Rhapsody Review..An oldy but a goody..part 2

[robynwally]

Day 5 – Wednesday 26/01/200

Sea Day

· Got up at 12. Again. I know its pretty slack but, in all honesty, all I figure

is that I'm missing out on is a buffet breakfast which, although you can't

get it often at home, its not really a must see and do attraction for me.

What I don't understand is why Craig manages to wake up somewhat

earlier than me, but doesn't go out and do anything...strange.

· By the time we got out of bed, there was the usual (by now) knock at the

door. It was Mum wanting to know if we wanted to go to lunch. Since we

had no other plans, we went.

· The lunch itself was very nice. I chose the buffalo wing sandwich which

was 2 bits of fancy bread and a massive chunk of deep fried chicken.

Yum! We got seated with a bunch of people that were very nice. One thing

that I do have a problem with though is those people who act like they

know everything. You know the ones who always seem to be the ones that

correct everyone else. An example was a woman who's son, who allegedly

“got done” by the cops but is also a lawyer, couldn't get out of some traffic

offence. Another guy at the table had a suggestion of getting the police on

perjury or something. Now as if the lawyer wouldn't know that! The same

man seemed very opinionated on politics. Never trust anyone who is

opinionated on politics. Everyone knows that most politics is rubbish and

that in 95% of all cases each party would make the same decisions. Talk

about something more interesting and don't act like you know everything

when you don't. That's all I'm saying.

· Also at lunch, Dad ordered a cappuccino. The waiter had to go up 2 flights

of stairs and across the Centrum to a take-away coffee place (called Lattetudes......

get it?). Apparently the cappuccino machine was not on at the

restaurant or something.

· Following lunch, Craig and I headed back to our cabin. The weather was a

bit on and off so watched a bit of TV. I know what you are thinking, why

didn't we go and do something else? Let's put it this way. Mum and Dad

had gone to watch an art auction instead. Yeah...an art auction...on a ship. I

mean I know they need activities to keep people happy, but an art auction?

Different strokes for different folks I guess.

· Went to watch Mum try to blitz the Wii Fit Hula Hoop competition. She

got 291, which is pretty good. There was another guy (named Gary) who

had a go. Well, he actually had 3 goes. His highest score was 9. Mum

ended up getting beaten by 1 hoop! But after all the people who signed up

to do it had a go, there was room for 2 more. After only 1 person

volunteered, I (in retrospect) stupidly volunteered. I only got 150 odd! I

was very upset at myself, but I would like to think that it could have been

just an issue with the weight calibration.......or I just suck. Regrettably, that

would not be the worst humiliation I would have to suffer through today...

· After the Wii Fit, and Mums medal presentation (well, her getting given

her medal), there wasn't much planned until dinner, so we went for a walk

around the boat. Went to see if the rock climbing wall was open, but due to

the inclement weather, it wasn't. Kept walking about for a bit until we

found that shuffle board was free. Sadly between the 4 of us, it took 2

games (or 12 ends!) to get a result. Ended up Craig and I won, but none of

us have any right to be happy with how we went.

· Note: Just one funny thing I forgot to mention was during the Wii Fit

game, there was one Asian woman that was having a go and her husband

was shouting “faster, faster” at her. After the woman had a go, it was his

turn. He did really well and had the high score when he finished. As he

walked off, he pointed to a cartoon character on his shirt (Mr. Incredible)

and said proudly, “I'm Mr Incredible!”. 2 seconds later he tripped over flat

onto his stomach. It was priceless. Yet it wasn't my top priceless moment

for the day...

· Dad decided he would do a vitality fitness event for the day, which was the

mile walk. He says he felt like doing something healthy, but we all know

its because if you do enough events, you can redeem your participation in

those events for souvenirs. I think he's gunning for a key chain, as that's

only 3 events. The next item is a drink bottle at 12 events. He could not

possibly be bothered to get that. I decided not to do the walk as I've been

walking up and down the stairs all the time. I instead read my Jeremy

Clarkson book, which is keeping me entertained.

· Almost as soon as the mile walk was over (which is about 4 laps of the

ship, if you are wondering) the dark clouds started rolling in. The change

in weather was incredible. You could see what looked like a wall of rain

heading towards us. The wind picked up, then the rain hit, then everyone

was inside. It was almost surreal the power and speed at which it came

over. (Ok, surreal is the wrong term, but it's been left in in the very remote

chance Adam Hills ever reads this)

· Went to dinner after the downpour. We somehow managed to find out that

one of the dinner guests at the table, Amber, didn't tell us that it was her

birthday yesterday. So as punishment we told the waiters who come and

sing happy birthday. She probably regrets saying anything now. Also,

seems like we are all going to try and get a minibus to Million Dollar

Beach/Bay tomorrow, since one of the couples got burnt in Noumea by

taking the cruise booked tour rather than booking locally.

· Dinner was finished with plenty of time before the show, so we all went

back to the parents' cabin and watched yet another Royal Caribbean

documentary. They have loads!

· Figured we better get to the performance early since we expected it to be

quite popular. Apparently half an hour before isn't considered early since

the theatre was already half full. The performance was by the finalists in

Australia's Got Talent, Soul Mystique. These are the fast clothes changers,

but they performed with a lot more dancing since they used to be a

dancesport partnership for Australia. Apart from the performance, which

of course was very good, there were 2 other highlights.

o Highlight 1: At one point, the guy offered to demonstrate how he does

the “quickchange (official term).” Once he started, the music that was

used during last nights magicians performance for his slow motion gag

was playing. I thought, well 1, that this gags already been done, and 2,

hope the magician has something to do with this. No sooner do I think

this that the magician ran out, did his “sexy look” and walked off in

slow motion. This made the joke hilarious, as well as make no sense to

those who didn't see the previous nights show.

o Highlight 2: The guy was going though bits and pieces of the show

saying how Lydia (his co performer and I think wife) did all the work.

He would say 'Who does all the costumes? Lydia. Do you know who

does the choreography? Lydia.” etc etc. Then he said “I guess you're

wondering at this point what I do.” and someone shouted “Lydia!” It

was very funny (although I wouldn't be surprised if it was set up....).

