Day 39 – An early start
Going to bed at midnight but expecting to be turfed out of the cabin, is not conducive to a good night’s sleep – so we didn’t get one! In fact, I’d not long managed to get to sleep, when we got the dreaded knock on the door, but it was 5:55am – and almost totally light. So, having been ready for it, we were dressed and out of the cabin quite smartly. Smart enough to not head for the Vista lounge, the usual mustering location, but to the atrium on deck 5, where there is a now a 24 hour International Café. It goes without saying we weren’t the only ones to head that way - but I was second in the queue to be served.
When the poor, lone, night coffee maker (full of smiles), saw a very rapidly growing queue, he very quickly got on the ‘phone for reinforcements, so although I had to wait two minutes for two pots of tea, others had a much longer wait. I also spied behind the counter, a tray of fresh pastries – and doughnuts! So of course, I managed a very fresh, iced doughnut too.
The seating soon filled (pic taken at 6:05am) and as they drafted in even more wait-staff, some of whom were obviously not used to dealing with a full house, one of the rather shy waiters seemed to be wandering around for ages with a ‘coffee for Rhonda’. The passengers soon joined in, calling out her name, but I’m sure her coffee wouldn’t have been too hot by the time it arrived. Incidentally, there was no charge for the coffees.
Someone spied the helicopter through the windows on the port side and by this time, the atrium was pretty full of people, most of whom were dressed in some sort of day clothes, but at least one old dear was in dressing gown and nightie.
At about 6:30am, the early morning coffee regulars started to appear in increasing numbers, blissfully unaware of what was going on, only to find there were no seats left. Then we saw the helicopter depart and the all clear was given, so most headed off, some (like us) to try and catch up on sleep at some time after 7am, others to make an earlier start to the day. I missed the 9:30am Shed meeting and only just made trivia at 10:30, so breakfast afterwards was more like our on land NZ brunch time.
On the way back to the cabin, one of us grabbed an ice cream and the other grabbed a coffee.
‘Dancing with the Stripes’ again, heat 2, at 1:45 where DJ Anthony put on a very professional performance with the rumba. He has obviously danced before, whereas just about all the other contestants were definitely at the beginners level.
Once again (thankfully, for the last time), the clocks were advanced at 2pm. Trivia was early as there was yet another Captain’s Circle do.
The early show was Australian comedian Col Cameron again. Not as ‘laugh out loud’ as his first show.
For dinner, beef was the main meat dish yet again (that is about three days on the trot) but was a delicious surf and turf, so fillet steak with prawns.
Our late show was a first for us on this class of ship, ‘Ye Olde English Pub Night’. They did have it on the Royal last year but I don’t think we saw it through to the end. This time we did, in the Vista lounge, and it was a heck of a lot of fun. This was a mix of the orchestra, the singers and dancers and the entertainment staff with a lot of rowdy audience participation.
Just to help us sleep afterwards, even though we were understandably a bit tired, we headed back to the International café for a hot chocolate and I also grabbed a cheese platter, thinking that might also help with the sleep.
Still no contact with the ASB bank website so I sent an email to our ISP back in NZ, to see if they had any suggestions. Nice to get an email from son Stewart, saying the London birthday card, bought and posted in Japan for Noah’s birthday, arrived on time.
Bedtime, there was an expectation that maybe we’d get a bit more sleep, but with that darned clock turning 24 hour days into 23 hour days, who knows?
Day 40 – The last of 8 consecutive sea days.
Did the hot chocolate and cheese work? Nope. Wide awake at 3am yet again.
Although it is quite cool in this part of the world, it is still shorts weather with maybe a sleeveless top or a sweater if venturing outside. At a high of 14 degrees, Brits would consider it OK.
With a score of 17/20, not quite enough for a win at morning trivia. Ukulele class, someone had suggested the Kiwi song, Pokarekareana, but Salomon worked on it and confused some of us with a vamp intro and a different ending and different chord change points. I think we got there eventually, but the final vamp was a bit beyond my still stubborn fingers. My 3rd and 4th fingers are still not working properly, despite the exercises.
Late lunch, but no clock advance. Yippee. I enjoyed a ricotta and spinach pasta with eggplant parmigiana.
I then made a visit to the Internet café/IT dept., clutching my laptop, already to sign in and show the manager how it wouldn’t now connect to the ASB. I waited patiently whilst he spent about 15 minutes trying to sort out the gentleman in front with his email problems.
As soon as I said I couldn’t get into my NZ bank, he said “ASB?” then proceeded to tell me they were aware of the problem and were working on it. Sorry, not good enough – especially when I received a reply from my own ISP, suggesting that the ASB would have blocked it if they were using dodgy servers… That seems to be the most likely scenario, so I lodged a written complaint with the front desk, repeating that message and asked for a reply. Let’s see what happens. Meanwhile, there is nothing I can do about it, but obviously, we aren’t the only ones stuck with this problem. Many cruisers carry on working whilst travelling and in this day and age, going to probably a cheap service provider, possibly using dodgy servers, is not a very clever move by Princess and this has been a major disappointment with Princess this time.
Although we didn’t win afternoon trivia, had I been in our morning team, who finished equal first but lost the play off, we would have won, as I knew one of the questions they got wrong.
The early show was the final of ‘Dancing With The Stripes’ and although Anthony was a clear winner, my vote went to Yasmina from the shop dancing with Rafe, as he didn’t choreograph to show off his own expertise, which some of the other dancers did. He included Yasmina all the way and for that, as she obviously didn’t have the experience of Anthony, she deserved the vote.
At dinner, Sharon off the other table had arranged for a Thai green chicken curry for both tables. It was just spot on. William brought it out as a starter, so that left a quandary as to what to have as a main – which was beef again, other than the Curtis Stone belly pork. I went for the pork, which was really tender, but I donated the crackling to others. I also indulged in a cider.
Afterwards, we went to the Wheelhouse bar for a bit of a dance and we also had a chat with the comedian, Col Cameron who just happened to wander through. It was still light at 11pm but bed was 11:30 – but no hot chocolate. Too full from dinner.
Land tomorrow and the USA immigration. They start processing at 6am or 6:15am. We have to meet ashore at 7:45am for our dogsled tour – a repeat of our 2012 trip, but we figured that by doing a Princess tour, Immigration would be preferential, but alas, it is a free for all at 6am. Last time, it was slow, so we set the alarm for 5:45am, determined to be fairly early in the queue, then breakfast afterwards. We’ll see.
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