The seas became increasingly rougher as we head south now towards New Zealand. This fact became apparent this morning when Captain Friso made his sweep through the upper dining room, as he does on occasion. He surprised us my mentioning that he sometimes feels the "motion of the ocean", which we thought strictly applied to the guests. We also discussed yesterday's heat and humidity while in Tonga. He and Chantal had gone off bike riding perhaps a bit too far, when they realized the heat had become oppressive. Instead of biking back, he waved down a fellow with a truck, who loaded their bikes and them into the back of the pickup. Then he whipped out his cell phone to show us the photo, which he thought was pretty amusing. So did we…..
It was another sea day of relaxing, eating, and checking out the sales in the Shops. Nothing was really for sale there, but it's always fun to look. Then the New Zealand money was available at the front desk beginning this morning. We usually do the exchange on the ship and don't worry much about the rate, as it is always fair. But something strange occurred after we did the exchange. The front desk girl counted out the exact New Zealand money carefully, and we watched just as carefully. It was 100% correct. No more, no less. Then about 10 minutes later, we had a call from the front desk. The same girl called to say there may have been a mistake with the exchange. We had put the money folded within the statement of the transaction in the safe, so we said we will double-check it, and call back. Counting it three times, it came out perfectly each time. Calling back, we reported that news and their answer was a cool OK, not even a "sorry about that". The feeling was that we were not being honest, and believe this, we would have returned an overage immediately. And if the mistake was a shortage on our end, we would have followed up with that as well. Maybe we should consider doing the money exchanges in the bigger cities and not on the ship. Or use credit cards, as the exchange is probably better in the long run.
One of us made a trip to the brand new library to find the corner of the room cordoned off. Apparently there had been a leak in there, flooding the carpets and walls. Then at breakfast this morning, our buddy told us another story about flooding on deck one where even the walls were over-flowing. Some of this widespread flooding happened while we were on the Tales of the South Pacific last fall, but we figured that would be addressed during the dry docking. Hate to think that this ship is getting older, but nothing holds up forever.
While taking our evening walk, we noticed that all of the teak lounges were being tied down on the promenade deck. Either the deck workers were getting ready to scrub down the teak decking, or we are headed into some rough waters and winds. Time will tell. And as for the ship being able to dock in Auckland on the 2nd, the Captain announced he was still waiting for that confirmation.
On our way back to the room, we ran into Greg and Heo, and they asked if we were going to listen to the singer, Stephen Barry as they had suggested a few days ago. We thought, well why not? It was close to 7pm, so we snuck into the back of the Mainstage and listened to a couple of his songs. He indeed had a powerful voice with a wide range, and perfect voice control. The speakers up on the third level were very loud, so we did not stay long. Besides it was dinnertime and we don't like being late.
There was a total of five of us tonight as the fellows were invited elsewhere. We closed the chairs closer, but still had a hard time hearing due to a very noisy group in the center of the aft dining room. Usually our backs are to these tables, but we soon learned where the noise was coming from. We had to laugh because we know for a fact that our group had also been noisy back in the day. But we were smart enough to keep it down until most of the diners left the room. At one point, we heard a crash, as if one of the noisy guests dropped something big. Finally they were quieter.
Anyway, we have noticed that different items are still popping up on the menu. We all get the Orange Club menu which offers a special entrée every night. We ordered one tuna entrée and one pork chop without the bone with extra apple sauce. Very good. One of us likes chocolate and there was nothing close to that tonight. But our waiter found a chocolate tart with strawberry compote. He added mint chip ice cream on the side, which I like way more than Bill does. I was forced to help him out and eat the ice cream after having the modified fruit plate. They are running out of fresh fruit and berries now, so we hope we make it to Auckland for provisioning.
Rocking and rolling may help us all sleep good tonight.
Bill & Mary Ann
