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…”

Day 11 - Lombok, Indonesia

You know you are no longer in winter when the temperature is already in the 20s as soon as you roll out of bed and head upstairs to deck 14 for breakfast, rather than put on your own kettle and collect the daily paper.  Lombok is a tender port so the noise as the ship’s lifeboats are extended on their booms and the electric winches drop them alongside, usually acts as an alarm clock, but for us, with no tour booked, there was no rush at all to get moving.

BUFFET – THE HORIZON COURT

As this was always going to be a short day in terms of activity, I thought I may as well start on a culinary tour of the Horizon Court buffet, as I found that the on-line info was very short on detail and the buffet often comes in for a deal of unfair criticism.  Food is an integral part of cruising (and my life generally!) so this may be of some value to potential cruisers.

On entering the buffet area, you generally have two major choices – entering on the starboard side or the port side.  Each side is a mirror image of the other, so the first buffet photograph shows the inner station on the port side.  This is the first of the two major, hot areas.

The Princess system is a mix of daily staples and rotating specials.

From the far end of this picture, there are the following:

Link sausage – staple

Speciality sausage – in this case Luganega sausage (whatever they are – but they were tasty!)

Baked beans – speciality – it rotates with corned beef hash for example

Cooked tomatoes – speciality – rotates with Italian tinned tomatoes

Rice – speciality.  No idea what that rotates with.

Chips – I hadn’t even noticed them before at breakfast!!! Usually it is hash browns…

Bacon & egg pie – supposedly a kiwi speciality.

So that is station number one covered.  Look out for the next thrilling instalment, coming your way soon.

LOMBOK - PIER

As a tender port, those on ships’ tours are ferried off first, which is fair enough, so we strolled through to jammer’s Nightclub to pick up our numbered tender tickets, handed out by Circle Host Heather (from Sutton in Ashfield, Nottinghamshire).

We still had to wait until the third tender call, even though we were on the preferred list thanks to our loyalty status.  A pleasant 15-20 minute tender ride to the pier across calm water, spying several local ferry boats on the way, where we entered the somewhat optimistically named “Lombok Paradise”.  Not sure about you, but my definition of paradise would not be a dusty car park with about 10 market stalls and a load of taxi touts trying their level best to entice you into the taxis parked outside the gates, where there was a pretty good chance that the driver’s knowledge of English was somewhat limited.

Those we spoke to who had ventured outside the compound had these sage words of advice.  “Don’t bother.”  So we didn’t.  Many others of course had day tours to various aspects of the island and were impressed with the weaving, though not the working conditions.  Apparently each person manages to produce about 15cm an 8 hour day.  Very labour intensive and for a small island, the township traffic is horrendous.

Paula did boost the local economy by knocking a trader’s $25USD starting price down to $15 for two ‘real pearl’ bangles and like many others, was simply happy to have helped out the locals a wee bit.  I’m afraid that remote island life is not my idea of paradise, regardless of what it says on the flags.  A tender ride back home (the Dawn Princess is considered our home when we are traveling) and a very light lunch, eaten out by the pool, but in the shade.  It is getting rather warm now and neither of us are sun bunnies.

M & M joined us for the afternoon trivia as the rest of our team were still out on a taxi tour.  We didn’t win.

We headed to our “private deck” on level 11 for our sail-away, clutching a small class of port each.  Somehow or other (I blame Garry) three dishes of hot chips with tomato sauce appeared to soak up the liquid.

We headed off to the 6:15pm show in the theatre.  It is a bit tough for any entertainer doing an early show on a sail-away, but banjo player Jim Coston is one of the regular entertainers and I enjoyed his shows last year.  We weren’t disappointed. The numbers are quite short and so is the chat between them, so a most enjoyable show, even though the theatre was only about half full.  Considering Jim had just endured a 14 hour travel link (from Bangkok I think); just 45 minutes practice with the Dawn Princess orchestra for a 45 minute show, he did remarkably well.  I’ll give him a 9/10 as I like the banjo anyway. 

