March 3 - At Sea
Last night the new Captain Urbaldo Armellino (new since Auckland anyway) warned that we would be in for a rough night with high winds and big seas. Well, either he is a bit of an alarmist, or I've really gotten my sea legs because it was not as bad as we've had in the past on this cruise. Our cabin stewards were instructed to prepare the balconies so this is how it is now.
This morning they didn't even strap the blue cushions on the chairs as they would normally do. Really? This isn't nearly as bad as we've had on occasion in the last month.
Speaking of which, I was asked about the changes to our itinerary going forward so here it is:
Originally scheduled to go Sydney - Brisbane - Airlie Beach - Cairns - Cooktown - Darwin (all Australia) - Bali - Surabaya (both Indonesia) - Singapore where we would spend the night and start another segment which would do Singapore - Kuala Lumpur - Penang - Langkawi (all Malaysia) - Phuket (Thailand) - Sri Lanka. There were 8 sea days in that schedule.
Now we are doing Sydney - Tasmania - Geelong - Phillip Island - Portland - Adelaide - Kangaroo Island - Port Lincoln - Esperance - Albany - Busselton - Freemantle (all Australia) then a 7 day run of sea days to Sri Lanka where we pick up the original schedule. This itinerary has a total of 11 sea days.
This morning's lecture by Terry Bishop was about the explorers who first travelled overland through uncharted territory from Melbourne to Darwin and what a mess of a trip that was. Loved when he talked about how they took along with them a very large wood dining table and 8 wood chairs - "Well, of course, you would bring those along, wouldn't you?" They started out with 29 men, six wagons (3 of which broke down before they got 10 miles along) and some camels in addition to the horses. Things got so desperate at one point that they ended up eating the camels and one of the horses. It took them over a month to travel to a town that took a week to be reached by the mail service from Melbourne.
Next up was Mary Atkins talking about some of our upcoming ports. She's not very organized, but she gave it a good try. I'm pretty sure I saw her on a former Princess cruise talking about tea. She will be talking about Australian foods next time; I'm undecided as to whether she'll be talking to me.
The afternoon lecture was by William Lokey on hurricanes, thyphoons and cyclones. The subject matter was interesting, but the delivery was a little dry. He sounded a bit too much like he was reading it. He did have one funny comment. He was for a time the Director of Operations for FEMA. His staff pointed out that since the US likes acronyms like POTUS, FLOTUS and SCOTUS, he should be known as DOOFUS.
We had dinner with Eddie, the onboard cruise consultant along with Eugenie and David who are from Berkeley and know Tom Crowley Jr, the son of Michael's boss when he worked at Crowley Maritime. Small world. We've also heard from two reliable sources that the passenger count is 474, down from our original 612 when we left San Francisco. Of course, I don't know how many we were scheduled to have now, but I'm sure it's way down. The staff numbers about 460, so we're almost 1:1.
We made it to the show by Danny Elliott, an Australian performer who plays more instruments than I can remember, but at least 7 or 8 from the pan flute to the piano. I never would have thought you could play Ravel's Bolero on the harmonica or Rock Around the Clock on the bagpipe, but he did. Unfortunately, it was way too loud. Don't think we'll go back for his next show.
This morning they didn't even strap the blue cushions on the chairs as they would normally do. Really? This isn't nearly as bad as we've had on occasion in the last month.
Speaking of which, I was asked about the changes to our itinerary going forward so here it is:
Originally scheduled to go Sydney - Brisbane - Airlie Beach - Cairns - Cooktown - Darwin (all Australia) - Bali - Surabaya (both Indonesia) - Singapore where we would spend the night and start another segment which would do Singapore - Kuala Lumpur - Penang - Langkawi (all Malaysia) - Phuket (Thailand) - Sri Lanka. There were 8 sea days in that schedule.
Now we are doing Sydney - Tasmania - Geelong - Phillip Island - Portland - Adelaide - Kangaroo Island - Port Lincoln - Esperance - Albany - Busselton - Freemantle (all Australia) then a 7 day run of sea days to Sri Lanka where we pick up the original schedule. This itinerary has a total of 11 sea days.
This morning's lecture by Terry Bishop was about the explorers who first travelled overland through uncharted territory from Melbourne to Darwin and what a mess of a trip that was. Loved when he talked about how they took along with them a very large wood dining table and 8 wood chairs - "Well, of course, you would bring those along, wouldn't you?" They started out with 29 men, six wagons (3 of which broke down before they got 10 miles along) and some camels in addition to the horses. Things got so desperate at one point that they ended up eating the camels and one of the horses. It took them over a month to travel to a town that took a week to be reached by the mail service from Melbourne.
Next up was Mary Atkins talking about some of our upcoming ports. She's not very organized, but she gave it a good try. I'm pretty sure I saw her on a former Princess cruise talking about tea. She will be talking about Australian foods next time; I'm undecided as to whether she'll be talking to me.
The afternoon lecture was by William Lokey on hurricanes, thyphoons and cyclones. The subject matter was interesting, but the delivery was a little dry. He sounded a bit too much like he was reading it. He did have one funny comment. He was for a time the Director of Operations for FEMA. His staff pointed out that since the US likes acronyms like POTUS, FLOTUS and SCOTUS, he should be known as DOOFUS.
We had dinner with Eddie, the onboard cruise consultant along with Eugenie and David who are from Berkeley and know Tom Crowley Jr, the son of Michael's boss when he worked at Crowley Maritime. Small world. We've also heard from two reliable sources that the passenger count is 474, down from our original 612 when we left San Francisco. Of course, I don't know how many we were scheduled to have now, but I'm sure it's way down. The staff numbers about 460, so we're almost 1:1.
We made it to the show by Danny Elliott, an Australian performer who plays more instruments than I can remember, but at least 7 or 8 from the pan flute to the piano. I never would have thought you could play Ravel's Bolero on the harmonica or Rock Around the Clock on the bagpipe, but he did. Unfortunately, it was way too loud. Don't think we'll go back for his next show.
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