where Darryl and Sue were taking it in turns to play Blackjack.  They finished up about $5 ahead after an hour’s play.  I watched the roulette table. 

Another day at sea tomorrow and at night, Ace is holding a card show - in the casino! 

 

Days 17 & 18 - At sea again

Most passengers seem to have accepted the cancellation of the Egyptian ports, but there was then a mad rush to book tours in Ashdod, where the options are relatively few.  Initially, we had booked on the Princess tour to Jerusalem and Bethlehem, but Jo needed two more for a private group of eight to Jerusalem plus whatever we want. (In 2011, the tour was somewhat rushed and also included the Dead Sea, but the balance was all wrong.)  So at breakfast, we opted to travel with the people we really like, thus moving a couple of others up the Princess waiting list.  Whilst we ate (a very light!) breakfast just outside on deck 14, the port lecture on Ashdod was being shown on the outdoor screen as well as in the theatre.  A great initiative instigated by the Cruise Director – especially as people could sunbathe, eat, drink or stroll around without upsetting anyone.  With an 80 minute talk, that was just as well.

HORIZON COURT SAGA – part 6

On the starboard side of the buffet, (that is a very technical seafaring term for ‘right’), the first station on the right is mainly breads/rolls etc.  Although the pictures may seem to show very little food to feed several hundred people, all items are regularly topped up with fresh stuff and that applies to hot or cold stations.  Unlike many shopping centres or food halls, where there is a mountain of food that may have been sitting around for several hours, on board, they cook smaller quantities frequently, so it is very rare to find food well past its best

That first bread station may at any one time (at breakfast) have pumpernickel (rye bread), two or three other sliced breads, banana bread, soft rolls etc.  If you fancy your rye bread toasted, you simply take it along to the toast station and they pop it into the toast conveyor.  I may have overlooked it before, but the toast station always has a supply of English muffins and bagels too.  Still with me?

On the way back, we usually pass the Lotus Spa and Maria who worked on my damaged shoulder in 2011, was standing outside with Leah, one of the cleaning staff.  I couldn’t resist taking a pic showing how tall Paula is.  Needless to say, I had to have a pic taken too.

Either morning quiz is getting tougher or we are relaxing too much.  We didn’t win.

The atrium was too busy so we skipped coffee and headed to the cabin for a while, just chilling out with the blog, Codewords, Sudoku etc. The internet appears to be much quicker than in the past but I still leave all emails on the server and copy and paste anything relevant.

Corey’s dance class was Tango 1.  We coped OK.

A very light lunch – mushroom soup and a hunk of cheesy focaccia bread, before more relaxing and then to the second heat of “Dancing With The Stripes”.  As you can see from the pic, a good crowd.  Then afternoon quiz, which of course we didn’t win.  After about the first 6 questions, the team next to us wanted harder questions – but they didn’t win either…

I was trying to keep up with the Hungarian GP and only managed the Sky sport reports as it wasn’t shown live.  By the time it came to dinner time, they were only in the first pit-stop phase, so I had no idea who won until bedtime.  (Lewis Hamilton.)

It was an oriental dinner again and my bbq pork ribs on bok choy and potato wedges were enhanced by extra prawns and I also helped out Paula by demolishing half her chicken.  Nice!

The late show was pianist Van-Anh Nguyen.  Billed only as an instrumentalist, Princes are always very light on info, so you often don’t know if the instrumentalist plays tuba, penny whistle, ocarina, bag pipes or the big bass drum.  Nor do you know whether you are getting hip-hop, swing, rock and roll, classical ragtime or a combination.  In this instance it was 100% classical. Beautifully played (though it isn’t my favourite genre) and interesting to hear that she was in fact one of the Vietnamese boat people.  With an opera singer/piano teacher mother and a classical guitarist father, they escaped as refugees with virtually no money and they didn’t even speak  English. After processing, they were offered France (they spoke French), Canada, US and Australia.  They chose Australia and she now speaks perfect English.  An extremely talented young lady who gave a solo performance other than for the last three numbers, when she was backed by the orchestra (without Sarah).  Not my favourite genre, but a 9/10.

Clocks back an hour again tonight with another sea day (and our 3^rd formal night) ahead.

