The first thought of the day is to wish our lovely daughter-in-law, Monica, a very happy and wonderful birthday! .
By changing the clocks back one hour for four evenings now, lots of passengers are waking up earlier and earlier. The Lido restaurant has been crowded by 6am we understand. We sure have noticed a difference in the dining room, because they do not want to wait until 8am to have their breakfast served. It has worked well for us, since our waiters have been very attentive. Our coffee cups never go empty. Nor do we have to ask for anything, because the waiters know exactly what we want and how we like it. Don't know if we have mentioned this, but almost all of the wait staff are new to us on this world cruise. We doubt that this is a coincidence, with most of the waiters having their contracts end at the beginning of this cruise. After getting to know many of these waiters, we are finding out that many of the upcoming ports will be new for them. They seem to be more excited about that than most of the passengers.
The Tahitian group has more activities happening today with kukui nut bracelet making and a Tahitian zumba class. We'e still trying to figure out exactly what zumba is. A few years ago, our travel group hosted a zumba cruise to Mexico. This was supposed to be pool zumba. But due to bad timing and bad weather, all the pool zumba days were cancelled. Not only did we not participate, we never saw anyone actually do it. Pareo wrapping seems a lot easier, and that was demonstrated by the Tahitian gals today as well.
Shore excursions talks continued on the upcoming ports of Pago Pago, America Samoa to Cairns, Australia. We have pre-booked a tour in Fiji, because we know there may not be too many places to walk on our own. So we are going on a sailboat to an island close by for swimming and a chicken BBQ. As for the other ports, we intend to wing it.
Camera guru David is winding up his talks, we assume, as we approach Tahiti. The timing of his visit to the world cruise has been good, since many folks had the chance to learn a lot for the rest of the trip. You would be surprised how many people bought new cameras at Christmas time, and arrived to the ship without knowing how to use them correctly. The same goes for the new computer gadgets such as Ipods and Ipads. Lots of parents and grandparents received these as gifts, then came onboard with them without a clue how to use them. Eventually, the passengers taught each other.
We had a few jobs today. One was at the book exchange in the library, where you bring a book, and take a book. Really, no one moniters this corner, so if you do not have an exchange book, it does not matter. One of us is starting book number six, so it won't take long to go through many of the best sellers available in the library. One nice thing is that there is no designated due date on the borrowed books. Unless, of course, someone has requested what you are reading.
Our next port will be Tahiti, so we needed to buy some Polynesian French Francs. We could use a credit card at any restaurant, but we prefer cash. You can bet that we will be going back to the pizza place we visited last fall. For some reason, we do not remember asking them if they accepted US dollars, since at that time, we did use our credit card.
Finally, we got a reminder that we had a cooking class tomorrow. However, only one of our names was on the letter. For some reason, we had asked for both of us to attend, but that must not have been understood. Since both of us could not be included, we cancelled and will re-book this complimentary activity later on in the cruise.
Few folks were sunning or swimming at the aft pool. The winds were ferocious. Of course, it was much cooler due to the winds. Over the years, we have figured out a way to keep the towels put and the lounge fixed in one position. Clamps for the towels and little bungee cords for the chair back works perfectly. We lasted until 4pm, then headed down to the room. Have we mentioned that some of the new channels added to the TV programming have remained working, when some of the usual channels have gone blank? For many days now, we have lost CNN, TCM, and ESPN. But in their place, we have BBC and CNBC. Both have good programming with interesting series. They have been a good choice, because the four movie stations have been repeated more than once already since we began the world cruise. Will have to do some research into why this is happening again. There have got to be more than a dozen movies that can be shown, with no need to repeat at all.
It was printed in the daily newsletter that we have a dentist onboard. We assume that has always been the case on the grand voyages, but maybe not. It is nice to know if we needed a qualified dentist, we do not have to go off the ship in some of these remote ports to find one. Of course, we do have a doctor, but going to see him can be taking a chance whether or not you are allowed to stay onboard and continue your trip. So far, two people in our group have been sent home along with their spouses. The good news is that we have had no reports of any deaths. Hope we never do.
Dinner was good again. Sometimes it is nice to keep things light with soups and entree salads. With the over-indulgent cake yesterday, small desserts fit the bill tonight. The show after dinner was performed by the Unexpected Boys singing Broadway tunes. We have been told that the newly added 7:30pm short show has been filling the Queens Lounge. Tonight's artist was Romany, with no explanation whatsoever. Will report tomorrow on both shows.
And once again, the clocks went back one hour tonight. That makes 5 hours back in as many days. What was midnight last week, is now 7pm. No wonder so many folks are having a hard time going to sleep, and waking up early. One big difference that we have noticed is that it is finally dark when we go to dinner.
