kernow

The 80s night was fab, a packed dance floor for the whole hour, we were up for most of it. Once again the crowd covered all ages, from a family with a toddler to people in their 70s, lovely to see so many people having fun on this cruise. When we got back to the cabin someone was waiting for us😆

We finally left Vanuatu around 7 pm and are now back at sea. The Australian Beatles show was enjoyable, now in 270 waiting for the 80s night to begin.

Not sure if it means we are missing Tauranga, maybe just reduced hours so not enough time for our excursion?

We haven't made any plans, think we may do the hop on/hop off train. I've just had an email from RCL cancelling our Tauranga tour next week, says due to a change in plans!

Yes, haven't heard anything official but rumours are that it's a child, fingers crossed they will be OK. The wife of the man airlifted the other day posted in the FB group this morning. A very informative post with photos and thanks to the crew, he is now doing well😀.

That is our thoughts too. For the first time today the Compass says this. The sanitization bit has not been there before. We mentioned Covid to the Concierge and he didn't deny it.

Well look out for you next week. You'll probably spot us first as we seem to be the only ones with the English accents😆.

We were supposed to have left Vila at 6pm, just before the captain came on and said we would be delayed as we had another medical emergency onboard and we were waiting for an air ambulance to come to Vanuatu to Medivac them to Australia. Apparently Vanuatu does not have a big hospital with good medical facilities. After a couple of hours there was another announcement saying the plane would not be arriving until noon today so we were staying at anchor in the bay until then. As I write this it is 11.57 am and we still haven't moved. Presumably the patient is still onboard in the medical facility. There are no tenders running and they are just counting this as a sea day. At least we have nice views 😁. This is actually turning into a bit of a strange cruise all round. According to the entertainment sheet when we boarded there was supposed to be a show in the theatre last night, by headliners Boys in the Band. It didn't happen and we heard no explanation why. There have been no production shows either, there was a comedian the other night which didn't appeal to us so we haven't even been to the theatre yet. Entertainment wise this is by far the worst cruise we've ever been on, we really are struggling to find things to do. Tonight does sound more promising with a show by the Australian Beatles and then an 80s party in 270. We were beginning to wonder if this is how Australian cruises are but we've just been chatting to our cabin neighbours who said they think it's poor too and not normal. For the second night in a row our MDR waitress was missing last night, headwaiter admitted she is 'ill.' We did have a fantastic waiter who told us he'd been bought in from Chops to cover, the previous night we'd had another random waiter. We had no assistant waiter either, we noticed he was working at tables on the other side of the dining room. They seem really stretched. Our neighbours this morning told us they dine in Silk and get a speech every night encouraging them to try the other venues around the ship! Captain has now just announced our departure has been pushed back to approx 3.30 pm😵.

And a few more, if anyone is coming and wants more info from the local map, I have the whole sheet.

More pics from our day.

We enjoyed a lovely day in Port Vila. We got a tender about 10am. D and D+ do not officially get priority tickets but Haffnar said if we come to the lounge when we are ready to go he would take us down. The tender goes to the commercial port area which is around the bay from the town centre. From there you can catch a cab or a water taxi into the shopping area, both cost 5 Au dollars pp each way. The taxi drivers were also offering tours to various sights around the island. We decided to get a water taxi into town. For those of a nervous disposition be aware that this is nothing like the big boat taxi in St Maarten, it's just locals with their little motor boats. Getting on and off was a bit wobbly especially if someone stood up too quickly😁. It was good fun though particularly as it started raining when we were halfway across the bay! The tropical climate certainly made for a frizzy hair day for me. The boat drops you right in town, there is normally a local food market there but the building was deserted as it was closed on Sundays. Because Ovation was in port many of the shops had opened. There are several duty free shops with really cheap prices for alcohol, tobacco, perfumes etc. Unfortunately for us with two long flights home we couldn't really buy the alcohol, Mark did get some aftershave though. By this time the rain had stopped so we started walking out through the other side of the town along the coast. There was an area with some gardens leading down to little sandy coves where all the locals were with their families. Everyone was super friendly and struck up conversations with us, asking about the ship and telling us about Vanuatu. Apparently we are only the second ship to have come in as Vanuatu has only just opened up to tourists since covid, they all seemed really pleased to have the visitors back. After walking a little way we started to come to some small beachfront hotels and restaurants. It was getting really hot by now so we decided to go for drinks and a snack (of course we need more food, not🤣). As we sat at a table looking out over the beautiful bay we were pinching ourselves, thinking how lucky we were to be in such a beautiful place that we had barely even heard of until we booked this trip. After lunch we headed back into town and took the water taxi back to the dock. Along the road where the taxis drop you there are stalls set up by the local Mamas selling souvenirs so we wandered around them before catching the tender back. We thought the whole experience of Vila was fabulous. The scenery is so beautiful and the people are lovely. There was no pressure from anyone the way there can sometimes be in the Caribbean Islands and it felt very relaxed. It's such a shame that our stop in Mystery Island has been cancelled, we'd love to have seen a bit more of this country.