Day 16 - Phuket, Thailand

We were awake and up before the alarm, so it was straight up for breakfast, so as the day’s planning was somewhat uncertain, it had to be a cooked breakfast day.

THE HORIZON COURT TOUR – part 5

Down the centre of each side of each buffet, parallel with the first two hot stations, is the sweet pastry/bakery section.  In the past this had the most appetising chocolate covered doughnuts, or doughnuts filled with jam, custard, apple etc., but the PC big-wigs at head office must have sent down a directive “no more fattening doughnuts” - as if you couldn’t get fat from all the other stuff available…

Anyway, there are two stations, each containing 4 compartments, so you take your pick from whatever the bakery has decided to tempt you with, so that as an alighting slim, lightweight passenger, you disembark weeks later as cargo.   This could be Danish pastries (cherry, custard, apple, apricot etc.) muffins, or various other delights.  Apart from an occasional Danish pastry, (just one so far), I find it very easy to avoid this section.

 

We met Mal and Megan, Alex and Terri down in the atrium and strolled straight off the ship easily enough.  Now a bit of recent history here for future cruisers. At many ports, there is a shuttle bus put on by the ship to the nearest town, but in Phuket, the taxi collective is heavily unionised, or organised.  When a cruise ship tried to put on a shuttle bus a year or two ago, about 200 taxi drivers blockaded the port so that the shuttle was trapped.  So it is either a taxi (from within the port area, where they had to get a ticket or a pass to get in) or immediately outside the port gates where there are about 100 taxi drivers, who may or may not speak English.

We needed a van for the six of us and the first two wanted $100USD+ and didn’t speak very good English.  (The collective usually agrees the rate too, so they have it pretty well sewn up.)

Terri approached another van driver and agreed a rate of $80 for 5 hours.  The van was clean and his English was pretty good, so off we went – straight to a jewellery emporium!!!  I didn’t bother getting out of the van – which probably reduced the driver’s spotters fee.

Travelling in Thailand (and Vietnam) fascinates me. There are any number of small businesses roadside.  The guy with the guitar in his lap was running a print shop.

On we went to a very impressive temple complex, where every few minutes, a guy in camouflage gear set off a load of very loud “Happy Crackers” in a brick kiln.

Back on the road, we saw the road signs for ‘Big Buddha’ – which we could see about three or 4kms away at the top of a steep hill.  When we told the driver we wanted to go up to it, he really wasn’t at all keen. (We heard the same story from other private tours.)  A somewhat acrimonious discussion followed, as he wanted an extra $20.  Quite why, we weren’t sure.

We are glad we insisted as it was a very interesting stop, with the monks all chanting away, with the leader using a microphone.  It fascinates me, this mix of ancient tradition and modern technology.  Shrines with LED lights are another frequent sight.

We carried on with our tour via a beach or two, (Kata?) and on to Patong, where we had a two hour shop stop. Goodness knows what this place is like at night as every other establishment seemed to be a bar, club or eatery.

We sought refuge in a modern shopping centre and changed $20USD into about 600bht.  This was enough for a superb ‘purple wheat bread’ toasted chicken and avocado sandwich, a coffee, lemonade and two Danish pastries.  Not very Thai, but although much of the food around was cheap, we didn’t feel like a cooked meal. 

We got back to the port OK and we made up the driver’s charge to $100 by virtue of a tip.  We thought that a total of $40 for the van and $20 for incidentals was good value. That 600bht also paid for a 110bht greetings card and back at the port, two cans of coke at 30 baht each.  I think we had about 22 baht change by the time we got to the end of the day, which really was cheap for what we got.  Would we really want to spend a week in Phuket on holiday?  Probably not, though a lot of people spend their days inside their resort complex, rather than out on the streets - and thoroughly enjoy it.

Back on deck 11 for the sail-away where many pics are taken, though the subject matter is hardly paparazzi material.

At dinner, just about dessert time, tomorrow’s entertainer Ace McDermott came around doing magic tricks at the table.  We were stunned!  Jo had to pick an imaginary card from an imaginary pack – and Ace fished it straight out of a real pack!

Day 15 - At Sea - July 26th

First of all, Happy Birthday to grandson Noah. Three today.

