11th - 17th October (Minus the 15th that never happened!)

11 October Tahiti!!

We woke just as we cruised in and enjoyed the amazing spectacle of seeing the point where the rainbow touched down in the water near a lighthouse barely 200m away from us. The same thing happened yesterday – I didn’t think it was possible to see the end of a rainbow. We were almost first ashore and set off towards the waterfall which the information sheet said was 2.2 miles away. We left a trail of hysterical Frenchmen behind after enquiring how to get there a pied. It seems it is more like 22 km.

We later met an American couple who had been told to get a $10 permit from the Council office to visit the location and had walked about 3 miles through parts of the town where they felt quite uncomfortable and were hiding their jewellery until they reached a ravine where there was no sign of any recent human passage. At that stage they turned back.

 Greeted by music

 Nice architecture

 Cathedral

 Our balcony

 Dancing....shake them hips

 Pape ete foreshore

 City view

 

We had a bit of an amble around the town and went into the cathedral, getting back in time to join the morning trivia. We pretty much cleaned up everything during the day with little opposition. A major highlight was the discovery that they put out scones with jam and cream every afternoon!! 

Another (totally unexpected) highlight was receiving a mystery delivery in our cabin. Barbara went off and fetched us a plate of fresh strawberries coated in dark chocolate and a bottle of Chilean red wine. The card was from David and Dana at Guest Relations. What a wonderful kind gesture!

The evening show was Sean O’Shea who turned out to be a very good singer and comic impersonator with some hysterical visual gags. He sang a heap of my favourite songs (including Suspicious Minds, Delilah and Sweet Caroline). He arranged for a selection of grotesque undies to be thrown onstage during Delilah and after his transformation into Elvis he went round kissing hands, followed by an attendant in bacterial protection uniform and one of the portable hand sanitisers from the restaurants.  We did battle of the genders and dashed back to watch as much of the second show as we could before the 11pm trivia, which finally finished us off.  

12^th October Bora Bora

We woke to sunlight coming in as we cruised slowly through the small gap in the reef surrounding the tiny island of Bora Bora. Just about the first thing we saw was one of those luxury hotels with the rooms on stilts in the lagoon, which consisted of the clearest and bluest water imaginable. Whatever mental picture you have conjured up could not possibly go a quarter of the way to doing justice to this magical place.

 

The island has a spiny backbone with 3 peaks, parts of which plunge vertically and dramatically, even to the extent of overhanging cliffs. The island was pretty much crushed coral/sandy but it was lushly vegetated with palms and ordinary trees. An exquisite place. We considered ourselves blessed to have been there to see it and privileged to have had a balcony to relish it from.

We were fed and down on the tender by 8am, having been given Priority tickets. The ride to shore was very quick and we had an interesting wander through the town, as well as fixing Warren’s Hotmail account, which seems to have been clogged and closed. It was too early to expect anybody in Perth to be awake.

 Isn't it lovely

 For the girls

 For the boys

 Water was sooooo blue

 

We had a lazy gym-free day, despite having taken advantage of the steady hull to step on the scales in the gym. Oooops. Oooh well it will come off again. We had lunch out on the terrace as usual and were continuously delighted by the spectacle surrounding us. It is amazing that a 300m ship could get into such a tight lagoon. Fabulous place. Eating, trivia, sunbathing and napping all day. We were a tad late into dinner because we went out on the balcony above the bridge to watch the sail away.

We took the wine into dinner and shared it. Turned out to be what we would call a cab sav and very nice it was too. We went down and thanked David and met Dana, who turned out to be his girlfriend and colleague. A lovely SA Indian couple.

The evening show was Dan Bennett, a weird juggler with an ultra fast bizarre patter. His juggling was very good but we were not sure whether his fracas with the Mormon in the front row was scripted.

13 October Moorea

Same again – ashore at 8, had a wander along the seafront. Lots of shabby houses fronting onto gently sloping “beaches” consisting of coral rubble. Everything throughout Tahiti has been very expensive, which is understandable in terms of manufactured or processed items which have to be imported, but less so in terms of locally handcrafted items. Some of their curios were simply fanciful - deluded in price. We decided not to buy a fridge magnet and opted instead to collect some bottle caps and make our own souvenir magnets. Should have thought of that 2 years ago.

 Don't know who he is but the girls are beautiful

 Lotus man

I like this photo

 Watched the tail end of this Sunday church service.  The music/singing was so happy and uplifting.  Lovely

 Our sailor friend from Papeete.  No idea who the family is.

 Now this guy looks like a warrior don't you think?

 The MOST dramatically beautiful island.

