After sleeping so well so far, not a brilliant night, but just one of those things I suppose. For those contemplating cruising, we know that many have a genuine fear of sea sickness, or motion sickness. Even though the sea out of Sydney can sometimes be a little choppy and occasionally we do expect a bit of a rough ride, so far, we have only had a couple of minor ripples, usually at night, and for the remainder, you’d hardly know you were even at sea. We are averaging between 18 and 19 knots as we continue this rather long sea leg up to Lombok.
As the food is so good on board (otherwise I wouldn’t be here!), we rarely use the lifts. For those new to the Dawn Princess – or even cruising, this means that 95% o.f our walking around is between decks 5 and 14. There is no deck 13… Climbing the stairs several times a day is exercise enough for us, so the count from deck 5 (the main atrium and our dining room deck) to our deck 12 cabin is a fair climb at about 88 stairs. The other main decks for us are deck 7 – the main entertainment and promenade level – and of course, deck 14, the buffet deck. One day, I might just tot up the total daily climb as I suspect that by the end of 90 days, it will be quite substantial.
Morning Trivia quiz, we had our usual 4 couples – 1 from Perth, 2 from Adelaide and ourselves. Just for a change, we had one partner in each team. So our team name was “Wife Swappers”. We didn’t win.
Corey’s dance class was the waltz and the numbers seem to have settled down well.
In the short break between late lunch and afternoon trivia, we watched a TV movie – “Plot With A View” which proved to be enjoyable, set in Wales, with Brenda Blethwyn.
Afternoon trivia yesterday was a set up for presenter James, as Marcus had thrown in a question for him with a deliberate incorrect answer - that nearly caused a riot, as Winston Churchill’s favourite dog was not a poodle!
This time, James shot himself in the foot. The question was “What letters are on the international plate for Germany. This time we knew that it was “D”, but James initially claimed that it was “AD”. Another near riot until he realised that without the power-point display, that he was reading out the A (for Answer…). We were equal first with four teams. Our nominated best player was Ros and she got the next question correct. She then ended up in a head to head with Canadian, Dreena – also from the Dawn Nomads. We didn’t win.
Another good meal at night – roast lamb, but the bread rolls are addictive, though a bit crusty on this trip, so with a requested baked jacket potato each night so far, I decided that maybe tomorrow may have to be a cut-down-on-the-fat day. Three bread rolls with butter, PLUS the baked potato with butter, may have to be sacrificed – for a day anyway.
Just for once, there was no show that we needed to catch, deciding to opt out of the Country and Western dancers/singers show, followed by a C & W hoedown. That meant dancing in the Wheelhouse bar to the Crimson Duo again, along with the Adelaide group plus several other familiar faces. One thing that Princess may need to look at before too long, is incorporating a better dance area, as there are too many dancers and too little space.
The other area they may wish to address is the pre-cruise information. For example, Trevor Knight ran a ukulele class so in the Princess Patter (our daily newsletter) was the request to “bring along your ukulele or guitar”. Not sure about any other cruisers, but packing a uke or guitar wouldn’t exactly be the top of our packing list – especially given the luggage restrictions. Equally, bringing along your cowboy hat, a checked shirt and jeans wouldn’t be top either. If Princess are going to run these speciality sessions, you’d think they’d at least let you know in advance! (I have packed my Hawaiian shirt – so I’ll be a bit miffed if there is no Hawaiian night, as I’ll just have to wear it in Europe, to justify packing it.)
Another very good, very enjoyable day at sea. Getting to Egypt sees us booked on one tour with a 210 minute, non-stop coach trip in each direction, (with an armed guard on board) and walking around in 43 degree heat. So that may well take its toll and we’ll be looking forward to the sea days again.
Clocks are back 1 hour again tonight.
SUNDAY July 21st.
No rush to get out of bed (as usual on a sea day) but a determined effort to resist the temptation of a substantial cooked breakfast of sausage, bacon, tomato, eggs, buttered toast, onions etc. I managed that, with small glass of granola and yogurt with a couple of apricots and a couple of prunes. But those freshly made waffles were irresistible and so for the first time on this trip, I thought I’d better apply some quality assurance to the waffle department. With a touch of fresh cream and a smidgin of maple syrup, they were pronounced as fit for human consumption.
The temperature outside is now about 27 degrees so by about 9:30, the deck loungers are either occupied or naughty people have left their blue pool towels and maybe a book to stake their claim, but according to Princess, if the lounger isn’t occupied within 15 minutes, then the deck attendants are entitled to remove them – but of course, they rarely do. On our various cruises we have come across queue rage, laundry rage, mahjong/chess rage, bus reserved seats rage, but so far, we haven’t come across “reserved loungers rage”. I say, so far, as I wouldn’t discount it before the end of the cruise!
Morning trivia and we just split into two loose groups. We didn’t win, though if we’d had our best answers from both groups, we’d have finished equal first for a play-off – which we may well have lost anyway. Let us just say that the tie breaker was a good one, with a ”name the year that…” where the winning answer was 200 years out! I won’t spoil it for future trivia players by giving away the question (or the answer).
Morning coffee followed (I’m not giving that up) before the Waltz 2 class. A couple of simple new moves to our repertoire – that I’ll probably forget.
Sticking to my low fat day, lunch was a bowl of soup with a few bits of capsicum, onion, tomato etc. on the side.
Afternoon trivia we scored a blistering 18/20. We didn’t win.
The early vista show was Trevor Knight (who was NOT the cruise director on an earlier cruise!) doing his folk music show. As always, very well done and another 9/10. Strange that his first influence came from a 1962 UK “Sunday Night at the London Palladium” TV show, whilst at boarding school. His influence was banjo player Pete Seegar, rather than a guitarist, which I found surprising.
The usual excellent dinner where I had the misfortune to sit next to Arnold, who scoffed three buttered rolls whilst I had to resist the temptation to match him. I managed, with my attention focussed on the tasty lobster bisque, followed by a dish from the main menu of spinach filled cannelloni with a creamy white sauce, then a main of pot roasted beef, but with horseradish flavoured mash (I couldn’t manage a baked potato without butter…) followed by the cheese platter with fig and walnut bread – but definitely no butter.
The late show in the theatre was another top class show with violinist Vov Dylan. Fir his encore, he played the “Flight of the Bumble Bee”, going for the world record at 57 seconds. I think he was timed at a staggering 52.7 seconds according to the drummer’s stopwatch.
No dancing tonight as Sue was a bit off colour, so Darryl headed back to the cabin.
Well, that is the outward relaxing part of the cruise over and now we get into the more interesting stuff, though our first port tomorrow of Lombok, is likely to be no more than a tender ride to land, a quick stroll around the market and back again for us – and several hundred others, though 1,000 are due out on ship’s tours.
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