As yesterday. There was definitely a smell of burning first thing and this time, Paula could also smell it.  We overheard another passenger from a few doors along mentioning it to the cabin steward as we passed so it wasn’t my imagination.  (Later, we found that it was a result of deforestation ashore,  ready for planting, to harvest palm oil.)

BREAKFAST BUFFET TOUR – Part 4

Not a large station this one, but a particularly good one when nothing else really finishes off breakfast.  It is the Belgian waffle station, with your own choice of toppings, from honey, maple syrup, strawberry syrup, chocolate syrup etc., and whipped cream!  (For breakfast????) Maple syrup and cream on a hot waffle is my preferred choice – but I don’t succumb very often.  About once a week – so far.

 

As it was not long before 9:30am, I took my breakfast (Robert Timms) coffee to the port lecture on Messina (Sicily), but I think that in future, I’ll probably watch it on TV.  At least it finished before the trivia quiz.  (Debbie says “actually” more often than Audrey Roberts on Coronation St – a lot more often…)

Our quiz scores are varied.  We got just 9/20 today.  We didn’t win.  No surprises there then.

It was very busy in the atrium as it was a bit damp outside, driving people indoors, so we had to wait for a couple to vacate their table before we could grab it and grab a coffee.

Corey’s dance class was rumba 2 (we missed rumba 1) and we soon caught up.  Numbers have dropped and there were about 30 people there, but at least we now have room to dance.

A light lunch (that takes willpower, believe me) then later, to a new initiative on board. Instead of “Dancing With the Stars”, we have “Dancing With the Stripes” (clever).  We skipped the quiz as the times clashed and our team (with two ring-ins) still managed 19/20 without us.  Alas, they still didn’t win.

Dancers are paired with the ship’s staff.  It was obvious that one or two of the staff had more than a basic knowledge of dancing, particularly the girl from the casino.  Two of the five couples were knocked out and despite support from their colleagues, Circle Host Heather and Finance officer Bob were the losers in this heat.

BRIDGE ANNOUNCEMENT at 5pm

Three ports of call have been cancelled due to the unrest in Egypt.  Safaga and Alexandria on the outward leg and Sharm El Sheikh on September 14^th.

They have substituted two ports – Ashdod (for Jerusalem) and a place I can’t even spell, in Crete, both on our outward leg. Nothing for the return, so we have a few sea days on the trot coming up shortly, followed by loads of ports, then another run of sea days.

As we have Phuket tomorrow, it was a Thai themed meal tonight – which usually means “Extra prawns for table 7 please!”.  A very tasty chicken curry for me – but I also substituted the prawn main meal for the soup course.  One of my favourite aspects of cruise food is that you ask for what you want and you don’t have to stick rigidly to the menu courses or sequences as laid out in black and white.

Our head waiter, Robbie from Romania, was one of three of us who correctly guessed “George” as the future King’s name. We presented him with a prize of a condiment set…

The late show was singer/instrumentalist (and dancer) Nathan Foley, well known in Australia as part of TV group called “High Five” – children’s entertainers, I believe.  A good show, but nothing really out of the ordinary for me.  I never have been much of a fan of straight singers, so ignoring my personal tastes, still an 8/10 and the rest of the audience seemed happy enough.

Alarm set for tomorrow morning, just in case.  We are planning to grab a taxi van with others, for our own private tour.  I like Thailand a lot, so as we haven’t been to Phuket and friend Jill wants a group of us to go sometime, it should be interesting.

Day 14 - Singapore

As we have been to Singapore so many times in recent years, there was no need to set the alarm for an early start, though the vibrations as we docked would have woken us anyway.

BUFFET TOUR – PART 3

We have covered the two main hot stations and an update on one or two of the options.  As I said earlier, I hadn’t seen chips before, but they do in fact rotate with the hash browns or sauted potatoes etc.  I also overlooked the hard boiled eggs.

Anyway, just beyond the two stations they have a chef, who is best described as the omelette chef and he’ll put whatever you want into it and cook it just for you. He also he does the fried eggs.  These days he tries to keep up with the demand for poached eggs from the kitchen, plus the daily speciality eggs, such as ranchero, Benedict, Florentine, fried egg dropped into the centre of a slice of French bread etc.  This is where I get my fried onions cooked most days.

Alongside is the toast station where they generally keep feeding in, plain white or brown bread, but if you grab a slice of a speciality bread or a bagel for example, they’ll happily toast it for you.