 

We continued our pillaging of the trivia points and I scooped the Sudoku medal. We had a late session in the gym, which felt long overdue. I had another chat with the Tiny Dancer, who is finishing his final contract at sea. We let Barbara in today and she left us with a folded-towel elephant J

We opted not to go for dinner, despite the lamb shanks. The buffet had lava cake, which was just as good. We stayed up until 11 watching family feud but couldn’t last for the 60s dance extravaganza. We get another hour tonight and the progressive trivia will resume tomorrow.

14 October

Big gym session today. Won morning trivia with a whole new team. Happened to be at the art auction and watched for a while. They pull out all the tricks to get people to bid for things they didn’t really want. Denise has bought a few things – wonder if she has any idea of how much it will eventually cost by the time she has it at home and framed? Sat/slept through Milos’ talk on sharks then had a nap with the alarm set for Progressive Trivia. It was HARD. We had to guess a lot and scored fewer than usual, finishing with 9, which was only 1 behind the winners and still 1 ahead of our only serious rivals, now 5 ahead with 4 days to go. We would have been stuffed without the boys today.

Not going to formal dinner tonight. Got slightly dressed to go to the show – Pulse with lots of explosive dancing. Watching the Tiny Dancer and the different styles of doing the same thing. Found time to veg out with jazz in one of the lounges before the 11pm Pub Trivia, which was different. That took us up to the countdown to watch 15 October flash past in a moment (the other side of crossing the Date Line). A bit sad for people who had their birthdays on 15^th!

16 October

Yes there was no 15^th. Usual day around the Captain’s lunch for back to back cruisers, which we probably wouldn’t bother going to again. Scored a free glass of very good chardonnay and met the senior doctor (from Equador) and the Chief Housekeeper from Turkey, who joined as an assistant waiter 17 years ago and progressed through butler to his present position.

Trivia was challenging again and we dropped 2 points to a lower team and 1 to the pretenders. I hosed down suggestions that the secretary bird was famous for eating snakes because lots of birds do that, but it turned out to be the required answer. I did recognise Houdini’s real name and scored 2 points for lake Baikal and Russia for the deepest lake. 4 days to go.

J assembled a collection of Luke photos to amuse and arouse our dinner companions, who were also very impressed with Courtney’s modelling pics.

We missed the first session of Captain’s Club drinks but went to dinner and the second session, where we were smart enough to stick to Cosmopolitans and skip the Apple Martinis. This was good preparation for the evening show, featuring a spontaneous comedian who was largely driven by audience contributions. The evening ended with an earlier and more enjoyable pub trivia session.

17^th October

We did gym both sides of morning trivia. It was blowing a gale of very chilly NZ weather so zumba was indoors. We shared a lunch table with what turned out to be a very interesting Englishman and his wife. He had won a scholarship to a private school and studied 5 languages. He was then recruited by MI6 after learning basic Arabic in a week. This led to a decade or two of assignments from Russia, Cuba and several locations in the Middle East, after which he became an insurance assessor and continued travelling to exotic 3^rd world countries. We had a rambling and entertaining chat about this and that and generally had an interesting time.  Michael staged a limp and rather controversial word game.

The afternoon offered a tight schedule of haircut, gender wars, trivia and croquet. We won the medals for croquet (as you do when everyone else is too smart to come out).

Trivia keeps getting harder – we shot through to 6 out of 7 and then hit a wall. During the counting we scrambled to 10 and felt a bit better and it turned out that 8 was the next best score. We were within sniff of 2 or 3 others but guessed wrong. So 6 ahead with 2 days to go.

We took the medals to dinner, arrived late for the excursion trivia, which was a pity because it handed out the best prizes yet, snoozed through the classical pianist, joined up with the young couple again for music and finished one off the pace, which pleased them no end. The open microphone comedy show was tempting but just too late L The ship was spared my diarrhoea song . . for the time being.

Five more days L

 

5 - 10 Oct Cruising South Pacific

5 October Lahaina (again) The Island

A small brekky then caught the Abs class and stayed on for 2 hours in the gym. I was chatting with one of the (male) dancers again and J is ssssssssssso jealous. We met another English/US/Aus couple for trivia which went well, although we ended up changing 2 correct answers. They have a sister & partner who will make up a 6 for Progressive Trivia. The new scheme is that winners will get signatures from the hosts on a card, which can be redeemed at the end of the cruise, as per Cunard. This will be much better than accumulating a dozen luggage tags and pens.

A short while later there was a landmark trivia where we recognised nearly all the famous places. We seem to keep confusing the mosques in Istanbul. We caught a dash of sun and had lunch then I went ashore while J went for her 5 stage massage. More sun, zumba for J, afternoon trivia, where we did very well with yet another fresh group and back in for dinner. One of the ladies had a birthday and received heaps of presents as well as a chocolate cake, which we had for dessert. We pretty much fell asleep watching Troy right after dinner.

Jess had posted a video of Michaela doing her first crawl. Very accomplished – push up/collapse forwards/push up.

