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 14th.
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.
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