Guess you had to be there.

· As soon as the performance concluded, we raced to the Shall We Dance

lounge, as we were promised some fun adult entertainment. It had been

talked up all week without actually telling us what it was. We were just

told to make sure we were at 'The Quest'. That was all. It didn't fail to

disappoint. The Quest turned out to be a scavenger hunt type deal where

you had to find an item from someone within your group of 5-8 people,

run it out to the front and get points. 1st got 5 points, 2nd got 4 etc etc down

to 1, and then every team from there would get 1 point. I recall playing

pretty much the same game on the coach while in Europe (with each side

of the coach being a team).

IF YOU DON"T WANT TO SPOIL THE FUN AND YOU HAVE NOT YET ATTENDED A QUEST> PLEASE DO NOT READ THE NEXT TEXT IN ITALICS

· Items that had to be provided were:

o Daily Compass (our daily cruise guide): Oddly we didn't have one,

despite the fact throughout the whole trip Mum and Dad have had one

on them at almost all times

o A Map: Again, no one had one.

o A picture of yourself: Craig had his passport in case he got asked for

I.D since it was supposed to be only for 18+ years of age. He had got

asked twice at the disco last night. In the end, he didn't get checked

tonight. This was probably fortunate as upon sitting down from taking

 

the passport up it turned out he had brought my passport instead of his.

We still got a point though.

o An Australian $10 bill: No one had brought a wallet, so again we lost

out.

o A man with his pants on backwards: Everyone looked at me when this

was announced, so after rolling my eyes, dropped the daks, put them

on backwards and ran out to get the point.

o Two different coloured shoe laces, not in their shoes: Since Dad and

Dave (the older man from our dinner table) were the only two with

shoes on with laces, they had to pull the laces from their shoes and I

had to run them out. Luckily they were different colours.

o A sock with a hole in it: Dad usually has a sock with a hole in them,

but tonight didn't. So he made one. Turns out they would have

accepted any socks since they all have a hole, but you never know how

strict they will be with these things. (Oh, and Craig will kill me if I

don't mention that he said that all socks have holes in them before the

announcer said this.)

o A woman with a tattoo, but not on her face: No luck for us with this

one, but one girl was on the dance floor super quick, had to pull up her

dress and show one that she had on her back. However she forgot to

show her number, so they made her flash the tatt again.

o A woman doing the worm: Mum got suckered into that one.

o Two belts: I ran up Dads and Dave's.

o A man and woman, each with one leg each in a single pair of pants:

Dave and Kathy did that one.

o Two pairs of pants, not worn: I ran Craig's and my own up. So I was in

the middle of a dance floor in a shirt and jocks. Great.

o Two shirts, not worn: Again, I was up there with no shirt on while

taking another man's shirt.

o A piece of fresh fruit: We were out of luck on that one. (Was funny

watching one group try to pull the lime out of a bottle of Carona

though....unsuccessfully.)

o Two men skipping hand in hand: Craig and I did this one. We got 3rd

place for that one. Woohoo!

o The Finale: Every group had 1½ minutes to dress up a man as a

woman and get them to stand on the dance floor. That was 5 points.10

if you didn't wear any pants. Dad went and got the 10 points, all the

while not being able to do Mum's bra up. Then all the men had to walk

26

around the room to the tune “Man, I feel like a woman.” Dad was by

no means the worst given the ages of some of the people there.

· It was all very fun, but we didn't win. We really needed to be front row

with wallets, compasses and maps. Ah well. At this point, you would be

mistaken for thinking that Dad in a bra would be my priceless moment of

the day. While we were discussing the events of the Quest, we talked

about Dad rushing to get ready and he came up with this line, “I didn't

have time to get my pants off because I was too busy trying to get my bra

on.” Never before in the history of man has such a sentence been spoken,

and (fingers crossed) it will never be again. However not even this was my

priceless moment of the day.

· The priceless moment of the day came when the groups were asked to

present a set of false teeth. We had an older couple that joined up with us

for this game and one of them had false teeth. Knowing that he was our

only chance he sprang out of his char. At this point it is important to note

that we were sitting in a 3rd row of chairs from the front. I had a small gap

that I could kind of jump through and access the dance floor quite quickly,

but this man didn't have a gap. For a split second I thought he was going to

run over to my gap or, what would have been worse, hand the falsies over

to me (thank god he didn't do that!). Instead he ran through the chairs in

front of him, knocking the (quite heavy) chairs out of the way and sending

the people in them flying out of the chairs. I know you will never get the

full picture of this, but it really was priceless.

· After the event finished, the cover band started. Now, most cover bands

don't know a great collection of songs but this one does. Like most cover

bands though, the songs never sound quite the same as the original. In the

case of this band, its a good thing. Not to be racist, but until you have

heard a cover of such classics as The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, The

Foundations etc through the twang of Asian accents, you haven't lived.

The accent is just strong enough to be entertaining but not so strong as to

be annoying. I love them!

· At 12, headed back to get some sleep and write the day's diary. (I think I

keep mentioning writing this because it seemed to take up so much effort.)

It's now 3! And people wonder why I don't get up in the mornings!

· Note: Free Willy gave Dad a Pick Me Up tonight. I was pretty distraught

at the fact that I couldn't make a funny sentence using that drinks name.

· Note 2: Dad suggested that I get up and dance with some of the girls after

the Quest. Now I've discussed said issues earlier here, but I'd just like to

point out one issue here. Dancing while he was watching would be like

going to a primary school disco and him watching while DJ'ing. Wouldn't

that be embarrassing...hold on...memories flooding back...he did DJ at one

of my discos at primary school! I should really get a psychologist to read

this...

 

Day 6 – Thursday 27/11/2008

Luganville

· I'm starting to think that I am allergic to breakfast. Missed it again today.

Had to be out on dock by 9:15 to pick up the minibus that had been

organised for our dinner group.

· Got out at 9:15 and Dave was already bargaining the price of the minibus

with the driver (Willie...yep, another Willie!).Ended up getting everyone a

ride for $50 AU for the day.

