With the clocks on an hour an fairly late to bed, a latish start to the morning. At ‘Men’s Shed’, Garry arrived, proudly carrying a birthday gift and card, from ‘Captain Rikard’. A rather nice Swiss Army knife. Most impressive and somewhat puzzling. Fooled me. It was in fact from Mal & Marie!
The usual 10:30am losing trivia but Paula was too engrossed in the tennis to go to beginners ukulele. Salomon’s entry gained a great ovation, relating to his performance last night. Although this was the beginner’s group, he elected to live our playing a notch by introducing the C9 chord plus others to what we had already played. Note to self. Take a writing implement… The changes were a little confusing as he isn’t using slides or screen, so exactly where and when these changes were to be incorporated was still not 100% resolved by the time I left! We can all play the C6 chord.
We had to wait a few minutes for Federer’s match to finish, but fortunately for Paula’s heart, she already knew he’d won.
Late lunch and a delicious, tender, chicken tikka masala maintained the daily curry theme. I also tried a couple of pieces of fish I hadn’t even heard of before. One was very firm and the other, melt in the mouth, but both very nice.
We managed to exercise self-control when passing the ice cream bar. That was tough.
Renee managed to put a couple of whingers in their place well and truly. “If you don’t like trivia questions, then don’t come!” A round of applause from the rest, but no doubt Mark will be getting another unjustified written complaint after they walked out. (No, we didn’t win.)
The early show was Nathan Foley. We’d seen his show before and he is a very good entertainer, so good in fact, that he is the current holder of the Princess, “Entertainer of the Year” title. The first time that accolade has gone to an Australian. He is very talented but we’d seen his act before so we were less impressed than many others, who gave him a standing ovation.
A bit of time to kill before dinner and an opportunity to listen to Salomon in the Crooners Bar (Atrium, deck 7). Some of his tunes, he uses a backing track and others, just pure piano.
Some piano pieces played are quite ‘thin’. Yes there is the melody, quite clearly played, but Salomon manages to produce a very full sound and if you closed your eyes, you could be forgiven for thinking there were two pianos, he is that good.
Into dinner to celebrate Garry’s birthday. He liked our card! Mal and Marie had very generously provided some bubbles, which really was very nice. (Valdobbiadene Prosecco by Villa Sandi, the Princess 50 year celebratory bubbly.) The dessert was a large, very light cake, which seems to have been doused with a drop of Amoretto, arranged by the Maitre D Christian and Head Waiter Mario – and another bottle of bubbly.
Up on decks 12 & 14 (there is no 13 of course) was a “Love Boat” party, with party band Opus, enhanced by the brass section of the orchestra, positioned just under the big screen, on 14, rather than the usual little stage on 12. They had the somewhat underworked dancers (they had only done 1 theatre show and the Country Jam show to date) dancing around celebrating the theme, with big wigs and white gear.
We didn’t stay too long – though others did, and we headed to the cabin. STILL no outgoing mail. Getting beyond a joke now, especially for those trying to rearrange tours over the next few days because of port changes, as we now have an overnight in Incheon and after Tianjin, they are slotting in Busan – which we visited in 2012, but it was raining all day.
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