Day 4 - All at sea Nov 28th

A good night’s sleep meant a slightly late join up with the buffet queue.  Those obviously new to buffet dining seem to wander around in a bit of a daze, probably overcome with the sheer variety of food available and queues were evident at most stations.  People were often going against the flow and then dilly dallying over selecting the exact piece of frizzled bacon out of the 100 or so identical pieces available.  Something you get used to.  The Dawn Princess carries just under 2,000 passengers and the Diamond some 700 more – a high percentage of whom are going to use the two buffets, so it is inevitable that it is going to be busier, particularly at the busy times.

The food options are slightly more in number and I was pleased to see that the corned beef hash and baked beans were on.  I could never understand the Dawn as whenever the hash was on, the beans were not! The scrambled eggs were livened up with mushrooms and Swiss cheese and I suppose it was appropriate that we sat at a table with two Swiss ladies. Oscar would have been pleased, as there are about 100 Swiss on board.

We had another wander around the ship but it was quite warm outside and we eventually ended up at Skywalker’s Nightclub at the rear of the ship, for the first official “Diamond Cats” meeting.  What a great venue. I am not too sure how many were there but I do know there are 95 on the list for the first lunch in a few days time.

Our first Trivia was late afternoon and we had enough for two teams, but we still didn’t win even if we’d combined our scores...   A swim in a rear pool (30 degrees?) then Tom Briscoe’s comedy half show with Bobby Borgia’s magic for the other half, before drinks at Ros and Arnold’s suite and then to dinner together with Col & Jude plus Ken and Barb. Ros had organised a table for fixed dining as getting a table organised for “Anytime” was so much of a hassle.  In fact, it was far from “Anytime” with so much messing about, that a fixed dining time was easier.

This was our first formal night but as I had forgotten my black trousers, a bow tie seemed inappropriate with pale slacks.  It might have helped if I had consulted my packing list and checked off the items, rather than relying on memory.

The clocks are back 1 hour again tonight, but tomorrow is our first stop – Thailand, so an 11pm bedtime (old time) should make up for an early start.