Friday, February 22, 2008

February 22 (day and night before Sydney)

February 22 (day and night before Sydney)
Eastern Time plus 16 hours

Due to the fact that Stirling and Clare were leaving and had collected lots of contraband, they called us up to see if we wanted anything. This was sort of rummage sale. One of the best things was breakfast in bed menus that he had swiped off the cart for the Grills Cabins (the Swells area). He had been using them and we even did it once and it worked. For example, they have 8 choices of Breakfast meat alone! Quite an extensive menu! He offered us all of his flowers, swiped and purchased. We have plenty of flowers!

There have been questions about our tablemates following Jo and Greg. Jo and Greg are from Melbourne, but left the ship in Auckland as that was as far as they could get because the ship was full.

The table assignments continue to be a problem. We had a table for 6 from Los Angeles to Sydney. One British couple was assigned to our table and never showed up for the entire 24 days. The head waiter called them to see if Bob Macomber could sit there with us one night. They said yes, but that they still wanted their places held. They never showed up. The only reason we ended up with Jo and Greg is because they were sitting with some French people that spoke only French all night. So they asked to be reassigned and jumped over to our table luckily. The language thing is a problem. It is easy to sit with people for a couple of nights, but if English is a second or third language, it can get very tiring. Lots of smiling and nodding and gesturing… You can't really discuss anything. If Jo and Greg wouldn't have moved, it would have just been the two of us at a table for 6.

Our new tablemates were named Val and Denise. They are both from Sydney originally and were quite fun. We weren't the best tablemates to them this time. Between our colds and various other reasons, we missed dinner several times.

They were getting off in Sydney as were Stirling and Clare.

The last night was a Masquerade Ball. We have had various themed balls throughout the cruise. Jeff and I haven't participated unless dragged there by Stirling and Clare. That night the four of them had masks and one extra. I used my cold as my excused not to contaminate a mask. We had a wonderful night. Lots of laughs and merriment!

Here are Clare, Jeff, Stirling and Val in their masks!

Things went from bad to worse when we ended up getting 3 more bottle of Perrier Jouet Champagne. We went to the Ball and Stirling was whipping everyone around in his Owl mask. Jeff made quite a funny video of it; sorry I can't put it on here.

This ship has what are called Gentleman Hosts. There are 10 or 12 on for every segment. They are about 200 years old. They get out there and shove the single old ladies around the dance floor. One hilarious occurrence that night was when one of the old birds thought Jeff was one of the hosts and went after him.

At the end we decided to go to Stirling and Clare's balcony at 5:30 AM to watch the approach to Sydney. Denise used her lipstick on my card to write down their cabin number. Jeff and I volunteered to bring the champagne because we happened to have another bottle of Perrier Jouet Champagne in our refrigerator.

2 comments:

Liz said...

I got a headache just reading this post! Sounds like a fun night!

Anonymous said...

Sounds like that old bird had too much champagne who was after Uncle Jeff. I continue to laugh loudly to myself as I read your stories. Pete looks at me strange.
XOXO