Day 5: Still enroute to NZ (Grand Princess)

If I said that today was a low-achieving day and we didn’t do much at all, I wouldn’t be kidding.

In fact, the effort and brain power required just to write the content so far in today’s post is probably more that I have used for the rest of the day.

But then I probably deserve a bit of a rest today. If you can believe everything that my smart watch tells me, I climbed 147 flights of stairs yesterday. That’s more that all the way to the top of the World Trade Centre in NYC. That’s pretty impressive … if it is correct.

To be fair, we never take the elevator whenever we walk around the ship, and we are on Level 8 with the Horizon’s Court eatery on Level 14, but 147 flights of stairs … ?

We are “at sea” today. Essentially in the middle if nowhere, somewhere between Melbourne and the south of NZ, surrounded by water. Considering that I get lost inside this ship – hey, I can get lost in a carpark – I hope that the Captain has a good GPS, or a good sense of direction.

We were up at about 8.00am this morning. I’m not proud of that, but it could have been worse, I guess. In my defence, it was only 5.00am in Brisbane and I think that my body clock is still stuck there.

Breakfast in the Horizon Court again this morning. I think I’ve finally come to the safe realisation that we will NOT run out of food or coffee, so I don’t need to consume my body-weight in food at every meal just in case.

The rest of the day was really very low-achieving. We went to a presentation on some of the ports where we will be stopping, drank coffee, read our books, and went to Bingo.

And when I say “went to Bingo”, we only watched. Actually participating in the game seemed like way more effort that we could be bothered with.

We went to the pizza restaurant for lunch and had a delicious pizza (each), and then headed back to E521 for a nap.

Neither of us has felt 100% today – I’ve felt like my stomach has been doing somersaults all day and I’ve had a raging headache. I’d suggest that it could have been caused by “something I ate”, because then there are many, many things that could be … I’ve eaten a lot.

Much more than I should have, and certainly much more than I needed.

But I suspect that it is the constant rocking and dipping of the ship. I don’t know how big/heavy this ship is (but I’ll find out), but it is incredible to think that such a massive vessel can be tossed around in the ocean. Or maybe it’s incredible to think that the waves are so big and powerful that they can have that effect on the ship.

In any case, it is hard to walk a straight line and you feel like you are constantly lurching from one side of the corridor to the other. Maybe it’s just a bit of seasickness? Or I haven’t drunk enough water? Or I need to get out on deck for some fresh air … but it is really, really cold and windy out there 🙁

We genuinely tried to do better this afternoon and went to the trivia challenge in the Explorer’s Lounge on Level 7 mid-ship. Mid-ship means that the rocking and rolling isn’t quite as pronounced.

20 trivia questions. We achieved the dizzying score of 7/20. Pretty sad really 🙁

At trivia I ordered a coffee – one of the “unlimited brewed” ones – to have it delivered to me in the Explorer’s Bar. After about an hour of waiting the status finally changed to “Delivered”, yet I never saw it and never got the benefits of the caffeine kick.

Given that disappointing outcome, we went instead to the Piazza and I ordered another coffee, which promptly arrived in no time.

There was a piano and violin duet (ensemble?) playing in the Piazza this afternoon, and they entertained us with some classical, selections from Shrek, and Peter Allen’s “I still call Australia Home”.

I have spoken so highly of the medallions that replace the old cruise cards. All you do is tap the medallion or order from the app, and stuff happens magically, with the money being charged to your account in no time.

They are linked to your photo and room number and so there is “no risk” of someone having a spending spree on your account should you lose your device.

Apparently.

So how come I ended up with two shore excursions booked to my account? I went to Gust Services and they couldn’t help, so they directed me to the Excursions Desk.

We had a conversation and they confirmed that I – Geoffrey Taylor – had indeed booked a shore excursion with my travelling companion, Murray someone from another room.

Now there are a couple of obvious flaws in that situation. Unless the other Geoff (TOG) is as exceptionally good looking as myself, I can’t believe that we could be mixed up. And I’m pretty certain that Murray is not my travelling companion.

Anyhow, the shore excursions were removed from my account, which means at least one thing, maybe two.

It means that I am no longer paying for TOG to do a shore excursion. It possibly also means that when TOG turns up to do his excursion, he could be disappointed …

Dinner last night was in Botticelli again, and once again it was very quiet. It seems that the midship restaurants seem to get the majority of the diners because they are more convenient … but that’s OK with me because it means less waiting for a table and quicker service.

The show in the Princess Theatre was Nathan Foley – he was quite good and certainly better than some of the other shows we have seen. He sang and played guitar and piano along with the Princess Big Band, and performed lots of songs from the ‘50s through to the ‘80s.

All the good stuff 🙂

By that time it was about 8.30pm and still bright sunlight, although we are quite a bit further south, so I guess that is to be expected.

We went back to Explorer’s and played a game of “We play it, you say it” where they play a portion of a song and you have to correctly write the next line.

That was being compèred by a couple of the entertainment crew, one of who was named Yuki and was very Asian. Some of the music categories included “Country Crassics” (Country Classics) and “Corraborations” (Collaborations).

All good fun.

I had a terrible migraine last night. Neck and shoulder tension, plus way too much food during the day. Then that coffee that I had after dinner really seemed to set me off and – by the time we got back to our room around 10.00pm – I thought I was going to be a porcelain warrior. Fortunately I managed to keep everything down.

I mentioned earlier that I climbed 147 flights of stairs yesterday. Well today I did 157 flights of stairs. I find that a little difficult to believe.

Tomorrow we will start our Fiordland cruising, through Milford Sound and all of the other Sounds.

It will be nice to see land again 🙂

TTFN

#G&KDoNZ2022