Rhapsody Review..An oldy but a goody..part 3

[robynwally]

Day 10 – Monday 01/12/2008

Sea Day

· The impossible today became the possible. I was up for breakfast. Even

more amazing was that it was for breakfast in the dinning room, which

means I only had 5 hours sleep. I had scrambled eggs with bacon which

was nice. The weird thing was that the scrambled eggs had been put on my

plate with what I can only assume was an ice-cream scoop. I think that

made it taste a little less nice, as my taste buds expected eggs, but my eyes

expected ice-cream. Otherwise breakfast was good and everyone on the

table seemed nice.

· After breakfast, there was the towel folding demonstration in the Centrum.

It was one of the most popular daytime events there have been on the ship.

Barely has a day gone by where I haven't overheard someone mention

what animal they had in their room the night before. They did a sample of

about 4-5 animals and then handed out a pamphlet of how to make the

animals. The animal we got in our room tonight was a Swan. The problem

is that to be able to make the towel animals any good, the towels need to

be a little bit starchy to hold their shape.

· Did more shopping after the demonstration. It was mainly for last minute

souvenirs and out of the whole lot, I scored a hat and a polo shirt. Then we

stood and pondered our alcohol allowance. I was going to buy some stuff

because it really is very cheap but since I'd never drink it it wasn't really

worth it. I offered my allowance to Dad but he said there was nothing he

wanted. He then proceeded to continue to ask me if there was anything I

wanted (in an annoying manner). Eventually I just walked off. It's easier to

get you point across that way.

· Went back to our cabins to but the stuff away. Craig and I then decided to

start packing. Didn't take too long, especially since you only have a certain

amount of items to take home, only a certain amount of places to put those

items in and those items don't really have to be neatly packed away. The

bad part (as opposed to packing to go away) is that it cements in your mind

that the holiday is over. Almost everything during today caused those

feelings. Always thinking of things as this is the last.....before I go home.

Very sad.

· Headed over to the theatre to see the backstage tour. Thought Mum and

Dad would be there (later found out they went to the BBQ buffet by the

pool instead). It was a very interesting tour outlining the change rooms,

stage, sound system and lighting. Too many interesting facts to list here,

but just getting a slight appreciation on the space (or lack of), the difficulty

of performing on a moving stage, the technology involved and the

complexity of organising a stage like that as opposed to a normal theatre

production.

· The tour went overtime so it lead straight into A View From The Top,

another behind the scenes type question and answer session with the

captain, head engineer, head environmental officer and head hotel

manager. Again very interesting and a lot of technical details discussed.

It's always very interesting to see just how much goes on that you don't see

and just how complex it is to make these ships what they are.

· Craig and I were starving after not eating since breakfast, so we hit the

Windjammer to grab some food. We had some beef samosa type things,

pigs in blankets and some bread. I was feeling very full after all these.

· Made a B-line for Shuffleboard again today and despite being a great

looking day, it was very gusty again. Craig beat me 2-1 (could have been

2-0 but there was a controversial decision on a puck being on a line. I still

believe I was right and tried to convince Craig, but although he let me

have the result, he didn't agree).

· Once we finished the Shuffleboard, it was time for the mile walk around

the ship. Arguably the most stupid looking activity with 200 people

marching around 4 laps of the ship to collect a Vitality token. Dad ended

up trading in his tokens for a drink bottle and a keyring. We didn't usually

participate but we though since Dad may have been at the Wii bowling

competition we would fill in so he could still get his tokens. Ended up he

didn't bowl (he watched Anthony get second though), so he just missed the

start of the walk but he still completed it anyway.

· Went down to do trivia with Anthony and Amber. We got 11 out of 20 and

the winners had 14 so we didn't embarrass ourselves. Not as much as the

quiz master who forgot to bring the questions. Then again, the quiz master

is the same person who forgot the medals for Anthony's Wii bowling, so

Anthony had to collect it at the trivia. He also cost Anthony a chance at a

First place, but that's too confusing to go into here. We didn't want to win

anyway, the prizes were hats, not pleather as we were used to.

· Got to dinner, which was good again as usual. The highlight (despite

getting a share of 3 desserts) was the main lamb t-bone. The meat was so

tender I literally did fall off the bone. The mint jelly that came with the tbone

was a bit weird as it had the same taste and consistency of gel-mint

toothpaste but looked like kids' jelly. After the meal, all the waiters

gathered on the dining room stairs and sang Hands Across The Sea which

was entertaining. Then we handed over the envelopes that contained the

gratuities. I bet that its like Christmas for the waiters when it's the last day

and they get all their money. It was nice to be able to say thank you to

Melvin and Raphael for their hard work and I think Melvin appreciated our

support while he walked to and from the big singing set piece.

 

· Free Willy gave Dad a final night Screaming Orgasm and for the first time,

Amber and Anthony joined in. Craig spilt Dads by trying to look the cup

for a Made In China sticker. He was not too popular with Dad for that.

