Our last day of the cruise. Our last day at sea. And what a cold, overcast, and choppy day that it was.
The Captain warned us last night that today could be rough, and he wasn’t kidding. Something about being in Bass Straight.
All of the decks were closed, so that must have made it tough for the committed smokers to fill their lungs with something other than oxygen. Smoking is not allowed inside the ship, and only in a couple of limited deck locations, and most of the decks were closed … bummer.
It never ceases to amaze me how the waves can make a ship of this size bounce around so much. There was one time today where it felt like we must have hit an iceberg. There was this crash that virtually knocked you off your feet and the whole ship shuddered.
Bouncing, and lurching, and dipping.
I’m assuming that it was just a really big swell that hit the ship at just the right place at just the right moment that caused the impact. I’m also pretty sure that there was no serious damage inflicted as we didn’t have to grab our life jackets and head for the lifeboats.
So that’s a good thing.
It was a day of just hanging around and reading. I borrowed a Jack Reacher book from the onboard library and I have been enjoying it, although I suspect I’m not going to get it finished before we disembark tomorrow morning. So we just hung around.
Breakfast. Coffee. Read.
We went to a culinary demonstration in the Princess Theatre this morning, presented by the Executive Chef and the Director of Hotel Operations. One responsible for all of the chefs, and the other responsible for all of the waiters and drinks staff.
It was a great show – they just did some demonstrations, showed how they cook some meals, had some fun, and showcased some of their teams.
Because of COVID most events were moved to Level 14 on the top deck, and then closed anyway because of the weather. A really quite unpleasant day. Everyone walking around like they were drunk (… I suspect that many of them were, BTW), but very hard to walk a straight line without falling over or bumping into someone/something. More staggering than walking.
A good day for finding a quiet corner with a view of the ocean, and reading a book. A good excuse to do nothing, actually. Other than drink coffee. Certainly better than staggering around the ship.
Lunch. Read. Coffee. Read some more. Drink some more coffee.
Back to our cabin late afternoon to see what we have to do about packing our suitcases, and the instructions were all there … so we packed up most of our stuff, locked our bags and put them outside ready for collection.
The COVID situation onboard is clearly getting worse because there are an increasing number of cabins with room service trays out in the corridor, and last night our waiter at dinner told us that all of the room stewards had been repurposed as room service stewards to keep up the demand. That probably explains why the restaurants have been quite empty.
COVID, plus people that don’t want to wear a mask all of the time, plus those that simply don’t want to take the risk and would rather isolate so that they don’t get it, rather than because they have (got it).
Everywhere you look there is another room service steward pushing a trolley around … although we were also told that all 1,000 staff on board had been tested and nobody gave a positive result.
I find that a bit hard to believe, but whatever …
Dinner at Botticelli restaurant again, then up to Level 14 to see if there is a sunset, but we saw something better than a sunset – Australia!!
Turned our phones off Airplane mode and we could check emails, talk to the boys, update Facebook, catch up on the news …
Another music trivia game and it is all done. No more trivia games. No more prizes. I’m sure that we could go to the nightclub and find some action, but …
We need to wind our clocks back another hour tonight to bring us back to Melbourne time (DST), and then we will wind them back another hour tomorrow to bring us back to Queensland time.
We’d put our bags outside our room before dinner and they were gone when we got back tonight. Hopefully we will be reunited with them again when we disembark.
All reports are that it will be cold in Melbourne tomorrow, and the boys tell us it has been stinking hot at home.
One more sleep.
TTFN
#G&KDoNZ2022