Day 24 - Yup, BACK at sea

Thankfully, Paula is well and truly on the mend, but a little way to go.  Thanks for the published comments  - especially nice to hear from people we have never even met.

Leaving the haze of Tianjin behind was a relief.

The earlier part of the day was the usual routine, but the 11:45am cricket session had me bowled over.  About ten minutes in, before I had batted, I tweaked my right side. Very painful.  Although I did manage a session with the bat, bowling was out, so I acted as ball boy, trying to recover tennis balls from beyond the netting.

With no ukulele class (again), we managed an earlier lunch.  Very nice pork loin, with broccoli and a spoonful of a nice light pasta and buttered carrots.  Eating out in the warmth, a cider went down very well with it, though it is very rare that I have a drink in the afternoon.  Paula stuck with a consommé soup and a bread roll, which should give you an idea that she was still a bit delicate.

We decided that a dip would be a good idea and whilst Paula went in the rear, shaded pool, I opted for the hot spa jets on my sore back.  A good choice.  We then sat outside on the rear of deck 11, but the incessant noisy chat from one bloke in particular, sent us scurrying for an MP3 player for Paula and I opted for the noise cancelling headphones, plugged into that el cheapo Vodafone, onto which I’d transferred a few bits of music.  Alas, even noise cancelling headphones weren’t enough to block out Mr Gobby, so we retreated to the cabin balcony instead.

No win for afternoon trivia (Anthony) but fun anyway, before the 6pm show – Ace McDermott.  We have seen his act twice before and although billed as a card sharp, he does a bit of what appears to be spiritualism/mind reading (which seems to be genuine) and he is also the performer who walks barefoot over broken glass, after slowing down his heart rate.  A good show.  A pleasant chat afterwards with upcoming Kiwi entertainer, Russell Hamilton, from Rotorua.

At dinner, we asked Mike and Eileen to join us, to replace Mal and Garry who were watching some weird game where they play with an oval ball.  It worked out well for them, as the other 6 from their table were also absent.  When they get off in San Francisco, they are replaced by Ed & Bev, who we have cruised with several times before.  This time, Marie was present when the dish of crudités was placed on the table.  Having just left China, the meal theme was Asian, with a very nice starter of pot stickers and a spring roll, but none of the mains appealed to me and Paula stuck with the standby pasta Alfredo, which is about as plain as a pasta dish can possibly get.

Princess appear to have cut back on their evening meal choices.  There are always two seafood dishes, one meat dish and one vegetarian dish, plus one of the three Curtis Stone dishes.  In the past, there were always two meat choices.  The ‘available every day’ section seems to have replaced the popular steaks, with the daily hamburger option.

I opted for the Curtis Stone belly pork - again.  As I don’t eat the crackling, Marie was the beneficiary of mine, so she had prawns but with pork crackling and I had the pork minus the crackling, but with prawns, as Ricky kindly brought extras.  The pork was just about the most tender, juiciest pork I have ever eaten.  As a speciality dish, I’m somewhat surprised that it doesn’t come with something other more exotic than a spoonful of traditional apple sauce.

Too full for dessert, I just kept on nibbling at the crudités…  

The late show was the rather unappealing (to us) Le Stelle, apparently a soprano and baritone who will be performing in the new ‘Bravo’ show, which appears to have the two on board violinists along with Le Stelle, instead of Paula’s favourite, Chris Watkins.  We gave it a miss.

So, on to the Vista where they had recorded music for dancing, but we just watched for a while, before retiring.  In our letterbox was a letter from the Shore Excursion Manager, regarding complaints made about our Incheon tour.  We hadn’t filed a complaint, but others obviously did, as they were refunding 30%.  Nice of them – and more OBC to (re)spend.  At the rate we are going, we are going to have to be a bit carefree to guarantee spending it all.

Another sea day ahead and a slightly rearranged daily programme, before land again.