After breakfast, we called in at the future cruise desk and cancelled next year’s sector from Southampton to Sydney. We were able to book a suitable cabin from Sydney to Southampton. There just hasn’t been the same sort of ‘must do again’ feeling about the second half of the cruise, so we are confident we have made the right decision. The bonus for me is of course that we’ll be able to catch up with family and friends in the UK, but getting back to Auckland half way through winter, may have us grumbling next year!
An uneventful, relaxing sea day from then on with nothing out of the ordinary until we ended up sitting in Magnums (bar) on deck 7 as there were no seats in the atrium on 5 or 7. There was much talk about last night’s show and people sitting near us were playing cards. They broke off to join in the chat and the gentleman, although now with a shaky hand, did one or two card tricks for us which was a pleasant way to spend a bit of time. Whoever we spoke to had a different theory about the tied thumbs illusion, so Darryl was the star wherever we went.
I took a Panadol as the toothache was annoying. What annoyed Paula was that the satellite TV channels (all 7 of them) have dropped out and she missed the Toronto tennis final. It also means a total lack of World news and weather info at the moment.
Dance class was the Chicago Swing, but John’s classes always start and end with a couple of progressive dances and quite a few people really don’t like them. (I won’t go into their reasons but they will be fairly obvious to regular dancers). Then it comes to the new dances, they often find themselves with a stranger and would prefer to learn with their own partner. Alana’s classes on the other hand concentrated totally on learning the new dance and she broke it down into segments, guys at one side, girls at the other, then you’d practice and learn the first segment pretty well before moving on to the next. My preferred method. John tends to go through the whole dance virtually in one go and this makes learning so much harder – or does for me!
We opted out at the change partner stage and went up to the rear of the lounge - but didn’t really do much. The Chicago Swing isn’t a really difficult sequence dance but it isn’t danced in NZ.
On to the HC and a nice lasagne and a couple of pieces of fish. No ukulele class today (boooo!) so on time for round 2 of the progressive ‘ship’s trivia’ quiz, over three days. Mike and Sue were on fire as it was a pictorial one, with bits and pieces around the ship - and they got most of them. I think we may have got 13/16 and we were then in about 4th place overall.
Sadly (for them), Sue and Mike were dining at the pizzeria with other friends and missed out on the Indian meal. Both Darry and Sue and Paula and I ordered three mains between us, so we managed the beef, the prawn and the tandoori chicken curries. The consensus was that the chicken was the best.
On to a new production show – ‘Rock This Town’. The music was pretty good and the costumes OK, with some good singing, (particularly the female lead singer doing ‘River Deep, Mountain High’ but once again, a totally lack lustre backdrop. The unexpected appearance of Matt dressed as one of the Supremes was a small but significant piece of humour!
People have been quite critical of the overall cast so far and I’d have to agree. Not the best group we have seen.
Another day at sea tomorrow but it is getting slightly warmer – at last.
Monday August 11th
We managed seats in the atrium deck 5 late morning for our hot chocolate (the other 3) and coffee (me). We then settled in for the Dixieland Jazz session. (Not all of it is Dixie, but it isn’t modern jazz either) and witnessed music rage for the first time! Some oldish chap had been chatting to us earlier and laughing at the slow progress of some of the less mobile passengers. When someone then stopped to chat to friends and blocked his view, he went ape! Bearing in mind we were there to listen, the irony wasn’t lost on a couple of other passengers.
The drummer in this band, unlike the drummer on the Emerald, didn’t have the wooden blocks (no idea what they are called – brother Dave will no doubt tell me!) and some of the character of that sort of jazz was lost.
Paula and Sue headed off to the theatre to see ‘The Sound of Music’ (yup, loads of modern movies on here) and I retired to the cabin until it was ukulele time. About 40 people again and there are still new ones turning up, but this time, we rattled through our repertoire of 5 pieces quite quickly. The chord changes on one of them I struggle with, but the others are fine. A good class though.
I managed the last 4 questions at trivia bit I think we fell off the leader board, but Mal & Meg, with Ed and Bev and two others came out on top. Well done Kiwi Kruisers!
D & S corrupted us by dragging us up to the buffet again. Toasted sandwich and a scone and cream plus tea.
Afterwards, we sat out on deck 7 for a bit of sunshine then just before dinner, one heck of a lightning and thunderstorm with heavy rain. It didn’t last too long.
Dinner was OK and then to the Vista for Maggie Scott’s show. Now I have to confess that I wasn’t sure about this as she (like Bayne Bacon) seems to be on most cruises in the Australian region and if the shows ae the same, I’m not too keen.
This appeared to be a mainly new show with more singing than comedy and she also played piano and sang. Maggie can be a bit bawdy at times and did use a naughty word (she doesn’t normally) but it was a very good show. She sang along to a slide show for a couple of numbers so there was a bit of variety and somewhat unusually, bearing in mind we have seen her before, that I still rated the show a 9/10. We seem to be doing well with the guest entertainers at the moment.
Just Paula and I for a late night drink and we had the whole of the deck 5 atrium to ourselves at 10:50!
Easter Island tomorrow – we hope, as the previous record for landing here isn’t so hot. As the first tender port of this cruise, it depends far more on sea conditions than a traditional port. We are booked on a Princess 1:30pm tour, so no need to get up early. The day’s schedule is arrive 7am and depart 6:30pm, so a long stop at a very, very small island.
No comments:
Post a Comment