Just for a change (again), fruit and coffee for breakfast, but the chocolate croissant looked inviting and the kind chef even took it away and warmed it for me. We shared our table with Chuck and Lil. Chuck very kindly passed on 3 copies of the Australian F1 magazine via Dave. He has no less than 4 BMW motorbikes of various ages.
Men’s Shed of course before trivia.
Now as many will know, most trivia teams occupy the same spot every day, but three days ago, a cuckoo occupied our nest and annoyed Larraine, during her Zumba workout, by spreading her things all over our normal seats, and generally getting in Larraine’s way. This time Larraine got there first and spread her things around! Cuckoo apparently wasn’t very happy. Oh dear, what a shame. We didn’t repeat our win of course, but we didn’t expect to.
Ukulele (beginners) class, was tougher than the previous day’s advanced class. Rather a lot of quick succession chord changes in ‘Doh Ray Me’.
Meanwhile, the Austrian GP replay highlights was on in Legend’s so I was somewhat distracted anyway, even without the audio. Afterwards, back to the cabin to watch the remainder, before another very late lunch. More breaded fish and some river trout, which was very nice, plus chilli and guacamole. Sounds a strange mix, but I look upon it as a starter and a light main on the same plate.
Just before afternoon trivia, the dreaded Captain’s announcement. Sorry, that should be, the dreaded announcement from the captain:
“With a typhoon or even a super typhoon looming, it looks as though our overnight in Hong Kong is in doubt and we may have to leave tomorrow evening, but an announcement will be made tomorrow morning before disembarkation.”
We managed 13/20 so maybe that put us off?
After an early shower and change, we headed to the Vista lounge for the popular game show ‘Liar, Liar’. There are times when this is hilarious and times when it is very flat, depending on the panel. This time, the participants were the two lead singers, Andrew and Meghan, plus Jamie and Renee from the entertainments staff and it was somewhere in between.
Dinner, not surprisingly, was American themed. Very nice too, though the lamb knuckle was more Kiwi than American. Last year, the lamb shanks were awful - twice (undercooked both times). This time they were perfect with the meat just falling off the bone.
There was a table discussion about the new beds on board and beds generally. Marie told us about the time they first left the UK for Australia, via a stopover in Singapore. The traditional UK double bed is not exactly large, so to get a king size bed in the Singapore hotel was a revelation. It seemed massive, to which Mal’s quip of the night was that by the time they met each other in the middle, they were too tired to do anything about it! We do have a great table this year.
There was also a fair bit of discussion regarding the potential itinerary change, which was likely to impact heavily on those who had booked private tours, especially where an advance deposit was required. Mal and Marie had organised and pre-booked a trip in China, getting off the ship in Shanghai and returning in Tianjin (Beijing). There is a distinct possibility that we will now miss Shanghai altogether and head for Tianjin, so whether Princess are able to replace the Hong Kong day 2 or even Shanghai, with another port, remains to be seen. Fortunately for us, we only have Princess tours booked for this sector, so although we may miss out on the experience, at least we won’t lose out financially.
Onto the theatre for Pearson & Harvey’s second show. Whether it was the large but only half full theatre, the rather poor sound (a bit quiet – though we were at the back) or once again, repeat material, I don’t know, but we left about half way through – and we weren’t the only ones. It felt as though the show was very flat. Sadly, although George is a fairly good singer, it is generally only when Robbie is on stage that there is any real life in the show. Billed as ‘Comedy Variety’, I’m afraid that although I rated them fairly highly in the past, I can’t give them any better than a 6.5 out of 10 over the one and a half performances we saw this time. Maybe Princess need to demand that all comedy or variety performers, update their acts at least every two years?
We were happy enough to return to the cabin – for more tennis… We are also missing our late night hot chocolate drinks in the Atrium with Mal and Megan.
So, Hong Kong, here we come - albeit for just 12 hours instead of the original 30. We just hope the 8pm sailaway shows the famed Hong Kong light show, that we somehow managed to miss last time, even though we sat patiently out on deck, waiting for it. Or, maybe we didn’t miss it, but were underwhelmed by it?
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