· The first place everyone decided to go to was Million Dollar Bay. It

apparently had a nice coral reef and boat wreck there. Before we got there

though, we had to get there and we soon learned that this would be no

mean feat. The roads here are as uneven and pot holes as you can imagine.

Thankfully the ride was not too long.

· Million Dollar Bay was a great looking place and the water was so warm.

Very easy to ease yourself into. There was quite a bit of coral and fish and

things to look at as well as a lot of junk. Apparently the Americans

dumped a whole heap of rubbish into the bay after the War. It looked like a

cross between an aquarium and Papa's back shed. On the plus side, it

seemed like most of the coral was growing best on all the wreckage. We

also saw the boat wreck. Looked like it wasn't a huge boat. Thankfully the

weather wasn't bad, although it was very overcast. It meant we didn't get

too burnt though, which is always good.

· We left to head towards the cultural activity park next. If we had been

directing ourselves we would never have got there. The entrance sign

looked like a piece of canvas written on with pencil. The entrance fee was

$5 (as it was for Million Dollar Bay), even though the woman at the

entrance first said it was $10. I think we may have been given a shorter

tour as a result.

· We were told many things about the uses of different plants and such. It

was at this point that I was reminded of a dinner conversation from the

other night where we were discussing how gullible Americans are when

we tell them stupid stories. I though this could be an example of us being

the gullible ones. It definitely would not have been worth the $50 US the

boat was asking for an organised trip to see this.

· As part of the so-called welcome, we were asked to get our face painted.

The end result was that we looked like we had visited a mental asylum and

had let the head retard finger paint on our faces after throwing about its

own faeces.

· The face painting was followed by a bunch of dancing. There was no real

explanation of why they were dancing apart from the fact it gives more

people a reason to go there.

· Our next destination was decided to be the Blue Hole. However this meant

a very long journey on more hard dirt areas filled with water, or as they

like to call them here, roads. The potholes are becoming bone-jarring and

we felt like the minibus wasn't that comfortable. That was until we caught

up to a ute that had 2 kids and a mother in the back. The kids looked very

unhappy with where they had been put and we all thought that was

hilarious. Upon overtaking them, we also saw the father in the front

looking very comfortable. It got even better when 2 minutes later it started

to pour down with rain. Suddenly our air conditioned minibus seemed like

luxury.

· After a half hour ride on the unsealed road, we (almost) arrived at the Blue

Hole. There was one hill that our minibus couldn't get up because of the

rain and mud. It took 3 goes and some weight adjustment (everyone

jumping in the back seats) to get it up the hill, but we got there eventually.

It's fairly safe to say that minibuses are not designed for the angles and

muddy potholed road that this was driven on.

· The Blue Hole itself was very good. The water was so clear and so blue. It

was also incredibly cold. I took a run up to get in because if I tried to ease

myself in, it would never have happened. Once in and used to it, it was

quite nice. That was until Craig and I discovered we are not very good at

floating. The salt water was ok, but this was completely fresh water. We

were buggered from just trying to stay afloat by the time we got out.

· After this we drove down to the Turtle Grass beach, which was on a resort,

so we kind of just parked in its parking area and walked around. The view

was good, of course, but the resort also claimed to have a circus! Wow! In

reality it was a tent with a trampoline and a landing mat. Luganville don't

have high circus standards.

· Eventually got back to the dock after briefly seeing an American war

shelter, a bit of Luganville suburbia and a lot more dealing with bad roads.

I promised Willie I would tell Adam and Brownie about him.

Unfortunately that didn't get us a discount.

· Spent an hour or so walking around the markets. Mum got Lynda a pin and

some tea towel. I also worked out I lost my sunglasses, but as I was telling

Dad, I worked out he was wearing them. Problem solved.

· After waiting around for dinner (spent wisely writing this diary so I can

sleep tonight), we headed off to dinner at the Edelweiss restaurant. Dinner

was delicious as always. I had a pumpkin soup, tempura batter fish and

Brownie Madness for dessert. All nice.

· Note: While I'm discussing the dinner, I feel like I should make a mention

of Melvin. He's been a great waiter, nothing but nice and helpful as well as

introducing two new terms to our vocabularies. One is Yummy Yummy,

which is the new name for dessert, and the other is Quack Quack, which is

for the duck. It's not so much the words themselves as the way he says

them.

· After dinner, Dad got his usual shot from Free Willy. He had a sip of Choc

Chip. Again a boring name.

· Following dinner we went to the Country Name That Tune quiz. Why?

Well there was not that much else to do. None of us were that keen

(particularly Dad, who was practically asleep) but we entered anyway. In

the end, out of a total of 16 possible points we got 7. What is even scarier

is that we would have been in equal second place. So so sad.

· After our freakishly good performance in the quiz, everyone went to get a

seat for the country and western performance (sensing a theme? It was

country and western night on the ship). I had to go back to the cabin and

discovered that we had yet another towel animal. This time it was an

elephant. Very cool. On the way back I ran into Malbert, our stateroom

attendant (or cabin cleaner) and said thanks for the cool animal.

· The country performance was okay. Nothing exceptional, but then again,

not my style (although the 7/16 would beg to differ!). Mum shouted a

grasshopper cocktail since it was 2 for 1 night. Was very sweet and I could

only drink it in small sips. Tasted like a choc-mint biscuit or a peppermint

aero bar. By the end when the ice had melted though, it just tasted like

putrid milk water. Yuck.

· Note: After mentioning the grasshopper and then thinking about the lame

grasshopper joke (if you don't know it, just google “grasshopper bar joke”

and I'm sure you'll find it), it reminded me of something strange last night.

After the man with the false teeth incident, Dad and I were sitting there

after the Quest show. After a bit, the wife of the old man came up to Dad

and randomly asked him “do you know where you get black teeth?” Dad

thought he must have misheard her so she repeated “Do you know where

you get black teeth?” Dad replied no, to which she said “On a men's

comb.” Ba da boom tish! That was a very very odd moment.