We succumbed to the watches and accessories sale on deck six, so I managed a set of cufflinks - but Stewart may just get an early birthday present as it was part of a set and I didn’t need the other bits…

Tonight’s dinner was an Oriental theme.  Cue for extra prawns for table 7.  They went very well with my stir fried sweet and sour pork and rice.

Out on deck tonight was a pirate rock and roll party, initially the back line of the orchestra and fronted by Trevor Knight – yes again! (He has done very well on this cruise and has several different shows, which is more than can be said for some entertainers, who only seem to have two 45 minute acts in their entire  repertoire  and tell the same jokes each time between their musical numbers, year after year.)

Once the live music had finished, DJ James took over but most of the passengers drifted off after their busy day.  We did a bit of rock and roll dancing before relaxing and chatting to cruise director Mark and assistant cruise director Marcus.

With another two sea days ahead, to acclimatise to the 30 degree heat, no rush to get to bed by a specific time as the alarm clock is redundant.

Tomorrow? Your culinary tour part 2.  I bet you are really excited.

Days 9 & 10 - last two sea days before land

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 21^st.

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.

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Days 7 & 8 - still at sea July 18 & 19.

Paula managed the port lecture – Phuket.  Useful, as we haven’t been before.

Morning quiz and we had a slight reshuffle, teaming up with Alex & Terri and managed a little better than the other half!  We didn’t win.

After a morning coffee in the atrium we headed for Corey’s merengue dance class.  It’s an easy dance to learn, yet in NZ we rarely see anyone dancing it. Lots of fun – as it should be then we managed to catch the last few minutes of the Parisienne buffet, with a nice selection of cheeses and pate.

We rarely buy the ship’s photographs, but this time, we were both pleased with the results of the formal night – so we bought them, plus a small tripod for the camera.  Quite a clever little one which copes well with odd surfaces and can even wrap around a tube!

We didn’t win the afternoon quiz either… Is this getting repetitive?

During the afternoon, we had a call from the front desk, just confirming that they had had communications with the Indian officials and that without visas, we couldn’t get off the ship in Mumbai.  Oh dear. What a shame.  Just to emphasise the point, it was an Indian meal in the restaurant for dinner.  Nice.  Thoroughly enjoyable beef jalfraize (which you don’t get in most Indian restaurants of course), but I would have also have enjoyed sampling the chicken tandoori and even the mushroom korma, but Paula did pass over a few prawns.

The first production show – “Shimmy” which we have seen before, but as I keep saying, a 45 minute show, even a repeat is often fine by us.

We managed a dance or two to the Crimson Duo before turning our watches and clocks back one hour for the first of several times on this cruise. In theory that should mean waking up an hour earlier tomorrow. The photograph shows a somewhat deserted atrium at just after 11pm.  The crowd that go to listen to the pianist, David, are obviously not night-owls.

Friday

Have we really been away a week already? An hour’s extra sleep? Nah. Two hours!!!  Too late for the port lecture but just right for a Horizon Court breakfast with plenty of places to sit, so not all bad.

Guess what? We didn’t win morning trivia.

Corey’s dance class today was an introduction to the salsa.

The (repeated) TV movie today was the Italian Job (the remake) which we eventually managed to see in 4 chunks – but still missed one section!

The early show tonight was Trevor Knight, again, this time with his John Denver show.  Trevor had worked with John Denver and they were good friends so the personal anecdotes made it another interesting show than a straight tribute show.  One of the improvements we are now seeing with some of these shows is the subtle use of modern electronics.  Trevor’s show was a good example, as the i-pod backing tracks that he could control and also electronics to basically make his single voice into several voices, added a new dimension to the one man show genre.  Trevor always seems to be a 9/10 performer on his

After a good dinner we managed the second Donna Campbell show.  Once again, really enjoyable and well produced.  Another 9/10 performer and performance then the end of the Italian Job film.

Just two more sea days before we hit land. 