· Before the final night variety performance, Craig and I headed back to the

cabin to double check the packing had gone ok and to fill out the customer

service survey thing. I made Craig fill out our, although he seemed a little

uninterested.

· The variety show was great. It started off with a countdown of the 10

stupidest questions asked by cruisers, including:

o What do you do with the water after the ice sculpture melts?

o Has this ship ever sunk before?

o Is the toilet water salt or fresh water?

o What altitude are we at?

o Do the crew sleep on board?

o Does the ship produce it's own electricity?

o Will the elevators take me to the front of the ship?

· Then there was a ballroom performance by last nights ballroom dancers,

followed up by a great show by Los Pampas Gauchos involving colourful

puppets, clothes, costumes and people in black operating the puppets.

Kind of hard to explain but I loved it. It made me regret not seeing them

the first night. Ah well. Then someone played an acoustic version of

Stairway To Heaven. It was good (and obviously more complicated than

the original) but I think it was more complicated than it needed to be. This

was followed by Papa Gauchos doing a one man tango with his legs as the

man's legs and his arms as the woman's legs. Kind of hard to explain but

he had a costume that sat on top of him consisting of a man and a woman

in a dancing stance and he would move his arms and legs to make it look

like a man and woman dancing. That was ok.

· Then was the main performance, the review DVD. The only thing that's

needed to be known is that Dad was on it in his “fabulous” (or should that

be “flabulous”) female form. Just seeing that on the big screen was sweet.

· To complete the show, Matt Sole (the cruise director, the 'Sole Man'

himself) sang a farewell song with many of the staff getting on stage to

sing and wave goodbye. That was a little sad. After the curtains came

down, Matt made an announcement over the sound system that went

something like “Sorry folks, just a quick announcement for the gentleman

that lost his gold Rolex last night. We would just like to inform you that

the time is now 9:37. Thank you.” Very clever.

 

· Made a quick run out of the theatre because I had to save seats at the

karaoke. Well, I thought I'd have to, but turns out barely anyone went.

Wasn't very exciting. The hosts performed a few times (one was very

good, one was very bad). There was one woman who took it all a bit too

seriously and was disgusted that the microphone wasn't loud enough (that

was very funny but then she still performed another 2 times so it couldn't

have been so bad) and the two most out of time performances of the night

were to the Smash Mouth's All Star and Don McLeans' American Pie. All

in all it was still worth going.

· Got some mini desserts on leaving Karaoke (my last dessert of the cruise)

and watched Mum wait in line to get the bill for the drinks. After finally

getting the bill, took a quick step outside. It was still pretty warm

(especially for 12:00am). Then again, I later checked CNN and Sydney is

supposed to be 26º tomorrow, so maybe it's also a warm night in Sydney

as well.

· The last thing we did on the ship before hitting the cabin to write and sleep

(in that order) was to go to the casino and get rid of the spare $10 US note

(at this point we had lost Craig...he had ended up going back to the cabin

after losing track of where we were). While walking through the casino, I

heard my voice echo. I thought it was just me because Mum and Dad

hadn't said anything but I continued hearing this echo in a noisy casino. It

ended up being that if you were standing in a certain part of the room, your

voice would rebound off a dome in the roof and go back in your ear. It was

the most intriguing, weird thing that happened to me in a long while.

· Dad traded in the note for coins, as we were going to try and get coins out

of the coin pushing game. That was until I discovered all the coins

belonged to different U.S states. That left us with not much to play with,

and we got even less back after playing.

· For some reason, felt sick when I got back to the cabin at about 1am. Still

do now. Finishing tonight has been difficult, and at 3:300 again, I'm over

it. I probably feel a bit sick because of the lack of sleep ( I refuse to blame

the too many desserts I have eaten).

 

Day 11 – Tuesday 02/12/2008

Sydney To Melbourne

· Mum knocked at the door at 5:30! I can't be too angry since I did ask her

to wake me up, but in the end I went straight back to sleep. Sure it would

have been nice to have watched the ship go through the heads and into the

port on the (unfortunately I have to admit) great Sydney day, but sleep is

better.

· Bag was all packed and I was ready to go by 8:00. Went down to the

theatre to wait to depart the ship. Got to listen to CNN while we were in

there. The big news (apart from the Bangkok protests and Mumbai terrorist

attacks) was that the US decided that not only was it in a recession but it

had been since December 2007. I'm no money expert, but surely you

should realise sooner rather than a year after it had begun that you are in a

recession.

· Eventually it was our turn to leave. On the way to the bottom deck, we had

to walk through the casino. I showed Craig the echoing ceiling dome thing.

I wouldn't say he was impressed, probably more just intrigued as to how I

found it out. After I told him, he didn't particularly care. Shouldn't have

been surprised really.

· Leaving the ship was slightly different to returning to Australia in a plane.

