Yet another enjoyable sea day. This time the port lecture was on Mumbai and once again, the theatre was packed to overflowing. We were 15 minutes early and Paula just managed the last seat on the front row and I sat on the floor until the talk started, whereupon I stood. A top class presentation by Debbie (from Warrington in Lancashire). A very varied international crew this one, with staff from all over the world. So far, just about everything on the cruise has been extremely professionally presented and the staff as ever, very keen to please. Two of the horizon court staff quietly amuse, one with the bird calls and another who does an extremely convincing bulb horn/hooter noise as he steers his trolley of dirty dishes around. Also very impressive to see even the overall Maitre D’, prepared to clear tables if necessary, or help out with serving food at the buffet. My poached egg order the other day at the buffet was dealt with by the head chef. No wonder the Dawn Princess regularly tops the lists of best crew.
Dance class with Alana (suffering a little with a cold) was the Merengue, no Jill, not meringue... We made good progress on this but it was nothing like the version we had learned before.
Just prior to the afternoon trivia is the “horse racing”. Six plywood horses on a ten section track and three dice are thrown. When the horse’s number is thrown, it moves forward the appropriate number of squares. Quite how the betting works, I have no idea.
Anyway, tomorrow is Melbourne cup day and the horses are auctioned. Our dinner table syndicate purchased horse number 1 that appears to have just three legs! We were given a small bag of bits and pieces we can use to decorate our horse for the big race and we get a private box with champagne. We nominate an owner/spokesperson and a jockey. Could be fun.
A useless quiz score again and some trivia players complain when Barbara, the Brazilian Zumba teacher, takes it, as although her English is OK, she can cause a bit of confusion at times. For example, her pronunciation of “Mozart”, sounded to us like “Moses”...
Formal night again and pre-dinner canapés and drinks with Dennis and Anthea, who have a larger cabin than the rest of us. On the TV whilst waiting for dinner, we saw several of our group at the previous night’s deck party – including birdie! The ship’s photographic department produce a DVD set of the actual cruise but it is on the expensive side, so I doubt many of our group will buy. When I say expensive, I mean several hundred dollars.
Another excellent dinner with even the Thai waiter greeting us in Italian to suit the menu! Great waiter and we asked for extra spiced prawns – one of the main dishes. Sure enough, after serving everyone, he returned with a dish of extra prawns for the table.
Another song and dance show “Latin Fiesta”, as good as ever with fantastic costumes – or lack of them on the girls at times , followed by a quick hot drink at the buffet with Mal & Megan.
Minds are now ticking over regarding the Melbourne Cup tomorrow and apparently, we get to retain ownership of the horsed for the Mumbai Cup a few days later. We are going to attach birdie as jockey and at least one of the other horses will have a koala on board... We are looking at an Italian name and theme for our horse and the lads are going as – whoops, can’t say yet, the other teams might be reading this.
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