6 October Dr Who

We are actually heading slightly eastwards towards French Polynesia (used to be the Society islands).

We headed for morning trivia early because we were hoping to sort out a team in time for the Progressive Trivia, which start this afternoon. The couple from yesterday morning failed to turn up and we were putting off sitting with the others from yesterday. I headed off looking for the first lot and caught sight of somebody who looked familiar. I realised in quick succession that we had cruised together, in fact we did trivia together, in fact we won the Progressive event on the same boat back in February with Warren. Small world. It was Greg from Colorado and in due course his partner Steve from British Columbia turned up. We have booked them for the Progressive afternoons and we will just sit with whoever we see in the mornings. We won the morning trivia with 16/16 and took off the tie breaker to win max points.

We took in a talk about Polynesia, had lunch, and J went to watch the glassblowing demonstration, which is staged in a workshop up on 15^th in front of the grass lawns. This is a hell of a boat.

Afternoon trivia went very well. The boys had fallen in with an Aussie couple, the man being blind. They suggested Mixed Nuts for a team name. We managed an equal top 13/15 and were very happy with the team dynamics. Late gym session afterwards, mini dinner in the buffet then we dressed up and joined the diners for dessert. Paul had mentioned that he was a keen Dr Who fan, and that the show had just passed a 50^th anniversary, which happened to be a question during the progressive.

We didn’t bother with the big show, which was a repeat of the aerialist extravaganza of 4 days ago. Had a huge sleep instead.

7 October Winning

Correspondingly early start (for at least one of us). We have a substantial German contingent and all the public announcements are duplicated. It seems they have their own exercise classes as well.

J showed the young’uns how to shake it at zumba, I lost my cabin card and we sat through an unconvincing talk by someone who was going to teach us how to sharpen our mental faculties. We are still having to have food served to us. The captain’s club rewarded us with another stream of Cosmopolitans and tasty snacks, we had a quick tan on our balcony and took to the Progressive Trivia, where we started and ended badly but got everything in between to go 1 point ahead of a pack of 27 teams. That is huge. What was Casanova’s first name?

We bumped into the elusive English/Aus chap from Day 1, who was in extremis with the bug. Poor fellow looked awful. They have a Downs daughter travelling with them.

They had lamb shanks on the menu again so we turned up for dinner with one of the other couples. The evening music trivia (divas) sucked but the karaoke was quite good – you would have to say the Aussies are much better than the Yanks we had last week. Somebody else did Sweet Caroline, which gave me the chance to practise furtively at the bar – I might give it another go. I’m also curious whether I could get underneath Suspicious Minds. BTW Casanova was a Giacomo.

8 October Crossing The Line

Gym Zumba etc. We thought we had done well in morning trivia with a bunch of strangers but we didn’t even get a signature. (We got 14 out of 15)  After lunch we watched the glass blowers make an ornate champagne bucket. It is a really interesting process. We crossed the Equator at 2pm and we watched the somewhat restrained ceremony from the windproof vantage point of the 15^th floor lift annex. Nowhere near as gaudy as the MSC version. J took in the guest talks about Great Guys of the Movies and also Marvellous Sea Mammals.

We secured the same secluded little nook we had yesterday for the PT (trivia), which suits us because then we can talk quietly for Rob’s benefit ( he’s blind) without being overheard. We were pleased to see that we were 1 point clear of one other team, with 3 others a point below that and another 3 one point lower. The questions were challenging and we had to guess and reason our way through some of them. Once again the chemistry was excellent and we were somewhere between hopeful and confident. Imagine our delight to get a perfect 15 . . .  2 points ahead of the rest and apparently 5 clear of the team that were second, who must have had a shocker. At worst, there could be 3 teams 4 points behind us but there are still 7 rounds to go.

We had dinner in the buffet and took in the evening music quiz, with our customary dismal output.

 Awwww

 

9 October South Pacific

No gym, J did zumba while I walked the deck/wind tunnel, laundry, morning trivia (2^nd in a huge field). There is a pair of Australian twins who we noticed singing in the karaoke and frequenting the trivia and we thought we might resonate with them and their wives but, having shared lifts with them a couple of times, we now think of them as The Brothers Grimm. Last night both husband/wife pairs had matching Hawaiian shirt/dress outfits.

We won the spelling competition (mostly foreign words) with an obnoxious Canadian, sat through the Battle of the Sexes, won narrowly by the women, and went into trivia quietly confident. After 7 questions, I idly remarked that the questions seemed very easy. We had to guess a few and fared less well with that today, ending with 10, although it was apparent that nobody else was over-enthused during the marking. It turned out that one other team had 10, so we pulled further ahead of everybody else. So far we have been 1^st equal in 2 sets, and won the others outright. 6 to go.