· Following the show, we all went back to bed to get some sleep. Well,

except me. I am stuck doing this writing gig again. It wouldn't be so bad

but it takes me ages because the TV is so interesting. Now, they have a

few cable channels like; MTV, movies, E!, CBS (highlights of), CNN, the

Australia Network etc etc, but I keep getting stuck on 2 channels in

particular. One is the Live station which, although not technically live,

shows informative pieces by the entertainment director that have been

filmed during the trip. That's pretty cool. The second is RCTV, which

stands for Royal Caribbean Reality TV. This shows, practically 24/7, a

variety of documentaries on building, maintaining and the new features of

various in the Royal Caribbean fleet. It's incredibly addictive despite the

fact I've practically seen them all by now. I guess it's because being on

such a similar ship I can gain a grasp on the confines and scale of the work

and equipment that goes into these.

· Attempting to now fall asleep at midnight. Don't remember the last time

that happened.

 

Day 7 – Friday 28/11/2008

Port Vila

· Woke up to a gorgeous day today (finally) and it stayed that way. Despite

this Craig still had to beg me to get out of bed in enough time to grab a

small bite of breakfast (2 small croissants) before we had to be outside to

get picked up for our abseiling tour.

· Needn't have worried about being so early. Our tickets said to be ready by

9:15 for a 9:30 pick-up. Turns out that they combined 2 groups into 1

major group that eventually departed at 10 am. It was really hot already,

particularly with the humidity. We at least had some shade to sit under.

· After a 20 minute minibus ride we got out and met up with the tour guide,

signed out your-life-is-not-our-responsibility forms and then got ready by

putting on our harnesses. On the way out of the initial shelter, Craig hit his

head on the roof thatching. Today was not a good day for Craig, he also hit

his head on the way out of the minibus.

· To get to the top of the waterfalls, we had a 2km hike up some pretty steep

terrain. The heat made it pretty hard work and much of the hike was at a

steep angle, but the inclines had stairs carved into them, although they

were still muddy.

· Once we had got to the top, we had a view of the island almost all over.

We could even see our ship over the top of an island in the bay. After

some drinks (water) we had to cross a stream before getting to the practice

abseil site. I managed to only get one foot wet. A few minutes later we

were told to jump into a stream up to our waists, so I'm glad I tried to keep

my feet dry. Very worth it!

· Our practice site consisted of an 8 metre drop. Once we completed we had

to walk up a stairwell that had a torrent of water streaming down. It was

freezing but by the time you got to the top you were already warming up

so it wasn't so bad.

· After we did 2 practice runs, it was time for the big drop. Actually, it was

two 25 metre drops as opposed to one 50 metre drop, but there were no

areas to really stop so once you were on your way down, both drops were

done in quick succession

· On my way down I got stuck behind someone so I had to stay with one of

the instructors. I think he said his name Was Mauritius, but I couldn't hear

too well because of the waterfalls. We got talking and he asked my age. He

was a bit shocked when I said I was 23. He was even more shocked when I

said Craig was 20. Then he asked if I had a girlfriend. I said no, because

they all probably think I'm 17 and they don't want that. He thought that

was hilarious and he gave me a high 5. Then he put his fist out. I thought

he wanted to bump fists (or some “knuckle love”) but then he said I had to

put my finger out in a tight claw shape. He then grabbed the first knuckle

in between his pointer and middle finger knuckles and pulled back. It

made a clicking noise. It's awesome. It's like I now have a little bit of

blackness in me. My knuckle is sore from doing it all day since.

· The rest of the waterfall was great fun. It was a bit difficult to get down

while having instructions being shouted at us. At one point I lost control

and grabbed the wrong part of the rope out of instinct. Whop. Made it to

the bottom which ended in a deep rock pool. The water was freezing and

when you got out, we were shaded and the waterfall itself caused a strong

breeze. So the breeze combined with the shade and soaked clothes meant

that on a 28° day, I was frozen.

· When our group finished, we walked down the rest of the cascading water.

At one point there was a large rock that could be used as a water slide. We

let everyone else go first and I told Craig he could take the camera to take

a photo of me. Just after the man before us went in, Craig walked over to

slide down, but slipped and fell straight down the rock, almost hitting the

man below. It was truly hilarious.

· We got back down and dried out a bit while waiting for our second group

to finish. By the time they got down, it was already 3pm. We also had to

wait for the tour operators to burn CD's for people. Craig and I opted out

of getting one as it was $20. I justified it as thinking that I spent €10 on a

video from my European trip that I still haven't watched completely so $20

for a few photos are a bit of a rip off, especially since we already paid $95

US (well, not “us” but Mum and Dad) for the tour, I stand by it.

· Got back to the ship at 3:20. We were some of the last people to make it

back, but we had one of the event managers doing an evaluation of the tour

so they were never going to leave. We hung our clothes up to dry as they

were still soaked (especially our shoes). At this point (1 am) they have not

dried at all. Then we hunted Dad down.

· Caught him walking out of the Windjammer, so followed him up to the top

deck to watch the ship sail out. While we were out there they blew the

ships horn. It was so deep and loud it went right through me!

· Went down to the Windjammer to grab a bite since I was starved. Had 3

pieces of pizza, doughnut, 2 cookies, muffin and a bread roll. I regretted

this at dinner.

· After eating, Craig had a date with the Guitar Hero competition.

Unfortunately I got suckered into it too. The man from the ropes course

was there and he went before us. He got 99% on medium. When Craig and

I went, we had a bad run. We can blame the guitars, the game version, lots

of things but you know things definitely aren't right when I beat Craig! In

the end, I got 3rd, so I got a bronze medal and apparently Mum video taped

our failure...great.

· After the disappointment of the competition, it was time to go to dinner. It

was casual/tropical night, so I put my tropical shirt on jeans (not supposed

to wear shorts to the restaurants) but I was stuck on what I was going to

wear as footwear since my runners were soaking wet. Sadly, I had to break

the second of my 2 fashion rules. Never wear pants and thongs together. I

feel dirty just thinking about the fact I did that. (What is the first I hear you

ask? Never wear Crocs. Ever! I've seen people wearing them here and I

just shake my head).