Are you on the next cruise? Yes it would be great to team up for trivia. We've just done the third round and we did terrible today, there were a few Australian questions (about Prime Minister, AFL, airport codes) and we had no idea😅. No excuses though, there was also a question about Last Night of the Proms and we didn't even get that one! Yes, we are in a balcony too and there is a kettle, fairly sure JS have a coffee machine too.

Hi @Chiliburn, nice to meet you, sorry I'm only just back online using another free 24 hours😀.

Just stepped out onto the balcony at 7.30 am. What a lovely view to wake up to.

We ended up not going ashore tonight. By the time we would have got a tender ticket it would have been well after 6 and we'd made no plans so we decided to have dinner on the ship and get off tomorrow morning. Quite a few people seemed to have the same idea so although the ship was quieter than usual there was still plenty going on. We had dinner in the MDR, service was very quick as there were a lot of empty tables. Afterwards we went to Schooner bar for a change. It's now 10.30pm and we are back in the cabin ready for a full day ashore tomorrow. Forgot to mention that the captain did update us all earlier that the person evacuated yesterday made it in time to have surgery in Noumea and is now doing better.😀

We're in the bay and tenders have been lowered.

Land ahead, our first view of Vanatu.

We did ask but Concierge said he doesn't know yet. Think we are doing the Picton wine tour with you, see you next week😀

Last night we overheard half a conversation in the D lounge and it sounded like someone was saying that D+ were allowed in the Concierge lounge. This morning Mark walked to the back of deck 12 to see and it's true. The concierge told him that it's done on a cruise by cruise basis on this ship but they don't really announce it. It's a long walk back here but the view is worth it!

The weather this morning is much warmer, currently 28 deg C. Seas are also very smooth now.

Solarium Bistro food

Yesterday was another lazy day. I managed to face time my dad back home, was not sure it would work using just our surf Internet but the connection was good. The internet on this ship seems quite fast so far. We then spent an hour or so trying to find a solution to our damaged suitcases, I won't go into detail at the moment as it's still ongoing but we are not very happy with RCLs current offering. If anyone reading this has had luggage damaged previously please can you let me know how it was resolved. We then went to the sundeck and walked pur daily 6 laps (just over 2 miles). The weather has been getting gradually warmer and the seas calmer. Progressive trivia is at 1pm daily, we did OK the first day, a bit less well this time😫. Our excuse is that there is only the 2 of us, usually we find it pretty easy to team up with others but no one seemed interested in joining us this cruise ( perhaps we look a bit thick🤣). The meet up for our FB group was at 2, we met up and chatted to some nice people. During this the captain made an announcement that we had a medical emergency onboard and a helicopter would be coming from Noumea to evacuate someone. A bit later on the ship came to a standstill and we saw the helicopter. We've not heard anything but hopefully it was in time and the passenger is recovering. Last night we dined in the Solarium Bistro which was a first for us. We really enjoyed the food, the buffet for the starters was just our kind of food. We'll probably book again sometime during this trip. After dinner we headed to Boleros which is becoming our regular haunt this cruise. The band that play in there are really good (called Pulso). The staff are also great.

We haven't booked anything, just going to get off and decide then. I think the early tenders will be very busy later so we may just stay onboard and get off for the full day tomorrow. There is a 70s/80s night in the Music Hall tonight so hopefully plenty of music we know😃. Just from the FB group I have a feeling the next cruise might have a totally different demographic.

After dinner we headed for the silent disco, normally our favourite entertainment. I'm 57 and for the first time in my life on a ship I felt old🤣. Two70 was packed, we got our headphones and put them on, we tried both channels then looked at each other in horror, neither of us knew any of the songs. They were clearly aimed at the very young crowd onboard who were packed onto the dance floor singing along. No sign of any 70s, 80s or even 90s music that we might know we decided to head to the 'oldies' band who play in Boleros and we had enjoyed the previous night😁. Joking aside though it is lovely to see so many youngsters onboard enjoying themselves and they do also seem very well behaved. Just been chatting to a couple of (our age) Australians at breakfast and apparently the youngsters are 'schoolies', 18 and 19 year old who have just left school.

The food in Wonderland.