In between, J managed to sit in on the talk on Fab Film Females. We heard that our English/Australian partner from day 1 actually has chronic heart trouble and is on watch for evac in Polynesia, but is currently doing well.

10 October

The usual. Big gym after breakfast. We scored signatures all day long, watched Milos(h) talking about extra terrestrials and won the trivia again, this time one clear of one team and then the field. Steve was very good value today. Afterwards, we went out on the back of 14 and won with Rob and Helen, sneaking in ahead of the Brothers Grimm. We went into dinner for the surf n turf, which was lacklustre. The steaks can be tough, probably because they have been frozen ex Miami. Most of the food during the current season will be freighted to Sydney from Miami and brought aboard as required.

J took in the evening mixed-up midcruise show and then we drifted into Sudoku . . umm karaoke. I then fell into the trap of getting caught in a trap. Hint for young players – do not get up in a room full of people to sing an Elvis song if you don’t know the song structure and you haven’t heard which key it is played in.

3 October Honolulu Blue Hawaii

3 October Honolulu Blue Hawaii

We got out in the sun before it turned too hot. We mingled with new partners through the various trivia and had a lot of fun on the last day of the cruise. There is a Starbucks a few minutes walk away and we made our way there twice, checking out the signal strength in preparation for a Skyp session tomorrow.

We had a very productive time, getting the blog up, doing emails and facebook, checking the credit cards and paying off one of them. Bad news from 28 Degrees, until now the perfect travelling credit card – they will be slapping a 3% fee on all cash advances. We will check whether that applies if you maintain a debit balance, which we do to avoid their high interest rates. We struggled somewhat to download music using the reward cards Celebrity have been handing out for music quizzes but eventually succeeded. Which made it hard to understand why we then gave the rest away?

 Blue water.  Pearl Harbour in distance.

 Honolulu, Waikiki & Diamond head in distance

 Pooooool!

 

My daughter Courtney has apparently made the first cut for the WA quest for Miss Universe. Well, she would wouldn’t she?

We finally received details of the process for changing cabins tomorrow. They have been very generous and offered alternatives. They have also issued us fresh cruise cards which, importantly, confirm the new room number for the balcony stateroom they told us about yesterday. Woo Hoo for Celebrity.

We made it back for another dinner on the back terrace, watching planes arriving and leaving, including the pairs of little fighter jets that reared up into the sky and swept away out to sea. The early show was a something of a reminder of the entertainment highlights of the cruise so far and we finished with a creditable second in the final music quiz.

4th October 'Room with a View'

We will be enjoying this (extra large) balcony for the next 19 days.  Woohooo.

 

2 October Good News Week

2 October Good news week

A typical day with gym, trivia (lost a tiebreak), early lunch, ashore, Facebooked Steph and the grandkids, slipped to 3^rd in afternoon trivia, lured to dinner by the 2 old ladies who promised us champagne, took in the big signature show with the imported stars.

We still had no information about our cabin for the next leg, the transfer arrangements or the passenger satisfaction questionnaire. J led the charge to Customer services to enquire and we were surprised to be pointed to the Back-to-back specialist who went off and collected a list and gave us a cabin number on deck 9. She also outlined the process for transfer, which is pretty simple and very convenient. We could see my South African friend nearby behind the desk. We headed upstairs for a look and noticed that the number was very similar to our present one plus 2000 so we suspected that it would likely be in a similar position, very close to the front and tucked away in a corridor right in the middle of the boat.

Imagine our happiness to discover that we are actually close to the forward lifts, which is pretty much midships . . . and it has a Balcony!! We went back twice and checked and it kept being the same cabin. In this state of euphoria, we went and cashed in the free casino chips we got for being Select repeat clients and then had a quick look at the bottle-O to see if there were any special deals. And there were indeed. So that is our duty free quota sorted out.

All in all, a very satisfying evening on this delightful ship.

1 October Lazy Sun(Tues)day Afternoon

1 October Lazy Sun(Tues)day Afternoon

2 hours gym, during which I chatted to one of the dancers and a certain other person drooled shamelessly over him. We won morning trivia and then got squeezed out of the visual trivia – after tying with another team naming the airlines associated with a given airport (mostly US cities plus very obvious international ones) Tiniqua flipped through various tiebreakers and then chose . . .  US area codes!!! Thanks a lot from our team with 2 Aussies and the red headed Canadian. If they try that in Australian waters there will be a lynching. Here is a quick one for you – how many animals of each sex did Moses take onto the ark?

Lunch on the terrace with Mary (redhead) who has cruised 4 times more than us, usually in bigger cabins on better boats and staying in Sheratons. We got 1^st and 2^nd in the Sudoko challenge (there being no other competitors), chatted with Tiniqua from Jamaica, got into the baking sun for half an hour, surrendered graciously to another team in the afternoon trivia, caught up with laundry and turned up in the dining room for dinner. And the Ark question? Did you get 1 . . . . or 2??? Or did you say hell Moses had nothing to do with the Ark?

