To the Orient and Beyond

April 1st At Sea Can you believe there is no chocolate syrup on this ship?????? After 2 hectic days in Hong Kong we had a much needed sea day. It was sunny, and the water very calm, so Brian headed to the pool. I am currently obsessed with...

April 2nd At Sea Lieutenant Colonel Graham Jones gave a lecture about “The World of State Ceremonial Music” this morning. I missed it due to wanting to finish my craft project (did I say I have a new addiction?), but Brian went and really...

April 3rd At Sea This morning’s talk was on “Penang at War” in preparation for our visit to Penang later this week. Although not all of the anecdotes he discussed were actually related to Penang itself, it was still a very interesting talk, and...

April 7th At Sea The Continued No Internet Day We may have gained an hour, but try telling that to my FitBit. Despite the fact that my cell phone, to which it is linked, has been able to get the time right, my FitBit is still an hour out of...

April 8th At Sea A day Full of Thunderstorms. We were confused about what the time was when we woke up as our phones had adjusted to the new time zone, but out watches haven’t. Even though I have Bluetooth and an app on my phone to keep my watch...

April 10th At Sea It was a bright and sunny day, but we had other things on our mind. Having rashly had the bright idea to give the Cruise Critic crowd a talk on safaris, we now had to work on it. But first Brian went to the talk on an...

April 11th At Sea High Risk Area Security Precautions Day When we left Penang we noticed that the ship’s anti pirate equipment had been installed on deck 3. Today’s Daily Programme advised us that from this evening until after departure from...

April 12th At Sea Yay! The internet is working again today. Although we had the crossing of the line ceremony yesterday, we actually crossed the equator today. Welcome to the southern hemisphere. We went to see Jenny Bond’s talk in the morning –...

April 14th At Sea I do need sea days to recuperate from shore days. This one turned out to be fairly typical with us spending the morning in the Commodore Club watching us sail through the passing rainsqualls and attending lectures. I had been...

April 15th At Sea It was a dark and stormy day. When I awoke this morning we were finally experiencing some pitching and rolling. Nothing too major, but at least we know we are on the ocean and not on a river cruise. It really had been feeling...

April 18th At Sea We needed a sea day after back to back ports. Although there was quite a heavy swell, it was not too windy on deck, and we spent the day at the Lido pool, swimming, reading, and snoozing in the sun. We decided not to go to any...

April 19th At Sea I waited all day for the invitation to arrive requesting our presence at a hosted table for tomorrow night’s final formal evening of our voyage. The invitation never arrived. It was our last chance. Well maybe it will happen on...

April 20th At Sea There was no other way of looking at it. We had to do laundry again as I was out of clean clothes. With 1200 passengers disembarking in Cape Town I was worried that it would be very crowded in the launderette with everyone...

Well, Brian and I survived the long journey home, and so did our luggage. There it all was on the carousel – usually at least one bag goes astray, but not this time. Good news! On a recent trip to Mexico my bag finally arrived a week later,...