 

 

 

Days 5 & 6 - At sea

We enjoy sea days and never really seem to get bored.  The biggest problem for many people is not so much what to attend, but what NOT to attend. There are clashes galore so you may well have to choose between indoor bowls in the atrium at 9:15am, or the excellent port lecturer/advisor Deborah Shields at 9:30am in the theatre.  Deborah’s port talks are extremely popular and the theatre is usually filled to capacity.  Deservedly so, as her information is usually wide ranging, but particularly useful on taxis and local transport options.  If you do miss her talks, they are normally played on the in room TV later, as are other lectures.

It was standing room only but Paula stayed for the Lombok lecture, so I retired to the cabin to try and keep up with the blog.  I hope you all appreciate the sacrifices I make for your insomnia cures.

At 10:30am, we had our Cruise Critic group meet and greet in Jammer’s nightclub – the Dawn Nomads, just in case you missed it earlier. Just to show how supportive the Dawn Princess is, there were about a dozen of their senior staff present, from Cruise Director Mark and Hotel General Manager Osvaldo, through to the food and beverage officer, Senior Chef, Maitre D, front desk and tour staff.

Thanks to Ros, we had a great meet with each couple introducing themselves, so at long last, we were able to match names, message board user names and faces.

Our first on board dancing class was taken by deputy cruise director Corey (NZ).  We’d seen him on the morning Wake Show and didn’t know what to expect.  For Foxtrot 1, he moved pretty quickly, maybe a bit too quickly for one or two beginners, but it was fun, though we just sat and watched.  

This was also our first formal night of the cruise.  There are six formal nights between Sydney and Venice so out came the glad-rags, dinner suits and bow-ties, for those who elected to support it. Unlike some cruises, Princess doesn’t require dressing up every night so six nights out of 45 is fine and many love it.  The champagne fountain is a Princess staple and several opted to join in before and after the Captain’s welcome.  Captain Ivan Jerman did a great job as always.  He leaves us in Singapore unfortunately.

Our table group looked extremely smart but the ship’s photographer who came into the dining room wouldn’t take a group pic (we have to wait for formal night two for that) and he only took individual portraits. (There is always an opportunity to have a picture taken in the atrium, with several choices of back drops.)

After the usual excellent meal, we went to Donna Campbell’s “Dolly Parton Tribute Show” in the packed theatre.  A top class show and very informative about Dolly Parton’s life too. 

I should mention here that orchestra leader Sarah on piano and keyboard, has to be one of the most talented musicians I have ever come across.  As the bass guitar play was absent (not sure why), she managed to play his bass part of the score with her left hand, on the keyboard, whilst playing her piano part with the right hand.

Donna wore a Dolly wig, wore the country dress and sang very well and as we hadn’t seen her before, this was another 9/10 score.

We ambled into the casino just to say hi to friends who were at their own table playing snap or something.  On the roulette table, there was just one player - who seemed to be supporting the casino profits on his own, as I saw him lose several piles of chips – twice…  I might have a restrained gamble one day, to see if my very modest system will work.

Day 6

Nothing much new to write about but Marcus has his own take on some English pronunciation. When asking what Ruth Ellis’ claim to fame was (she was the last woman to be hanged in the UK), his pronunciation wasn’t executed as much as executed as in the way you’d pronounce the executor of a will!

Corey’s Foxtrot 2 class was another enjoyable one - though numbers had dropped a bit from day one, so at least there was space on the floor.

We didn’t win the trivia quiz…

We went to the early show again, this time a combination of the full orchestra, the string quartet and starring Vov Dylan on violin. New to us and another great 9/10 show.

Most of the Australian contingent were out on deck to watch the state of origin, rugby league, between Queensland and New South Wales.  We weren’t. We had our normal dinner but just Anthea and Dennis (Kiwis) with us.  The dining room was very quiet.

Afterwards, we went back to the Vista lounge for the film “Quartet” – which we thoroughly enjoyed, then on to a little bit of dancing to the “Crimson Duo” in the Wheelhouse Bar until 11:30.

So, two days of the six at sea now down, four to go.