The evening show was a magician called Puck who had done well in America Got Talent or some such. He spent a lot of time sniggering and made a couple of mistakes.

Our ark has been moored off the island of Maui and we will be here overnight and until 6pm tomorrow.

30 September – Seinfeld (A day about nothing . ., not that there’s anything wrong with that)

30 September – Seinfeld (A day about nothing . ., not that there’s anything wrong with that)

We woke to the mellow roar of the anchor chains clattering through the tunnels next to our room. Luckily only a few links at a time. No gym again. (J’s back has been sore, probably from doing too much)  We won morning trivia and then took to the tender for the 5 minute transfer to the town of Kona. We have made our way round the Big Island to the dry side which pretty much consists of black lava. The start and finish line of the Hawaii Triathlon are right next to the pier and the swim leg goes straight out into the clear blue water that we traversed in the tender.

We repeated our strategy of last year and went straight to the lobby of the Marriott Hotel, where we enjoyed good wifi to get the blog up. According to last year’s blog at this point, we got to hear the news of Steph being bitten by next door’s Rottweiler, so we were not that unhappy not to receive any news from home on this occasion. We had a bit of a stroll around the very pleasant town of Kona and back to the boat.

 1st church in Hawaii

 Crab on a rock.  Ship in distance

 Graveyard of King's

 

An unashamedly slack afternoon ensued, time in the spa, lying in the sun, sprawled on lounges in the solarium, afternoon trivia, dinner on the back terrace as we sailed away, an interesting show by a dynamic young chap on a xylosynth machine (think steel drum on steroids), music trivia . . Right now we are wondering about staying up for the Hot Rock party next to the pool. Probably not.

Our regular quiz partners have been renting cars and driving round the island for the past 2 days so we have just been joining whoever is around for the trivia sessions.

29 September Land Ahoy!

29 September Land Ahoy!

We woke up in the harbour at Hilo on the Big Island of Hawaii. We stood for about an hour waiting for Border protection to clear us. There was great chaos and confusion with the US queue and the alien queue. Some pugnacious little old asshole with what we thought might have been a New York accent had shoved his way into what turned out to be the alien queue and was trading abuse with a pair of much larger Canadians. He was yelling out that he wasn’t going to miss the tour he had paid $500 for and telling them to “OK just beat me”, which would have been tempting for many of us. This eventually degenerated into mild shoving. He then allowed himself to be steered into the US queue, where he proceeded to start yelling out for what we presumed was his (lucky) wife . . not. “Irene!” “Irene!” I called out “Adrienne”, which was hugely funny for the Rocky fans, and a few of the others started singing some song about a lovely lady named Irene. Eventually the lovers were reunited and they shambled off. (The first 'ugly American' we have seen onboard.)

J had plenty of time to catch her volcano tour and I spent the day idly eating, watching movies and winning the morning and afternoon trivia (luggage labels anyone?) I did wander down the pier and found a wifi café. There was no news from anybody at home, least of all the Lottery Commission L although there were a lot of lovely grandchild pictures, including a beautiful smiley picture of Michaela sitting up by herself. I found Amanda on facebook and chatted while she gave Joshua his 6am feed. Also posted 6 days of blog.

J writes:  While we expected to be late leaving on the tours because of the queues at Immigration, it wasn’t that bad and we were called for our bus about 10 minutes late.  It took quite some time to load up the coaches and 2 false starts early on.  The tour leader/driver for the day John was a fountain of knowledge on all subjects and we were schooled the whole day long.  We stopped at a Macadamia farm *yawn* and then an orchid garden which has some divine specimens.  One even smelt like chocolate.  Then to the crater rim which was just gently smoking away.  Jagger Museum was hands on and interesting. 

 

 Next stop was the Visitor Centre where I watched a 20 minute film on Hawaii.  Then a drive past yet another view of the crater before reaching the Thurston lava tube.  This is situated on a lower flank of the volcano in a tee tree forest.  Beautiful bird song as you traverse the path and steps.  The tunnel is long and damp with an uneven floor surface.  You exit up a short set of steps that was a natural sky light in the tunnel.  Pretty cool actually. 

 Entrance

 Middle

 End

 

 Back to Hilo and the nearby Rainbow Waterfall for a 1quick photo opportunity and back to the ship about 5.30pm.  There was some rain but we managed to avoid getting wet.  Lucky us.  Ship sailed at 6pm.

 Falls

 This lovely group was on our bus.  We always knew which bus to get on.  Just follow the orange shirts.

 

The lunch desserts were so delicious and so chocolate-enriched that I saved half of each of the portions and put it in the room fridge for J when she returned. Just as well because she didn't get any lunch today.

