Days 37 & 38 - Christmas in July and an impending hiccup

Day 37 – July 25^th on board – a day later in NZ

As seems to be the case at the moment, another wake up at 3am…

Nothing much to report other than at 3:15pm, we had our ‘Christmas’ and silly hat afternoon tea – but for us, a late lunch, as once again, the clocks, went forward at 2pm.  We didn’t eat much but the warm scone with jam and cream went down well.  One of the highlights was of course Oscar’s famous cheeky masks.  This caused much hilarity as usual and plenty of photographs taken.

Another photo op later as we had another Captain’s Circle welcome meeting and our very popular Captain, Rikard Lorentzen, was happy to pose.  He is popular not only with the passengers, but hugely popular with the staff, which makes for a very, very happy ship.

At dinner, we were offered turkey, which wasn’t on the printed menu, which was very nice indeed, so a Christmas dinner to celebrate July 25^th.  Paula’s stomach objected again, so to the cabin after dinner.

 

Day38 – July 26^th – Happy 6^th Birthday to grandson Noah!

Another rotten night!  At 3am – which seems to be a bad time for everyone, we nearly got up.  Then when I did get to sleep. I didn’t wake until 9:20 – so straight up to ‘Shed’, where we lifted it a notch and the discussion reached the heights of Calculus.  Paula slept on and joined us at trivia, where once again, we were only 2 points away from a win.

After ukulele (middle) class, we headed for the Vista lounge where they had round 1 of ‘Dancing With The Stripes’.  Very popular.  Only then did we get a late lunch – which was more of an afternoon tea.

Paula managed a rice pud.  Ship food can be surprisingly basic and homely as well as exotic.

The early show was Assistant Cruise Director, Jamie Clarke, who has history as a singer, but he is also very funny, so this made for a very entertaining show, with a good repertoire and good audience participation, particularly from one lady.  This was a much better show than many of the guest entertainers, so top marks to Jamie.

We ate at the buffet to limit Paula’s intake. We also managed a lap of the walking deck (7) but it was rather nippy and then headed for the production show, Shimmy.  Although we have seen this at least twice before, we do enjoy it, as it is basically ‘50’s Rock and Roll music with lots of dancing.  However (whenever that word appears, we get thrown), 5 minutes before the show started, “Good evening ladies and gentlemen, this is the Captain Speaking”…

That usually signifies a hiccup.  This time, it was to warn us there would probably be a helicopter Med Evac (Medical Evacuation) as we got within range of the Aleutian Islands.  He expected it to be in about 2 to 3 hours, which meant between midnight and 1am.  A lot of shoulder shrugging from most, but for those of us at the rear of the ship and on decks 10 & 11, this would mean a cabin evacuation as a safety precaution, just in case a helicopter hit the rear of the ship, which is where they usually perform the lift.

We did enjoy the show, and opted for a hot chocolate in the atrium, before bedtime, where we were joined by Bert and Larraine from our morning quiz team.  So, off to bed, wondering what the night holds for us.  Presumably, another rotten one in terms of sleep.