· Dinner was nice as always, but filling. Felt quite sick after the triplelayered

cappuccino cake. Kept it all down though. Dinner was good

though to hear everyone's stories about their days. Oh and Free Willy got

paid by Dad for a Caribbean Romance.

· After dinner the whole table headed off for sports trivia. Among things we

learnt were:

o The ashes urn is Terracotta. We all thought wood, but lots of other

teams knew that it was at least some form of pottery.

o Mum cant multiply: How many men compete in the men's singles at

the Australian Open? The correct answer is 128. Mums theory was that

64x2=132 !?!?

o I saved us on a golf question, the youngest winner of the Australian

Open in 1999 being Aaron Baddely. We almost had Adam Scott put

down.

o Our first Olympic swimmer competed in 1900, Australia's second most

successful sport in the Olympics (for all time) is track and field, and we

won 16 gold in total in 2000.

o The Tasmanians didn't know they have Australia's oldest golf course.

Neither did we.

· In the end, we were only 2 or 3 off the top place, so we did okay.

· The performance tonight was good, based on a Las Vegas show, it was part

comedy, part magic act, part circus skills (juggling, balancing and hula

hooping). I think more information can be found at

http://www.justinoanddaniella.com given they put the address on the screen a fair

few times.

· After the performance, we went to watch the Finish That Lyric game

show. It was good fun. What was learnt at this event was:

o Mum knows the words to rubbish songs like Spinning Wheel (or

something like that, I'd never heard it before).

o Craig knows the words to BeeGees and Ricky Martin (make of that

what you will!)

o I was the only person in the room that knew Cameo sang Word Up

(also make of that what you will).

o Despite Dad having the biggest CD collection, he didn't contribute

much at all.

· It was over pretty quickly but it was entertaining. The best line of the night

was in regards to one of the prizes, a cooler bag, where the host said of the

cooler bag “It keeps hot stuff hot and cold stuff cold. How can it tell which

is which? No one knows.” Writing it makes it sound less funny, but trust

me when I say it was funny. The girl who won it was a deserving winner

and knew quite a few (in my mind) more obscure songs.

· Got to bed by 12 after finding Craig's #7 for his daily photo tonight. Wrote

this till 2:15. Its definitely more effort than its worth.

 

Day 8 – Saturday 29/11/2008

Isle of Pines

· Note: Before I begin today, I forgot to mention that yesterday on the drive

back to the ship, I saw a local wearing a 2006 commonwealth games

volunteers shirt. I thought that was a bit weird and unexpected.

· Got up a bit later today due to us planning to leave the boat at 10.

Managed to sneak up to get some breakfast (although I only had an apple

juice). Went to the Schooner Bar (this is where they were handing out the

tickets to leave the ship). Mum and Dad weren't there. They ended up

being in their cabin, despite what we discussed last night.

· Waiting to leave the ship by tender only took 15 minutes. For those who

don't know, Tender is when the ship anchors off shore and you then have

to take a small boat, in our case they still held 120 people each (so not that

small) to drop you off at a pier/dock.

· Looking out at the Isle was amazing. It was an absolutely stunning day and

the beach was perfect. Walking onto the land and seeing the beach to our

left, it already looked busy. But then there was another beach over to our

right, almost the exact same in appearance and the exact same in busyness.

· Walked to almost the end of the beach where there was a sign asking

cruise patrons not to step onto the beach, so we took 2 steps back set our

stuff down. I got sunscreened up and then set out to go snorkelling. Just as

I went to get into the water, a man suggested a good area to check out that

was to the left of where we were. It was at this point I realised that Craig

and I had forgotten our reef shoes.

· Thankfully we didn't cause any damage to out feet, although the coral at

many points became deceitfully shallow. There were quite a few good fish,

and there was one that looked really impressive that was a kind of purple

and black chequered with colourful stripes down the fins and different

colours on the face. I stalked it for about 10 minutes like a shark in the

hopes that Mum would take a picture of it, since she had the underwater

camera. She doesn't recall the fish so I suppose she missed it.

· Following the snorkelling we all just lazed on the beach for about an hour

doing nothing. I listened to my mp3 player but otherwise it was just

tanning time.

· After a while, we decided to move and walk back over to the beach facing

the ship. On the way we heard 'Peter' shouted out in an Asian accent. It

was Free Willy. He was sun baking on the beach.

 

· On the other beach, all we did was lay under some shade and enjoy the

view. This beach had some ever so slightly larger breaking waves but was

just as busy as the other beach. It was also as picturesque with the blue

skies, golden sand and blue ocean, with the ship and many yachts anchored

in the bay.

· An hour or so later, we got back up as it was almost time to head back to

the ship. Before we did though, Mum had some Pacific Francs to spend, so

we got some drinks from the bar. Ended up spending 1500 Francs on

drinks which meant the cokes were equivalent to $6 AU and the beers,

New Caledonian (I assume) Number 1 beer, were $9 AU. I guess such

prices are to be expected on an island that remote with a population of

2000.

· Before getting back on the ship, we tried to ring Nanna but the phone was

broken. Don't know what happened to it since someone seemed to be using

it earlier.

· The tender back to the ship was a bit sad for me. I always feel when you

are heading home from a holiday that the holiday is finished. I guess on

this cruise with 2 days travel time still remaining that it shouldn't be the

case. Still sad though.

· Once back on the ship, we got cleaned up, washed all the sand off of us

and get ready for dinner. Dinner tonight was delicious, as always, with the

Thai chicken salad and pork both winners, but the best was the 'Yummy

Yummy.' I chose the white chocolate raspberry mouse. It was heaven on a

plate. Also, Melvin sorted out each couple with a spare dessert and Craig

and I with 2 desserts to share between us. I was pretty stoked.

· Willy got Dad to have a B-52 tonight. He also tried to get everyone to

spend $12 on going to a cocktail seminar but no one was having a bar of it.

We didn't even know what events were happening the next day yet.