Tomorrow – the last of the hot stations.  How can there be more I hear you ask?

The second photograph is NOT my breakfast.  This is Alex’s version of healthy. The glass of granola and yoghurt is fine.  But look carefully under the muesli and you may just see he has hidden a Danish pastry…

SINGAPORE

I have no intention whatever of covering the history of Singapore as either you know it already or you are just reading this to learn about ship life – or you realise you have found a great insomnia cure.

Last year, I mentioned that it took two hours from deciding to get off the ship to getting to the Eye.  Whether it was a Princess initiative or a Singaporean one, I really don’t know, but this year was so much better.

Having decided to get off a bit later (around 10am), we walked straight through immigration and although last year, the queue for the shuttle to the local MRT railway station was long and slow, this time, they had several full sized free shuttle buses (8?) running to a large mall – Millennium Walk.  Much better, so we did that, though we had been prepared to get a taxi.  As the mall was modern and expensive, we caught a taxi outside and headed for the centre of Orchard Rd – about an $8 ride.

The only item on Paula’s shopping list was dance shoes from number 150 Orchard Rd. It would help visitors  a great deal if the various subways were better signposted and most buildings had a street number on them.  Having somehow or other found ourselves on the opposite side of Orchard Rd and heading the wrong way, we did manage to head towards an area we know quite well – the McCafe on the corner of Scotts Rd.  Down below is a great supermarket and an even better bakery, so although we were aware of the rebuilding going on, we managed to pick up a freshly baked light lunch, intending to grab a coffee – but the McCafe area was surrounded by boards and wasn’t accessible.

We looked on a street map and the only number was 268.  We ended up heading in the wrong direction until we spied 350, so we did an about turn.

Ages later and with steaming hot feet, we found ourselves way down the street outside number 38!  We gave up and grabbed a taxi back to the ship as Paula had had enough walking. Not many pics this time – but we did find proof that Ferraris are a genuine bird puller. The last pic is looking upwards from inside the Millennium Walk mall.  Several large towers each with slightly differ colours. Very modern and attractive.  The taxi back was only about $8 again.

Just the two of us for afternoon quiz.  We didn’t win, but were quite pleased with our 12/20 - especially as the winners only managed 15.

We caught up with some of the others later on where we found out that Ros had broken a rib playing cards (honestly!).  Therefore it behoves us to warn prospective cruisers, that if there is a metal arm to your chair and you have dropped a card on the floor, do NOT lean over the metal arm unless you are tall and/or have long arms.

As it was open dining, we opted for the buffet which at least meant that I didn’t have three bread rolls whilst waiting for the courses to arrive.

To deck 11 for the sail-away at around 9pm and like most others, we called it a day not long after and watched the TV movie – “Working Girl”.

Another day at sea tomorrow and grandson Noah’s 3^rd birthday.

I have been asked to add the email gadget to this blog, so if you want it delivered, you can just sign up on the right and whatever is posted should be sent to you.  All posted pics are only about 100kb, so they will come through very quickly.

 

Days 12 and 13 at sea again (and again)

With a fairly low key day planned, it turned into full on day.  The port lecture in the morning took 75 minutes instead of the usual 45 (Naples and surrounding areas) that had out us late for 10:30am trivia, run by Cruise Director Mark.  By the time we arrived, they were already on question 9, but it didn’t stop us poking our noses in and changing a couple of answers. Fortunately they were correct and we ended up on 18 – tying for first place.  We should really have had a clear 19 had our Western Australian team members known what a bandy-bandy was. (It is a Western Australian snake, so henceforth, Alex will be known as Bandy.)  The tie breaker question was getting closest to the Royal Baby birth time.  (I didn’t even know he had arrived.)  Woohoo!  We won Trivia, thanks to Sue – who is not from Western Australia…

After coffee we headed for Corey’s revision class – foxtrot and salsa.  We have got to really like Corey after a somewhat uncertain start.  A lot of fun.

After a light lunch, we headed for the future cruise desk, hence the at sea again (and again).  Next year, we join some of the others on the world cruise return leg from Southampton back to Auckland, so we’ll be in the UK.  As Paula has never been to the Baltics and ever conscious of our advancing years, it was timely that the Emerald Princess does a 14 day cruise from and to Southampton, arriving back at 7am on the day we leave, on the Dawn.  So we booked. 

