Days 84-87 Just Cruising! August 16-19

As expected, with four days at sea, not too much of interest or use for future travellers, but another idle waste of time to blog followers, especially those on land.

For us, generally busy days with one activity flowing into the next or maybe the occasional break for a read, a nana nap or computer work, not to mention eating.

Although we haven’t reached the dizzy heights of a win or even progress beyond round two in the bowling, it remains a staple part of our daily routine, though I seem to be getting worse rather than better.  Must be the new captain driving differently.

Although our quizzing has been without either drama or major success, young Josh, the new recruit to the Entertainment team, was on the end of Trivia Rage Thursday morning (we play in the afternoon).  Apparently the questions were mainly historical and extremely tough, so several teams upped and walked out and the front desk had a small pile of complaints, partly to do with the quiz, and partly to do with Josh’s responses.  Although we weren’t there, when the walkout occurred, his quip apparently was, “I don’t really worry too much, I am paid by the hour and not the audience numbers”, which we thought a good riposte.  This didn’t go down too well with the miserable few, so along with Barbara and Robert (who resigned as a result of an unwarranted complaint about his speech) Josh is now the new target in the sights of the disaffected few.

However the majority are very supportive of the crew in instances like this and are not slow to voice their opinions either. One trivia presenter (who shall be nameless) gifted our team a bag of prizes, that were duly shared out.

We enjoyed our visit to the Sterling Steakhouse thanks to the generosity of Ros who was only too pleased to share her good fortune at Roulette and Bingo with the table.

For future cruisers, maybe you’d like a sample of what the steakhouse offers for the $20 surcharge?  Hopefully the pictures will tell the real story.  The prawns were Paula’s starter and I had the clam chowder in a loaf.  The normal steaks in the dining room are more than adequate, but the steakhouse lifts it a few notches, particularly on size and variety.  I opted for the Sterling filet, shown on the right of the raw meat sample trolley .

We had another formal night and people do look so smart when dressed up, probably the guys as much as the ladies, though the picture of “3 ladies in black” shows that they scrub well too! The picture shows the fantastic dance teacher Alana flanked by Paula and Hirma, one of the other regular dancers.  Dance classes have been for the waltz (basic as some people have only just joined); the cha-cha (“the Sweetheart”), Paso Doble and a return to the Argentine Tango that we had to leave early for a Crazy Cruiser’s lunch.     

The stage show on formal night was several notches above previous productions, as we had the new male singer at last, (Dan stayed on from Fort Lauderdale) and also they seemed to have actually created some bright scenery with lights. Wow!  Previous shows have been let down in no small way by the rather boring backdrops and the black floor. The show was entitled “Save the Last Dance”. Most people rated this the best show yet. (We have enjoyed them all.)

Thursday evening we went to see Al Katz again. Another good show, followed as usual by a sojourn to the Atrium for coffee before hitting the sack about midnight.

Honolulu tomorrow and a decently long day. Once again, it will be interesting to see what happens regarding immigration and departure, bearing in mind we haven’t been to any other country since Long Beach.  With a 9am arrival and a 9:30pm back on board time, we do have a lot more time than in LA.

Clocks have been steadily going backwards and we have all been promised free drinks all day on September 1^st...  Most of you may know what that means.