· Can't believe I didn't include this in my original Diary. Over dinner, we

heard that out of everyone on the cruise, there were 3 relative major

injuries. One person was bitten by a pit bull (there was a warning sign,

but apparently it had run out from the signed area), one person was hit on

the head by a falling coconut, and one person was run over by a vehicle

while they were asleep on the beach. The last was the most entertaining to

hear about, as it would probably be the last thing you would think of

happening on a beach...

· Following dinner, we headed to the trivia. I'm sick of it. I feel guilty when

I think I'm right and then the other person in the group is right. Tonight's

example was “What is the most participated in sport in Australia.” The

answer. in my mind, is Netball. It was also thought to be true by Mum. We

were wrong and Dave was right. The correct answer is Fishing. How

ridiculous! As if fishing is undertaken as a sport by the majority of

Australians. I compare this to saying Craig and I play AFL football

because we sometimes play kick to kick. Surely a sport needs to have a

Win-Loss-Draw result and the majority of fishing undertaken would not

fall under this. It angered me. Other things learnt include:

o Russia crosses 11 time zones.

o In 2000, many members of the White House stole the letter W from

White House keyboards after Bill Clinton left office.

o Denim was invented in France.

o Onions are used to make yellow dye.

· I give up on quizzes now. The serve no purpose than to make you feel

guilty about being dumb.

· Good news. We have found the new Andre Rieu! Tonight's performance

was by a guy named Danny Elliot. He can play many instruments from

piano to violin to saxophone to pan pipes to bag pipes to 2 pen flutes at

once! Is there anything he can't do? Keep me interested would be one

thing he can't do. Don't get me wrong, he is obviously incredibly talented

and the music was pretty good. My issues were these:

o Don't add your name into The Devil Went Down To Georgia as the

best fiddle player ever, that's just being arrogant and cocky. I didn't

appreciate it.

o Being able to play a piano from underneath the piano doesn't make you

a better piano player. It just means you wasted money on a fancy piano

seat you don't fully utilise.

o Don't play bagpipes. Not only does it remind me of horrible times

walking through Scottish souvenir shops, its also a horrible instrument

full stop. It's bearable when playing Scotland the Brave but it's

downright torture playing it to something like Rock Around The

Clock. I'm still cleaning the blood out of my ears.

o Stop making Australians look like bogans (even if we are). Actually

many performers have done the Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, Oi, Oi , Oi

chant and I have hated them all for it. It should be confined to sporting

events and under no circumstances unleashed in an international ships

theatre. Not only does this make us look like we are entertained by

simply grunting Oi repetitively, it's also ignorant towards all the other

international travellers. Its like if I were to go on a cruise to the

Caribbean and listening to a rendition of the Star-Spangled Banner

every day. How horrible. Danny took this one step further by playing I

Am Australian.

· Maybe I'm just bitter because at the end of the performance, many of the

older cruise members gave Danny a standing ovation, yet they have never

given anyone else one. One of the women even gave a separate standing

ovation at the end of I AM Australian. I mean, seriously...

· Then again, maybe I'm just bitter because I don't understand old people. In

particular the way they move. 99% of the time, they are very leisurely in

pace and give dirty looks at you when you want to walk past them. But

then in certain circumstances, and usually when there is clearly an order

already in place they move at the speed of lightening, are willing to push,

and don't care what else is happening. To prove it I have 3 quick examples

from this trip for you:

o Buffet at the Windjammer. Heaven help a person caught between a

buffet and an old person. Never mind that you have been patiently

waiting in line to get a drink, there will no doubt be an older person

that will cut in front of you and finish the last of the lemonade.

o Before tonight's performance, there was clearly a line waiting to walk

down the stairs to get to the bottom row seating. Not that it mattered to

this woman. She cut straight in front of me with all the grace of

Michael Schumacher with a world title in the balance. Then, once she

got to the bottom, she chose to sit in the exact row we had counted out

enough seats to fit out dining group in, thus forcing us all to move

across to fit it. This is all while 1 row behind us and 4 in front of us

were completely empty.

o After the performance (and many people being in and out of their seats

about 4 times for separate standing ovation, they all seemed to have

more energy than Olympic gymnasts with all their jumping up and

down.....) everyone ran out of the theatre to get to the specials at the

duty free shops. The rush was crazy. Old women everywhere pushing

each other to get hand fulls of $10 US watches and other assorted

items (all of which had been available earlier in the cruise anyway.)

· I don't mean to sound like I have something against older people, because

I don't. I just wonder where these bursts of energy come from, that's all.

· Note: Forgot to mention we were shown a short film as part of an art

exhibition before the performance. It was a Disney animated short based

on the works of Salvador Dali. It was rubbish.

· After avoiding the sale crush, we made our way over for tonight's game

show, called The Liars Club. It's a cross between Celebrity Squares and

Balderdash. Basically 4 members of the ships crew dress up, give their

meaning for different words and each group in the crowd then wrote down

the name of the character who quoted the correct meaning. The acting

varied in quality and the difficulty of the words went from predictable to

crazy. Words discussed included...

o Titup – Sound of a gallop

o Decalcefy – Taking off shoes (Can't find this in a google search)

o Sagbut – Musical instrument

o Boomslang – Snake (as overheard from the group behind)

· In the end it was ok. We didn't go real well, but half of it was the fun of

guessing anyway.

· Rest of the night was spent in bed, doing this, feeling the rocking of the

boat (which seems stronger than it has been) and every so often hearing

snoring from the cabin next to us.

 

Day 9 – Sunday 30/11/2008

Sea Day

· Almost made it to breakfast today, so that's (almost) an achievement. Mark

my words, I WILL get breakfast tomorrow.

· Met up with Mum and Dad almost as soon as we walked out the door. We

didn't even organise it. Ended up walking around with them. While waiting

to work out what to do, Mum decided to take a photo of some of the

artwork in one of the stairwells. At the exact same time, Anthony (from

the younger couple on our dining table) saw Mum and said “haven't you

taken enough photos?” Classic timing.

· Decided to have a look for a watch, the ones that the oldies were going

nuts over last night. Turns out there was nothing really there anyway. Also

looked for a charm for Mum's bracelet. None really there so didn't pick

anything out.