That means we now have to sort out getting to the UK before then.  Our original plan was to try and do Florida but we don’t now think that will be possible.  Hopefully there will be others who will join us on the Emerald, as the route looks interesting with only a couple of sea days.  When I say “others”, I hope that there will be UK based friends or relatives willing to sign up.

Southampton suits us so much better than Dover as brother Malc is only about 30 miles away and we missed seeing him in 2011.  It is also more accessible than Dover, which is out on a limb for anyone wanting to travel north or even west.

The Dawn Nomads had a pre-dinner meet at 4:45 so we went to 4:30pm trivia first anyway.  Just Paula and I. We didn’t win of course.  The Nomads meeting was lively with a Sherlock Holmes getting to know you session, before getting ready for formal night number 2.   There was an influx of white jackets on our table, with Colino, Gazzo and Arni looking like waiters.  I suppose being in black, Raymondo must have been Maitre D’.  The lamb racks were tasty.

An excellent Princess show “Moments to Remember”, from the Charleston and swing area forwards.  Great costumes and a very polished performance, particularly from the dancers, who I believe have just signed an 18 month contract – 5 months on, 1 off.

SEA DAY 2

As promised, station two of the hot buffet.  (I can sense your excitement from here!)

Another 7 hot dishes starting this time from the near side.

Minute steak – probably a special but no idea what the rotation is – probably ham steak.

English bacon – staple

Crispy American bacon – staple

Scrambled eggs – flavoured.  Staple other than the flavour changes daily

Scrambled eggs plain – staple

The next two are an ever changing mix of maybe 4 different items such as baked apples, French toast (flavour changes), pancakes – plain and flavoured etc.  I rarely look in there so I have no real idea of what the daily changes are.

So that is station 2 – making 14 hot dishes so far but wait, there is more! (Tomorrow, maybe.)

I had my most enjoyable poached eggs on toast, with English bacon, sausage and fried onions.  Fried onions?  Poached eggs?  Yes, I did say there was more.

CROSSING THE EQUATOR

After a morning coffee with Norm and Marion, morning quiz was tough – with questions set by previous cruisers, so it was really tough.  I think we ended up with 11.  We didn’t win.

Afterwards, it was back to the cabin for a quick change and to prepare for the Dawn Nomads mid-year Christmas lunch and gift exchange. Not sure how many were there but it was a good turnout.  It was a Pirate gift exchange, so if you weren’t too thrilled with what you got, you were allowed to pirate a gift already drawn.  Unfortunately, the one we pirated was pirated from us!

Then it was up on deck for the infamous crossing the equator ceremony, where first timers (by ship) have to endure the ceremony, which usually means being covered with all sorts of goo and gunge and also having to ‘kiss the fish’.

The early pics show the Pollywogs awaiting the ceremony and that includes the crew members.  Later pics show what they looked like once declared Shellbacks, having survived the ceremony.  Silly it may be, but it is a very long standing tradition.

It was pretty hot out on deck so we were glad to escape to the cabin until quiz time – via the ice cream parlour for a small (free) soft freeze ice cream.

With an excellent 18/20, we thought we were in with a good chance – but were beaten into second place.  So near yet so far.  We failed on a film director quote and a Wizard of Oz character question.

With no early show, time to relax until a pre-dinner drink – one of my precious stock of Bundaberg ginger beer.  Friend Marilyn would have enjoyed the lamb shank/knuckle at dinner.  Come to think of it, she would have enjoyed all the food so far.

In an earlier post I was less than complimentary about a comedian and it seems I wasn’t the only one, so when the cruise director alluded to a funny comedian this time, we knew exactly what he meant. The comedian was genuinely funny.  We had seen Ivor Richards before, though I couldn’t remember him until he walked on stage.  His typically Liverpudlian quick-fire delivery was right on the button and had most of the audience laughing out loud for a considerable time. A very funny man and I’ll give him a 9/10, as anyone who can get me laughing out loud for so long deserves it.  Without any attempt at writing it in a humorous way, Ivor’s advice for shopping in Singapore:

“If they say $10 for two tee shirts, ask how much for one.  They’ll probably say $7 – so ask for the other one…”