AT SEA, en route to Esperance, Australia – March 14

it's over

Very overcast, 19 degrees – good enough to ‘force’ the balcony


This morning, we learned the cruise has been cancelled out right. We saw this online shortly before we received official notice from Regent. I’m glad we made the decision on our own, if we hadn’t it would have been the same decision made for us a day later and we would have felt like we were scrambling for flights etc., now this is done. This has been a very crazy, weird time. We are looking forward to our time in Perth, but more to our time at home... especially now that it seems like we’ll have 14 more days at home together self quarantining!

making the best of things

Today was a bit of a weird day. We all know we are going home, but some parts of the cruise are operating like usual…it’s weird to go to dinner or go to the show like we have for the last 2 months with a bit of a pall hanging over everything. The lounges are very quiet, even quieter compared to the last time I mentioned them being quite – I imagine it’s even weirder for the musicians. 

Until yesterday we’ve had a great time and plan to continue to have a great time, if we can, until we get home. We can’t do much about anything now. I’m glad we didn’t have a decision to make when we boarded this ship 10 weeks ago. 10 weeks ago, we knew the virus existed, were aware of the situation in China and certainly monitored it as we moved from port to port, but never thought things would come to this.


I’m sure I’ve never lived in a more sanitized environment…things on the ship are cleaner than clean. Tonight, Chris gambled a bit…no more reusable cards. Now they use paper cards that are incinerated after use – not exactly after how many uses, but when he sat down they opened a brand new box. They no longer use the mechanical shuffler/dealer, but shuffle and deal by hand…old school. Not sure how the chips are cleaned, if they are…they must be.


We chatted with a few of the staff today. They think/hope they are going home. They will be paid out for their current contracts – they will get their basic pay, but of course no overtime or additional pay. Once their contracts are over whether here or home, they will be earning no more money - there are many more issues beyond my travels being cancelled.