· After the short bit of non-shopping, we went and had a short walk before

lunch. Saw that there was a bag throwing tournament on so we watched

that. Mum admired a man in his budgie smugglers. Dad said his chest hair

looked like a hairy bra.

· Went for lunch. I had a quarter pounder burger. Was quite nice, as was the

chocolate brownie sundae I had. We got seated with some women we sat

with earlier in the cruise. Didn't talk to them much.

· After lunch we went to where the sales were on (again...it's all a big con

I'm sure.) Mum bought us some polo shirts but the item of the day was

easily the hand held Deal Or No Deal electronic games. Sure, they were

only $5 US but I still don't understand the appeal. Deal Or No Deal only

works because of the monetary risk and the fact that you only get to play

once. In an electronic version you can repeatedly restart. Not only that, but

on average, if you play for $200,000, you will get it within 26 games

anyway. Again another case of me not understanding some aspects of old

people. Some of them had 3 or 4 of them in their hands.

· Note: Before lunch we got distracted by some flower arranging

competition in the Centrum. Three women ( I assume this was a case of

circumstance and not a rule) were in each team, with a total of three teams

in total, that each had to make a flower ensemble for a wedding. The

ensemble required a brides bouquet, a table setting and a grooms lapel.

They were all pretty average but the flowers they were supplied with were

not exactly flower arranging material.

· After the shopping, we went and listened in on a discussion in the theatre

about running the hotel aspect of the ship. We only got there in time to

hear part of the question and answer, but it was still interesting. Some of

the interesting facts included:

o Removing hand sanitiser had reduced infectious illness, as it places

psychological pressure on cruisers to maintain their own personal

hygiene. That and hand sanitiser does not work on the illness it tries to

stop, as the alcohol evaporates nearly immediately, however to be

effective it would need to be on the hands for over a minute.

o Stateroom attendants can make 32-35 towel animals.

o Around 22,000 eggs are used each cruise.

o Fresh water is produced on-the-fly by an on board distilling facility

and a lot of the food (excluding fresh food) is shipped in by container

from Miami.

· At the talk, there was one guy who complained that Luganville was a

waste of time and that he would have preferred 2 days at Isle of Pines. In

my opinion, Luganville was infinitely more exciting than Noumea in my

mind. Then again that guy was a bit of an idiot. Different strokes for

different folks. I don't go around saying art auctions on a ship are a stupid

waste of time (except in here...and yes, they are stupid), because someone

probably does (like the person who bought a 6 piece set for $10,000).

· After learning a little more about the operations of the boat, Mum decided

that we should go to the trivia. I didn't like the idea, especially after the

shamozzle that was made of our previous attempts, but went anyway. This

quiz was on names of people and things and we were given the initials to

help. It was like Rockbusters but logical. An example would be:

o Name this musical artist:

 Normal Quiz Clue: She sung on the Bodyguarrd Soundtrack - W H

 Rockbusters Clue: I got my leg in a puddle in Texas – W H.

 Answer: Whitney Houston (or to explain the Rockbusters clue 'Wet

Knee Houston)

o The questions were (roughly) as follows (you can play at home!

Answers are at the back of the diary):

 Robert Redford star in in the 1980's – O O A

 What is musician Sting's real name – G S

 Name the actress and supermodel who starred in movies such as

The Fifth Element, Resident Evil, Zoolander, The Million Dollar

Hotel, The Messenger and Chaplin - M J

46

 What is the name of the fear of colours – C

 What is the name of the director/producer of films such as The

Nightmare Before Christmas, Edward Scissor Hands, Beetlejuice

and Batman – T B

 What do you call a group of frogs – A or C (2 points available)

 What is the name of the world's largest desert – S

 What was the name of the first dog in space – L

 What was the name of the first manned space flight to land on the

moon – A (followed by number)

 Who was the director of the highest ever grossing film, The Titanic

– J C

 What is the name given to the British flag – U J

 What is Madonna's full name - M L V C (4 points available)

 What is the name of the deepest sea trench - M

 What is the name of the tallest mountain in Africa – K

 What is the birth name of Bette Davis – R D

 What is the name given to the mixed drink that comprises of

Orange Juice and Vodka – S

 Arabesque, Pike, Bridge, Relevé and Possé are all terms from

which sport – G

 What is the name of the band started by Jim Morrison – T D

 What was the name given to the 2008 Beijing track and field

stadium - B N

 What is the name given to the event of two total eclipses occurring

within the same month – B M

· Anyway, we did okay. We made some lucky guesses ( eg. A group of

frogs = Army....which Craig guessed, fear of colours =

Chromophobia...which Dad guessed and Milla Jovovich which I guessed).

We did well enough to equal for first so we had to do a tie breaker. At

first, we chose Mum because she is the smartest. But then they decided

that the answer would have to be run up from where we were standing, so I

was made to be the gopher. But then the rules were changed again to

having to write the answer in front of the quiz master, but somehow I was

still made to be the representative. It's important I let everyone know at

this point that I've never understood the allure of a quiz on a cruise. I

always heard Gran and Grandad coming back from their cruises talking

about the quizzes they had done. I never thought I could be bothered. since

I am much too dumb anyway, and here I was, with family pride on the

line.

Anyway, the final question was “What is the name of the double decker

Airbus aircraft?” I was so nervous, I don't know how I heard the question

let alone think of the answer. I did though, wrote it down and showed it to

the quiz master (Zach, the South African) in record time, and we won. I

was filled with a sense of pride and achievement after beating an old

woman (who was probably one of the crazies in the sale, so it was sweet

justice if you think of it that way) and presented with our prize...the one

and only Pleather luggage tag! And not just one, but 6! That's because teams

were allowed to have up to 6, but we only had the 4 of us, so we each got

1½ pleather luggage tags each. Like I say, you can never have enough

pleather. Walking away with our winnings, I still had adrenaline in my

veins. I felt like a nerdathalete! On the plus side, it was good after the few

competitions we have entered to enjoy the sweet smell of victory. Funnily

enough, it smelt a lot like plastic leather!

