With a four day run now to Darwin, time to really relax – then we have a five day run afterwards to Sydney. This means of course that on the runs of port days, the passengers can get a bit tired, but on the sea day runs, the staff get tired! The regular advancement of the clocks makes it even tougher for staff who may be working the bars until 11pm, plus cleaning down time, then the Patisserie bar on deck five, reopens at 6:00am for coffees (and stronger drinks for those who have a need), so staff are back on duty at 5:30am. That they are always so cheerful is a real credit to them.
I only found out at bed time when doing my diary, that today was ‘International Day of Older Persons’ (and also World Vegetarian day, but we’ll ignore that one), but we did note lots of ‘older persons’ around today.
Neither of us slept well again and we can’t blame coffee for keeping Paula awake as she only has a half strength hot chocolate at night. The TV was back on from 2am until at least 4am, so I was watching the ‘Cake Boss’ show then a programme about living in the wilds of Alaska. Very informative, but I would rather have been sleeping.
The 10:30am trivia was our first venture out followed by an atrium coffee and a small filled roll. It is called the ‘Patisserie’ on deck five, but it is a bit of a misnomer. There is a tray of small pastries (replaced regularly) during the morning and that switches to a tray of small filled rolls, sandwiches and other savouries round about 11:15am until 2pm.
After blog updates, a very late lunch of a small plate of chilli con carne and rice.
We didn’t win afternoon quiz and we rushed off to Jammers for another Dawn Nomad’s meet. This time, it was the tacky souvenir gift exchange. As usual, some people missed the point and donated remarkably good cheap prizes which were much sought after and ultimately pirated. Tacky souvenirs included two packs of Greek erotic playing cards, a small solid teddy bear covered in small sea shells, weird salt and pepper pots, snow globes etc. The good stuff included a bottle of wine, Turkish Delight, a sari, a box of chocs, a scarf etc. Good fun but the star prize was undoubtedly Arnold’s chicken that squawks when you wring its neck!
The early show was the high energy and acrobatic Dave Stephens. Excellent. An 8.5 or maybe even a 9 out of 10 for a well-balanced, well-produced show that moved along very well. The singing was good, but we have had slightly better singers.
Dinner was a Country and Western theme. With a 90 day cruise, it is inevitable that menus get recycled maybe 3 times but overall, the variety is pretty good. We still feel that the evening vegetables are a bit lack lustre, so more often than not, my plate isn’t left clean.
We have now crossed the equator several times on a ship and the traditional crossing the line ceremony has previously been held during the middle of the day. Just for a change, this time they held it at 9pm, which was a good idea. As we are late sitting at dinner, we missed the start, but still managed to witness staff captain Michele (correct spelling this time) thrown into the pool and the dancers having a ball(!) covering the polliwogs with all sorts of coloured goo. The entertainment staff were in fine form so we see Bernie making a pass at King Neptune (Alex), accompanied by Marcus, Mark and Nando. The deck party was a bit loud so we retreated to the quiet atrium deck 5 area for our late night coffee, along with M & M.
Bed 11:30pm but the clocks on another hour tonight.
Wednesday October 2nd
We were both awake at 4am… It is not getting any easier! It must be the clocks as we finally surfaced at 10am! We headed straight to the Wheelhouse bar on deck 7, for Australian Immigration. No queue and two extremely pleasant female Immigration officers. Ironically, I can’t remember them swiping our passports to see if we had a current electronic visa.
We skipped breakfast altogether, saving ourselves for the tropical fruit buffet at 11:30am, so we did what we usually do and headed for a coffee. We were about third in the queue fir the fruit and settled for papaya, mango and lychee (or something very similar!) and banana. This time, there were no fruits we were unfamiliar with. I couldn’t resist checking out the lunch buffet on deck 14 and emerged with three pieces of deep fried crumbed chicken between us!
We didn’t win the afternoon quiz and I had a break from blog writing, which is acceptable on a run of sea days, as most of this is just drivel anyway!
Last but one formal night so we dressed up early and headed for the 6:30pm Vista lounge show. Sheena Crouch’s Dusty Springfield tribute. A very professional show. I was never a huge Dusty fan once she broke up with the Springfields but Sheena also sang Sandie Shaw, Cilla Black and Petula Clark songs and sang them very well. A 9/10 performance though and the audience loved it.
No lobster on formal night, but we didn’t care, as once again, head waiter Robbie had organised a curry for table 7! An excellent Indian chicken curry and also a dish of spicy prawns each. There was plenty of food and we made the most of it. It was so good that we asked Robbie to fetch the chef so that we could thank him. Allus, the chef, was a bit embarrassed as by this time he was quite grubby but Robbie lent him his Darwin apron! Robbie took it back again straight afterwards as he was doing the crepes Suzettes – again. A double portion this time and no ice cream… We don’t think Allus was used to fronting up to passengers but we all decided to submit the ship’s own thank you cards for their consummate host programme - C R U I S E. (This does NOT stand for ‘Cannot Really Understand Italians Speaking English’, as explained by one senior staff member!)
On then to another show and this was one of my favourites. Australian Impressionist and comedian Danny McMaster, who covered dozens of characters, including the Muppets (loved the Swedish chef!), Warner Brothers cartoon characters, plus the usual film stars, politicians and singers. I’m giving him a 9.5 out of 10 as the ’12 Drinks of Christmas’ went on just a bit too long.
Afterwards, we chatted to some of the entertainment staff for so long that we were too late for coffee, so we opted for a small glass of port instead.
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