Wednesday, February 26th, 2020

At Sea

A much needed sea day after 2 hectic port days in Darwin, so I spent most of the day in the Commodore Club. It is jolly hot out on deck, but lovely and cool inside.

As we are heading towards the Great Barrier Reef, we have our pilot on board already, Captain Ian Perry, who will be guiding us along the way. He gave his first talk today – it was on “The Great Barrier Reef”. Well you have to start somewhere.

There was a chocolate extravaganza in the Kings Court at lunchtime. Not as extravagant as the one on Valentine’s Day, but still very chocolaty, and there was a chocolate fountain. My kind of lunch.

There were no talks in the afternoon, but the pianists Esnult and Dantas gave another fabulous piano recital. I thought it was actually better to sit back in the cool of the Royal Court Theatre and let the music flow over me than it would be to sit in Illuminations and be illuminated with knowledge about the seas and the heavens.

Despite getting a letter from the World Club when I embarked in Dubai that I would only be entitled to attend one World Club party, which would be during my first sector on board, and no more after that, I did in fact get an invitation to tonight’s World Club party. There still seems to be the misconception that I returned to the US from Fremantle, and then came back on board as another person in Fremantle. Go figure.

Anyway, I do love a party, so we got all dressed up and headed to the reception, entering the Queens Room on the starboard side to avoid the crowds wanting to shake hands with the captain.

Captain Hashmi gave yet another amusing speech. Although he does seem to recycle his material a bit, who could blame him? He constantly has to be witty at all of these parties.

The issue of the name of the new Cunard ship came up again. He didn’t say when the great reveal will be (I’m hoping for the World Cruise Gala in Melbourne), but did say that it was definitely not Queen Meghan (he then appeared very embarrassed after saying that, and looked like I do when something spurts out of my mouth when my brain doesn’t have the filter on), and may not be a Queen at all. Unlike his previous speech there was no mention of a Countess. I’m still in favour of Queen Anne or the Mauretania. Time will tell.

Tonight’s featured entertainment was an Australian group called the “Redtie Edge Band”. Looking at the write up in the Daily Programme I thought they were going to be just another boy band, but they were a group of 3 male musicians and a female vocalist. She had an amazing voice, and the guys were fantastic musicians, so it was a wonderful show. The sort that makes you want to get up and dance. Which some of us did. I am really hoping that they will play again in the Queens Room, or the deck 8 pool area, so we can really dance the night away to them.

Inspired by my dancing we decided to finish off the evening in the Queens Room where the Big Band Night was in full swing.

No, I didn’t actually get to dance due to Brian’s reluctance to get involved with ballroom dancing, and the gentleman hosts fear of injury from dancing with me. However, we had a great time sitting and watching the dancers who knew what they are doing glide effortlessly around the ballroom dance floor, and listen to the wonderful music from orchestra and the singing of the very talented Kelly Young and Michael Burke.

We were quite exhausted by the time we got to the cabin, but we remembered to put our watches forward another half hour so that we would be in sync with Yorkey’s Knob on Saturday.