· We all basked in our win for a bit. I did this by trying to think of my best

line using the word pleather. The best I could come up with was, “It's a

pleather (instead of “pleasure”) to win the pleather.” Then we watched an

ice carving demonstration. The carver made a dolphin which was pretty

cool. It was used as a display in the chocolate buffet later tonight.

· While Mum and Dad went and did whatever it is they do, Craig and I

attempted to enjoy a game of Shuffleboard. This was made difficult by the

30-35 knot winds we were sailing into. At one point one of Craig's pucks

got lifted by the wind and danced across the deck onto the walking path.

The conditions were so bad that I wouldn't worry about the result. Craig

beat me 2-0-1 over 3 games (one games was a 0-0 tie). When you can

barely stand up though, you know the conditions are bad.

· The Shuffleboard was followed by the mile walk. We kind of did it as a

family today. I know for me it was just for the token so Dad has the option

of getting a drink bottle or 4 key rings. Apparently Craig pushed Dad a

little bit too hard as when we finished Mum and Dad both complained

about sore calves and ankles.

· Got ready for dinner but I was feeling a bit blugh. Don't know why.

Looking back, it might have been because I was hungry after such a big

lunch (kind of counter intuitive, but I find if I don't eat early in the day, I

don't feel as hungry later, whereas if I do eat, then I get hungrier later on)

(It could also have been from smelling all that pleather....). Still went to

dinner in my suit (second formal night) and ate up a storm. Salmon for

entree, Thai Chicken breast main course and the dessert sampler for

dessert, plus an extra berry tart thing after all of that. After this, I still felt

sick, but now it was from being too full. Dad got a ******* from Willy.

Sorry to spring that on you, but he did. And he was made to drink it with

no hands. The worst bit was afterwards, Dad looked at me and with a wry

smile said to me, “Do you want a *******?” Not the sort of thing I ever

wanted to hear, nor ever hear again.

· The event of the cruise that Mum had said we had to do as a family was up

next. It was the Name That Tune quiz. We went with Kathy and Dave

(how they trusted us to be any good at this point, I don't know) and we

were pretty confident that we could do okay. Then they announced that it

would not be exactly a Name That Tune, but a Name That Movie, by

identifying the song from the movie. To make it even worse, all the

movies would be romantic movies. This was bad bad news. Anthony and

Amber turned up which made us a team of 8 (technically cheating...shhh!!)

We went through the 15 songs and picked up a few flukes. Dad got Gone

With The Wind (showing his age), I got The Bodyguard (don't judge

me...), Anthony got some Disney films and Dave got An Office And A

Gentleman.

The best moment though was Amber calling Anthony a loser for knowing

The Lion King. After a few songs though Amber said the only movie she

would have a chance of getting was Willy Wonka And The Chocolate

Factory, which Mum and I started talking about how we loved it too. Then

the next song to come on was “World Of Pure Imagination.” I don't know

what the other teams and the quiz master thought when we all burst out

laughing, but it was definitely one of the biggest cases of coincidence I

have ever experienced. Especially since it was exactly before the song that

the discussion took place. Also, Willy Wonka is an odd choice for a film to

be defined as romantic (although I strongly argued that there is such a

thing as a love of chocolate.........and the love between Charlie and Willy

Wonka at the end I guess).

After swapping quiz sheets and doing the correction we thought we went

alright. Then on the count back, everyone was dropping out one by one

and then the last two of us dropped out at the same time. After a double

check, we had won by a point! And guess what? After lying about the

number of group members to the quiz master, it was pleather luggage tags

all round! We donated our share to the other 2 couples. It was hard for me

to part with the pleather, but fair is fair.

· Went to the show in the theatre, which was titled Ballroom Fever. It was

opening night, meaning it hadn't been performed until now (except for the

first sitting). Wasn't my cup of tea. It was just a whole heap of ballroom

dancing, but that was to be expected. It was a bit off time and one guy

pulled down half a curtain but otherwise it was slightly unimpressive.

 

· The Love and Marriage game show followed the ballroom show. 3

couples, each answering questions about their relationship with funny

results. You know the type. Here's a quick run down of the major

funniness.

o The 2 year long marriage was the roughest of the lot. It started with the

guy not remembering where the first date was. He said it was Sizzler,

she said it was Bribey Island or something. During a later question,

“What was the name of your partners most recent ex”, the woman said

she knew it was a woman named Sue. She said she knew because her

now husband was engaged to Sue while fooling around with her. So

she eventually paid a visit to this 'Sue' herself. Ouch.

o The second, 47 year marriage, the most exciting thing that happened

was the wife suggesting that his dream 'famous woman' would be

Marilyn Monroe. Turns out she wasn't. He was very shocked and

couldn't believe she would be the suggestion. Another question with

this couple that was entertaining was the “Where was the craziest place

you were intimate with your partner.” The man said that it was in the

back of his panel van, while the mother-in-law was shouting out to her

daughter. The wife came back and said the back verandah. When told

of the panel van, she said “My Mum used to call be on the verandah

too!”

o The third couple, 53 year old marriage, the funniest occurrence was the

man saying that the craziest place he and the wife were intimate was on

the bathroom floor while the mother-in-law was in the house. When the

wife was asked, she seemed unsure of what answer to give and she said

the bath. When told of the bathroom floor, she said “yeah, that's one of

them.”

· The only disturbing thing was that when they started asking the “craziest

place” question, I overheard my Mum say “I'm glad we aren't up there.”

To be honest, right now I don't know whether to be disgusted or intrigued.

One thing is for sure, if I followed up on the intrigue, I think I would be

guaranteed to be disgusted. Either way, it's one more thing to try and just

block out. But if I did have to have a guess, it would have to probably be

in a Leyland P76, because if you had to say that in front of a crowd of

Australians, no prize could ever cover the shame of that.

· Following the show, it was time to hit the chocolate buffet. For something

called a chocolate buffet, there wasn't all that much chocolate. Maybe my

standards are just too high. The desserts were all nice though, but I

definitely needed water if I was to eat more than what I had. Thankfully it

hasn't brought itself up on me as I felt it could do. I was in bed by 12,

writing till 3:15. The things I do...

 

[marci22]

hmm