We had buffet dinner out on the terrace again and watched the sail away.  Another perfect holiday memory. We wandered into the music quiz, which we all did as a group and shared the download vouchers, which we will have to redeem before we leave the US. We then lingered in the nightclub (and it was at least 8.30 by then!) watching karaoke. I got sucked into doing Sweet Caroline, which strikes some perverse chord in my imagination while we are doing the standing stretches in tai chi (something to do with “hands reaching out” and the instructor being Caroline). Fuelled with fame, I Iater did the banana boat song (Dayo!) to a room full of African Americans, who didn’t seem to mind. J went up and sang with a few others and, as usual, was shaking her bits and grooving with the backing singers.

The 11pm sailpast of the volcano was a bit of a non-event. J had been told during her tour that the lava flow had stopped 2 weeks ago, so all we saw was a dull glow. But it was nice to be out there. We were right in close to the shore break and there were flying fish skittering across our wake. We returned to the cabin to our nightly gift of chocolate from the cabin steward and the wonderful news that the negotiation with the cruise company had turned out very favourably, which made us most happy.

23-28 September Cruisin' On Down

23 September Sailing Away/Tijuana Taxi

Some nervous moments yesterday. Back in 09 we spent 6 days in Hong Kong before catching a ship to Singapore. Somehow we miscounted and came very very close to waving the ship goodbye from the Kowloon foreshore. Some subliminal scars may linger. The unexpected sight of Solstice in port yesterday reactivated repressed memories and we had to go and check that they were not about to escape us.

Arriving home a few hours later . . we found Steph on Facebook, who greeted us with . . . “what are you doing there? . . the kitchen calendar says you are sailing today”. Aaaaargh palpitations. Quite right, but it is still Yesterday here (Gen Y: google “International Date Line”).

One of the Taiwanese at dinner last night said wages down here might be lower than elsewhere in the USA because the Mexicans are prepared to work below normal wages if they are illegal immigrants. Maybe?

We had a final visit to plunder $1 Toblerones from the local supermarket. Almost immediately a bus stopped at our toes and the lady driver said she was going half way to the cruise terminal. She declined a fare. We easily found our way down, checked in the bags and quickly signed in ourselves. They gave us tickets for bus 40 and some time later called for people with tickets 1 and 2. Oooh dear this could take some time. They plodded slowly along to 9 and then suddenly called 36! That seemed to be too good to be true but they followed on 37 38 39 and 40. We headed off down to the border at Tijuana and then through the Mexican countryside, mostly down the coast.

 The double fences between Mexico and USA.  San Diego Bay in the distance.

 Tijuana

 Ensenda Mexico.  Biggest flag we have ever seen.

 Huge scavenging seagulls.  We are lucky ours are a little smaller.

 

It was very much like Peru – a very pretty mountainous coast with some lovely winding parts high above the sea. Elsewhere fairly flat or rolling hills. But totally arid. Many coastal developments, mostly in the early land sales stages. After about 2 hours we reached Ensenada and pulled into the port. We had been given forms to fill in and they were collected but we didn’t pass through immigration (or US emigration).

They left us sitting in the (fortunately air-conditioned) bus for about half an hour before we passed through a shed with Xray machines where we and our hand luggage were scanned. They missed the vegetable knife – J reckons it was tucking it in behind the fridge magnets? There were still 6 buses waiting and we heard that others had sat there for 90 minutes. It took a long time for the luggage to be delivered to our cabin.

We have gone for an inside cabin, which happens to be right up the front. Might be a bit rough up there? We started by cancelling our freestyle dining allocation and signing up for the first dinner setting. Then we hit the lunch buffet (in a restrained manner) and pecked judiciously at 2 of the delicious chocolate desserts (each). My final assignment for the day was non-trivial and slightly challenging but I unexpectedly reaped the benefit of my tiny residual Sethefrican eccent, which was spotted by the supervisor behind the Guest Relations desk. It may take a few days for the outcome but, cautiously, the signs are good.

We could have conducted the spa and gym tour by now, but we followed one of the therapists around for a refresher and to qualify for the free treatment draw which will be held in 2 days. Up to the top deck (and we discovered the 16^th which I had missed) for the view round Ensenada Bay and the seals in the harbour.

5.15 was the emergency drill then it was time for dinner, still with no luggage in our room L We were part of a table for 10 with 8 Americans. We sat next to a very affable older couple from Tampa Florida. He reminded me of Will Farrell.

The music quiz at 8pm was titled The British Invasion, so we cunningly teamed up with the 3 girls with recognisably English teeth. Sure enough, we won and scored a couple of music download cards. By then, I was over-excited and left J to watch the evening show, which on the first night usually consists of the on-board singers and dancers plus the guitarists and jazz trios etc who will be in the bars and lounges. Speciality acts will come later.

