The rain from last night was gone when we woke up this morning, which was a nice surprise. It did seem to be warmer with temperatures in the mid 80's and accompanied with high humidity. Hard to believe only 10 days ago, we were wearing our heavy coats in ice cold China, complaining about it. What a big difference now. We expect the same warm and sticky weather now for most of the remainder of the cruise.
Taking our walk this morning, we finally saw more folks coming outside on the teak lounges. Gone are the blue plaid blankets. The dark blue towels are back. During our walk, we saw some more of the small swifts still flying around the ship. We were certain they would find a home in our last port of Da Nang. Guess they did not like the neighborhood. Another bird that was really lost was one white egret and possibly one booby. The flying fish are starting to appear again indicating we are sailing in warmer waters now.
Going to the Seaview Pool, we had a nice visit with Greg, our long time tablemate.. He informed us that Heo is going home in Singapore and will not be returning. His parent's health has been failing recently, and he feels the need to be closer to home to help his brother out. Since they live in Sydney, Heo will be at home to give them extra care. He will be missed by their many friends.
Our big job of the day was attending to another muster drill procedure, which is a piece of cake now. We could have sworn we just did one, but looking back on the calendar, it has been exactly one month since the last one. Passengers in the odd numbered rooms went first at 1pm. The even numbered folks, like us, went at 1:30pm. We headed down to deck three around 1:20pm, and beat the crowd going down. Our cards were scanned, then we watched our stateroom TV with the vital information in case of an emergency. We should be good for another month now.
We are still not sure where the ship will be docked tomorrow, although Captain Friso did mention something about changes at his noon talk. Honestly, it really does not matter since every one of the docks on the river are just that. Docks…a place to tie the ship up and nothing more. There is no place to walk to such as a town or village, so we plan to stay onboard. If there are souvenir stands on the pier, we might check it out.
With Singapore coming up this weekend, we did some research on their transit cards and where to buy them. It used to be easy when we docked at Harbourfront. But now we are out in the sticks at Marina Bay South, and they may not sell those tickets there. One way or another, we'll figure it out because this is one stop we make the most of our time. And the good thing is we will have two full days to explore and enjoy it.
The dress suggestion was "dressy" this evening, although while taking a late walk on the promenade deck at 5:30pm, we noticed some folks did not get that memo. Casual is as good as it gets for some, which is fine. Jackets for the fellows are a bit on the warm side with this weather, but it is only for a few hours. The appetizers were a little strange, but there is always the choice of jumbo shrimp and Caesar salad. We had both. Mains were the surf and turf (shrimp and a tenderloin steak) and a lasagna. We have been waiting to see the veal cutlet show up on the Club Orange menu, but so far, we only saw it twice on this whole trip. So we asked our head waiter, Hazel, who checked into it and said it will be served on March 23rd. We said count us in….we will be there. One of us had a little serving of pineapple for dessert which was perfect.
The show tonight was a performance of the singers and dancers with These Dreams: A Journey To Love. Their routine should be a piece of cake since the seas have been behaving with slight swells and following winds.
There was a very pointed note waiting for all of us in our room after dinner. It came from Henk M, the hotel director, and it concerned the shore excursion dispatch procedure for the tour groups. Really, this did not apply to us since we no longer participate in bus tours, but we found it interesting. Several years ago, a change had to be made to sticker the guests on tours at the exit from the show lounge. Prior to that, they were stickered on their way inside the lounge, then left to run to the buses to get the best seats. It worked better back then, but somewhere along the line, they went back to the old way. We assume it has caused some conflict with the staff and other guests. Here is the way Henk worded the warning: While nothing is ever perfect, we can implore, plead, or urge you all, especially those of you seemingly not wanting to comply with the principal effort behind the complexities of this operation to cease and desist being a "rebel without a cause". A mouthful of words, we hope people take notice. You do know that if things get out of hand, people can be removed from the cruise. We have seen it happen.
Bill & Mary Ann
No Pictures
