Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 AT SEA Friday, 11 December. Taking advantage of another day at sea, we slept late and had breakfast in our room. It was pleasant (mid-50s) but windy outside, with cloudy skies. The sea was smooth, but swells increased throughout the day. We read in the lounge for much of the day. There was an announcement of several restrictions being imposed because a significant number of norovirus cases had been reported onboard. Use of the hand disinfectant dispensers was now mandatory at the entrance to every public area (restaurants, shops, theaters, bars, etc.). Also, passengers would no longer be allowed to touch food, glasses, dishes, utensils, etc. This caused long lines just to get utensils on entering the Lido buffet. Since passengers couldn't even get their own water or coffee and the waiters were so inefficient, the lines were often 20 minutes long to get any beverage, and many passengers simply gave up and did without. The same was true to a lesser extent at most of the cafeteria stations. A lunch in the Lido that previously had taken maybe 40 minutes now would take 90. Even in the Rembrandt restaurant, no water, bread, butter, salt, pepper, sugar or sweetened was placed on the table. We had to wait for a waiter to bring everything. Service in all the restaurants, which often had been none too good to begin with, deteriorated markedly. As an example, we went to dinner at 6:30 as usual. It was another formal night. Normally we were out by 8:00, though sometimes it would be as much as 10 minutes later. Tonight we were there until 9:00. We probably could have finished a little earlier, but once we saw there was no chance of making the 8:00 show, we had no reason to rush.
For the first time, we went to the 10:00 show. (We
were due to gain an hour during the night, and tomorrow was another day at
sea.) It was a performance by Justin Miller, who played the violin, guitar,
and mandolin. He was an outstanding musician, and a musical historian as well.
His act involved behind-the-music stories about songs, songwriters, and
performers. In fact, he probably talked more than he played, but it was
fascinating - educational as well as entertaining. He seems to have
interviewed many of the most important people in American popular music,
including many long gone such as Irving Berlin.
Saturday, 12 December. This would be our last uneventful day at sea for a week. The weather was sunny and cool (low 50s), with calm seas. We gained an hour during the night, so it was a good time to get up early and take our dirty clothes to the laundry room right down the hall. We did that on our way to breakfast at 7:00 a.m. The laundry room was deserted, and we used two of the six washers available there. When we returned to transfer our clothes to the dryers, people were waiting in line for washers, and that continued for the rest of the cruise, day and night. So we really lucked out on getting in without waiting. We met the Weinbergs, who had the room next to ours, and discovered that their room had been flooded, too, and that HAL had refused to do anything for them either. We enjoyed a leisurely day, mostly reading. For the first time, we had lunch on deck by the Lido pool, enjoying the sun while sheltered from the wind. At 1:00 we attended the Falklands port talk and went to the Wajang Theater at 2:00 to see the movie Evita. After dinner at 6:15, we went to the 8:00 show and saw Rikki Jay, a British comedian. Between his thick cockney accent and his laughing at his own jokes before he finished telling them, it was very hard to understand him. By this time the ship was engulfed in a heavy fog. Thank goodness for radar! I might mention here that the sun was now setting about 10:00 p.m., and it was still light after that. | ||||
