AT SEA, Cruising The Tasman Sea – March 5

taste test

Torrential downpour, then rain, then eventually some blue sky, 16 degrees

The plan today was to spend as much time as possible on the balcony. Ha…so much for plans. Once Chris opened the curtains, even from bed, I could see rain bouncing off of the deck! Nope, there would be no balcony time anytime soon.

So…what to do…no real reason to even get out of bed. I made use of the new room’s espresso machine and checked the tweets – as they say. Every morning I check what new and ominous reports there are regarding the corona virus pertaining to cruises.
Speaking of the COVID19, our cruise line (like others) gave passengers the

pilot extrication

opportunity to cancel, and it’s obvious that some did. The maximum capacity of this ship is somewhere around 700; we’ve heard that there is about 450 on right now. There were even less recently when a bunch of people did an overland trip to Uluru (formerly known as Ayers Rock) not sure how many, but the ship was mighty empty – we’ve never had such attentive dinner service!

We attended a frequent guest ‘event’ right before lunch. Usually these frequent guest events are short shows that are only available to frequent guests – charming and make you feel ‘special’. I don’t need to be made to feel special other than recognizing the number of nights we’ve sailed…it’s subtly obvious (can you be subtly obvious?) that the world cruisers are offered preferential treatment. It’s pretty hard to be offered preferential treatment on this cruise line, where everyone is treated very well, but there’s just something…

Anyway, we were pretty sure this event would be a cheerleading event for the new ship, launched last week. We were skeptical and although typically always go to these events, thought twice…we were right to think twice…it was as we thought…45 minutes I’ll never get back, upper management congratulating themselves on how awesome they are…not our scene. Not even a drink or canapé :0!

It was block part time again, which was nice, because we’ve moved rooms and have new neighbors. Most of the people in our ‘hood believe it or not are Canadians! This was a good time to hear the gossip too, apparently Sri Lanka turned away cruise ships today…ugh! If we missed Sri Lanka we wouldn’t be sad as we’ve been there, but unless we replace it with something else, that would mean 2 additional sea days! Good grief! 

Tonight I had a tasting of American versus Australian beef…interesting! 2 cuts, exactly the same, cooked the same way. Australian – grain fed, American – corn fed. I thought they were EXACTLY THE SAME. Of course I wanted to like the Australia better, but I didn’t.



And yesterday…I forgot to mention, we watched the pilot get off of our boat and onto the pitot boat…it was crazy…it was windy, rainy, watery, and splashy…it seemed like the pilot helper was strapped to the front of the pilot boat. We enjoyed our steak while he was pummelled and waited for the pilot to get onto his boat to get out. It was something.