We cast off at midnight and were aware that the boat was rocking on a gentle swell. We better toughen up because it will be quite disconcerting when the seas get up. Last time we were this far forward we managed to get relocated AND to a balcony suite, just in time for the glacier viewing the following day and the Inward Passage. But that was on a ship that was nowhere near as full as this one is.

24 September Baby Let Me Take You On A  - Sea Cruise

We were up at the stretch class at 7.30. Very packed as always on Day 1. Running straight into the Ab session with the same young blonde Sethefrican who was aboard in February. She remembered me, which may or may not be a good thing. A different class but it hit the spot. J went straight into Zumba next to the pool while I started laundry duties.

We joined a family of 4 from San Diego for the morning trivia and managed 14, 1 behind the winners. A couple of tricky questions, like who was the murderer Clarice Starling was chasing . . sorry no it wasn’t Hannibal Lector.

We wanted to make time for relaxing on this trip and found a quiet spot overlooking the water with the daily news sheets from Aus, UK and SE Asia. Back to the buffet for curry and green salad. Ok and maybe a furtive nibble at the sugar free chocolate mousse and the chocolate imperial. And just a taste of the orange chocolate.

J took off for the line dance class and we met up again for the music trivia. By the way, Clarice was chasing Buffalo Bill, with help from Hannibal. Sneaky huh? And the Greek god of sleep wasn’t Morpheus. Hypnos. Grrrr.

Afternoon music trivia promised much, delivered little but was enjoyable. That familiar feeling of mentally running through a song waiting for a title to jump out at you. No it isn’t called “tonight’s gonna be a good night”.

Nap time before the big afternoon cumulative trivia, where we maintained our policy of scoring one behind the leaders. Who IS the 6^th character in Cluedo?

We decided to turn out for formal dinner, for fear of missing out on lobster, which they didn’t serve anyway. The evening show was Ghostlight, a tribute to generations of musicals. The singers were quite strong and the dancers ok.

The weather was not bad but we had a big roll running all day. Some quite ill people moving around and presumably many more in their cabins. We kept busy and moving and were not much affected. The Captain said the sea will flatten a bit tomorrow afternoon and then stay down.

25^th September Taking It Easy

We were awake early and made it to all the morning exercises. J managed to get through Zumba and Hawaiian dancing as well. One behind during the morning trivia (as usual) – we sat and watched as our teammates answered a string of US questions. There was also a world flag quiz and we again failed to recognise Bolivia, but I forgive myself because this time I wasn’t wearing their football shirt with the emblem.

As per plan, we made time for vegging out in the comfy chairs. Nothing to see out here but it is soothing and we should try and do it at home as well. We qualified for the Captain’s Club cocktail party after lunch, which was very pleasant -  we sat looking out to sea while we were plied with Cosmopolitans and delicious snacks by a passing parade of waiters. One friendly fellow from Jamaica pretty much adopted us and ran a Cosmo shuttle service.

We grabbed the Cruise Director and asked about the AFL final on Saturday – he says the satellite coverage won’t get it L. And at 75c/minute we won’t be queuing to follow it on internet. They will print a news sheet the next morning and we will be docked in Hilo Hawaii and can go ashore and catch up on that and all the other news.

This ensured that we went to afternoon trivia very relaxed. In short, we finished one off the pace and we don’t know whether yesterday’s winners were ahead of us again. Either way, we were very happy with the way the team performed – most of all, the chemistry was very good and we had fun.

We ducked dinner and snacked on sushi and whatever in the buffet instead. The only thing we missed was the exotic desserts in the dining room. They held the draw for the free spa treatments but just for once we didn’t get lucky. In between the hoo-haa about ObamaCare, we heard on the news that the minimum wage in California is significantly below $10/hr.

We dropped in on the comedian and found it was one we had seen years ago – probably back in 07. He was very funny and, as he put it, “works clean”. We get an extra hour’s sleep tonight J

26 September And the Beat Goes On

The usual routine . . the usual meals . . the usual scores. We keep finishing one behind the top team but it isn’t always the same team. We scored some sun time and napped in the comfy furniture in the solarium and got back into the gym before dinner. J took in a movie in the cinema. 2 extra women had turned up at dinner the day before and in the confusion we now had 2 extra. Just as well we were there because they served huge lamb shanks. The evening pianist was interesting without being hugely entertaining.

27 September Top Of The World

As above -2 solid hours gym/zumba, 14 out of 15 in the brainwarmer quiz but lost the tiebreaker guess. AFL final tonight.

4pm – They are showing us equal top of the cumulative trivia. The “kids” (mid-20s) slept through and we fell back 1 point to the team of oldies with one middle aged redhead. They actually asked the dread question that had been raised in chat within our team – Jim thinks Johannesburg is the Southernmost capital and was unconvinced that it is Wellington. J had the pencil and basically said – sorry trust us on this. On the other hand, he thought the densest bone was the jawbone, which turned out to be correct. We were all surprised to find how big and thick a giraffe’s heart has to be (to pump blood up its neck). One session to go.