We scanned our Sea Passes (I don't know if I explained these. They

basically act as your passport, door key and money all in one while you are

on the ship) to say we were off the ship, collected our bags that were in

coloured rows (according to labels we were given the night before),

handed our declaration form to the customs officers and if we had nothing

to declare, we were free to leave. No passport scanning, no bag x-raying.

Nothing. It was all a bit easy.

· After waiting 15 minutes, Dad called to say he and Mum were waiting at

the taxi rank (as they had been given a different departure time, waiting

location and gangway). The taxi rank was on level 3 of the terminal. I

didn't even know there was a taxi rank up there, but sure enough there was

a big loop of road that was full of people leaving the ship. Tool about 15

minutes to get in a taxi ourselves, but that still meant we were leaving by

9am.

· Our taxi driver again didn't talk much. So we listened to the talkback radio.

The issue of the day was that 48 NSW pubs were having to introduce new

drinking laws, one of which was that there will be a 10 minute no serving

of alcohol every half hour after 12am. They said Melbourne had trialled it

at some stage. We all know it wouldn't work anyway. Just get twice as

much when it is open and that's the problem solved. In the end it will just

make drunk people angrier, which although it would make bar tending

more exciting by adding the adrenalin rush of trying to survive an alcoholfuelled

melee, it's probably not the image the governments want to project.

· Got to the airport by about 10. Unfortunately our tickets were booked for

2pm. Apparently we could have changed to an earlier flight if we had have

notified the airline the day before. Bit difficult when we didn't know we

were going to be back so early.

· After checking in our luggage we went and sat in the waiting lounge.

Decided I would try to get through a bit more of my book. Managed

maybe 3 pages before I fell asleep.

· Woke up after about an hour. Didn't help much since I was still pretty

tired. We all went and got some Hungry Jacks, which was good since I

hadn't eaten yet. While we were eating, Lynda rang to see what time we

needed picking up. I think Mum and Dad got in a bit of trouble for not

calling earlier. Combine that with me giving Mum hell for booking such a

late flight and no longer being on the cruise and you get Mum having a

relatively bad day.

· After our lunch we got dragged to the Qantas museum. Mum and Dad

already went while I was sleeping before. To get to it, you had to either

walk up stairs or get the elevator. Since we were used to walking up stairs

for the last 10 days (to keep us healthy instead of using the elevators) we

chose the stairs. Craig almost smashed half the duty free bottles of drink

after tripping on the stairs (safe to say he took the elevator back down!)

The museum was free and wasn't that bad. Got round it in about 15

minutes though. My only real highlight was seeing the model of the A380

and recalling the win in the trivia (bragging much?)

· Finally got on the plane and was glad to see the back of another airport. I

used to love airports when we went to pick Dad up all the time years ago.

Not so much any more. Plane flight home was okay, although I spent most

of the time flicking through the radio stations. The only interesting thing

on was the Mighty Boosh. I'm sure that Dad listened to it for a bit. He

would have no idea what was going on. Snapped a couple of quick photos

of Melbourne on the way flight in. Reminded me of how small a city

Melbourne is compared to other cities. It's tiny! (Ok, so it's not as tiny as

Noumea or Vila...but everywhere else...)

· Got off the plane and didn't really recognise the terminal we were in. Turns

out it wasn't the same as the one I arrived in from Sydney on my last trip,

so that explains that one. Waited a little while for our bags and then only

had to wait a couple of minuted for Lynda. That's good service.

· Saw the grandparents and showed some pictures of the trip. Then headed

home. Traffic to get to the grandparents was a bit crazy though, but

thankfully our driver (Lynda) was a lot more talkative that the taxis'

drivers! Slept very very well.

 

Links to Related Information

· http://www.royalcaribbean.com

o The website for the cruise liners. Here you can see all the different

ships they all have, where they are all sailing and what different

activities they all have on board.

· http://www.justinoanddaniella.com

o Information on the two performers who performed the Las Vegas

show.

 

Where In The World Answers

· Question 1: The Amazon

· Question 2: London

· Question 3: Monaco

 

People And Things Quiz

· Robert Redford star in in the 1980's – Out Of Africa ✔

· What is musician Sting's real name – Gordon Sumner ✘

· 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 - Milla Jovovich ✔

· What is the name of the fear of colours – Chromophobia ✔

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

Before Christmas, Edward Scissor Hands, Beetlejuice and Batman – Tim

Burton ✔

· What do you call a group of frogs – Army or Colony ✔ ✘

· What is the name of the world's largest desert – Sahara ✔

· What was the name of the first dog in space – Laika ✘

· What was the name of the first manned space flight to land on the moon –

Apollo 11 ✔

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

James Cameron ✔

· What is the name given to the British flag – Union Jack ✔

· What is Madonna's full name - Madonna Louise Veronica Ciccone

✔✔✘✔

· What is the name of the deepest sea trench - Mariana Trench ✔

· What is the name of the tallest mountain in Africa – Kilimanjaro ