Many new guests filled the seats in the Pinnacle Grill for breakfast this morning. All Neptune people, we assume, since there is only one single man who is also a President's Club member. We are not familiar with his name.
Today's "Daily" started out once again on somewhat of a negative note. We did see this mentioned on every Alaska cruise, so it bears repeating. It is regarding pool etiquette and laid down the rules of the Lido and Sea View Pools. We have always known that the deck chairs and lounges are first come, first served. In other words….no saving lounges with your personal stuff, then leave and go to lunch for instance. If your chairs are left unattended for 30 minutes, your things will be removed. Have we ever seen that enforced? Perhaps a few times in all of the years we have sailed. Only the solid blue towels are allowed to be used, and not your blue and white striped beach towels from your room. If the striped towels are not brought back to your room, you will be charged for them. Finally, no bathroom towels are allowed at the pool sites as well. We never realized there was a problem with the toweling, so cannot complain since we have all been warned up front.
And once again, we all had the note in our staterooms reminding us not to leave unattended items on our balconies, as the wind may blow things overboard. One good example of the power of the wind, happened to one of us on the grand world voyage this year. We were a day out of Tokyo, when we hit extremely high winds on the outside decks. A favorite wool scarf (a Burberry) was literally ripped from my neck despite being tied in a knot. It went sky-high in seconds, then landed in the Tokyo Sea never to be seen again. Something I will never forget……
Today was loaded with activities to keep the guests happy and busy. The newly-boarded cultural enrichment team have joined us and offered lei-making, a ukulele and hula class, and an aloha sunset music hour in the Crow's Nest. There were several sessions for the arts and crafts crowd held in the Queen's Room. One of the ship's staff members, Simone, directs the creating designs from doodles, Dam dots, coloring for adults, knitting basics, origami folding, and watercolors. Gosh, she is one busy lady on sea days.
The usual lectures took place during the day, all having something to do with the South Pacific. Kainoa spoke about the geology and geography of Hawaii, while Australian author, Michael Adams dealt with the Titanic. If that wasn't enough, there was pickle ball, basketball, and ping-pong. Todays weather may have put a stop to pickle ball as the ship was rocking and rolling with the winds and swell.
Speaking of weather, Captain Smit gave the details at his noon talk. The temperature was 63 degrees at noontime with partly cloudy skies or partly sunny skies depending on how you look at it. We are sailing at an average of 17.2 knots while experiencing a six foot swell that he described as long swells. These swells are coming from the north, all the way from Alaska, where they have measured up to 30 feet. So glad we are not up there now. Even with this smaller swell, we expect some folks will be seasick, as it takes time to become accustomed to the movement. For some people, this never happens. The Captain expects the conditions to remain the same for the rest of the crossing. From his daily talks so far, we gather that Captain Smit is a "half-full" glass of water type of person, which is good. He makes the best of what we have to deal with, even if it means not saying it will be cloudy for five days and the seas will be rocky.
We worked online for most of the morning completing our report and photos on our day in San Diego. We really did not feel the motion of the ocean until we got up and walked around the room or outside on the deck. For no announced reason, the ship lost the satellite connection for the TV reception. Sometimes when they have to work on the system, they will shut it down temporarily. It lasted for a few hours, then came back on. The news was disturbing with news of missiles flying from Iran to Israel. We have heard many seasoned travelers mention that here we sit twiddling our thumbs while Rome burns. Not that we can do anything to change things, it is hard to watch happen.
Time for lunch, we headed to the Lido for a salad, sandwich, and pizza. Many of the waiters and servers appear to be new. They have been rotating the staff every couple of weeks in the dining venues, so we are running into waiters we know, but have not seen yet. On waiter in the Lido, Samuel, talked to us for a long time since he remembered us from past cruises. All of the waiters have a story about the ships being stopped back in 2020, and the difficulty they had getting home. Being that most of the wait staff and room stewards are from Indonesia, they had other problems we did not have. One was the fact they could not access home due to their visas and foreign passports. Many of the crew were out at sea with no port here they could get off. Samuel said their ship was allowed to dock in Cambodia and all of them were able to fly home from there.
Tonight was dressy night and most folks looked sharp. However there are always a few that did not get that message, but they were in the minority. Pulung said they were slammed at 6pm with everyone wanting to eat early. As always, there is a problem finding seating for two. That's why we always go with fixed seating and a table for two these days. If we want to go a bit later, and let them know ahead of time, they will save our table.
There was a Captain's welcome in the World Stage at 7:15pm, but we did not attend. Been there, done that. Gala dinner had lots of nice things on the menu. Starters were a shrimp cocktail with red sauce, a smoked chicken plate, and a different salad, resembling the Pinnacle Grill wedge salad. Only smaller. Our mains were the long-awaited veal chop. They were as large as the plate, but cut half-size compared to what they used to be. Good thing, because the portion was quite satisfactory with mushroom gravy and mashed potatoes. We ordered a sphere of chocolate, not knowing what they were. Thought we were getting one, we each got one ball of chocolate mousse in a hard chocolate shell.
The best news was that the clocks went back one hour, which we can really use.
Bill & Mary Ann
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