We had the Select Club cocktails afterwards and fell foul of apple martinis that were basically straight vodka with 2 drops of green dye. The said middle-aged redhead came and sat near us, which allowed us to elicit that she and her husband were staying on until Sydney but it seemed their team was getting off. Hmmmm?  We ended up at dinner where there were seats for everybody. The Grand Marnier soufflés were very good.

We got into the Millionaire show but they had run out of handsets already so we decided to watch anyway. As it happened, the kind couple behind us shared theirs and we managed to come 3^rd out of 100, narrowly missing out on Tshirts. We gave up on the juggler and headed to bed.

28 September The Agony and the Ecstasy

We woke at 6, by which time it was midnight in Perth and the footie would be over already. We watched a sports channel that was spooling scores across the bottom but no mention of AFL.

J had a sore back so we ditched the gym and just did some Tai Chi/Stretching in a nook on 14^th floor. We then scored an hour in one of the tented double hammocks near the pool. Very nice. Morning trivia . . what do you want to know? Second again. No there aren’t just 2 teams. Maybe 12 or so.

I should just mention that the session began with the announcement that an Aussie question was imminent. The next leg of the cruise will be laden with Aussies but we are still thin on the ground (deck actually). Our team radiated smugness at having 2 of us and we all watched expectantly as he asked how many states were included in the Commonwealth in 1901. Our trusty True Blue Aussie scribe immediately wrote down 5. I just absent-mindedly did the maths and was curious whether perhaps Tasmania had not been a state in those days? Say no more. The “kids” were there and Jim was red hot so it portends well for the critical final afternoon session.

The news sheets are out, proclaiming the tragic news from Melbourne. The Dockers deserved to win their first Premiership and it would have been nice if they did. Having said that . . . well, we can look forward to a few more years of taunting their fans’ bare trophy cupboard.

We took lunch out on the terrace at the back today, watching the Pacific pass by. We actually saw our first ship today.

We had to miss the special Aussie/NZ drinks at the stern bar to get to the final quiz session. The questions were very hard and we only managed 9/16. The answers came from all around the team and Jim reinforced his morning performance with some good answers. Evidently the other teams were not cheering much and we were not really astonished to find that we had rebounded from being 1 point down and snatched victory by a single point. True to form, we came second on the day but the team that won had started 2 behind us.

So yet another triumph in cumulative trivia. Warren and I were in the team that came from behind to win on the same ship back in February. We just scored a handsome booty package of a gold medal, Celebrity T shirt, lanyard and a metal water bottle. Each. Place your orders now.

And so to the 2^nd and final formal dinner – yes there is lobster on the menu.

22 September 13 Midway

22 September Midway

An easy start this morning.  We met a guy from Meadow Springs Mandurah at breakfast this morning.  Small world ain’t it.

We slowly strolled off towards the water front, tracking our way through the historic Gaslight District.  This has some very nice buildings from the 1920/30’s and is very trendy with restaurants and nightlife.  Found a very relaxed shopping strip in really nice buildings on the water front.  Wandered around the bay to the Midway Museum and were surprised to see the Celebrity Solstice there.  Then walked a little further and discovered that the Celebrity Millenium was also there. 

 Solstice

 

We backtracked and went aboard the huge WW2 aircraft carrier USS Midway. ($19 adult &16 senior. Price includes audio guide).  We spent 2 hours here going through crew quarters & areas, the hangar deck and the top deck both of which displayed aircraft.  There were also ex-military men explaining launch and landing processes.  It was very interesting. Despite the cavernous areas for housing aircraft, equipment and supplies, the crew quarters were very cramped and confined. The carrier would have sailed with up to 4500 men.

 Midway

 Bunks 3 high.  12 men in this small area.

 A likely suspect

 

Interestingly, the ship carried 133 planes during WW2 but by the 1960s it had only about 30 planes with much greater complexity and payload. Thereafter, helicopters became increasingly important.

 Take off area.  The top deck       covers 4  acres.

 A Scottish piper right at the front of the ship.  There had been a veteran's ceremony.

 

We sat on the grass by the water and watched the world go by, snacked on a shrimp (prawn) taco while we watched a couple of police deal with one of a group of homeless “veterans?”. Had a stroll through a huge supermarket/delicatessen, admiring the selection of produce and the cheap prices. We pay far too much for food in Aus!!

Back at the hotel, we found that the hot dog party had been set back an hour but we had a good time chatting with some young Asian travellers. So many enterprising and resourceful young people going around the world.

J: My overall impression of San Diego is that it is clean and friendly and well worth spending a few days here.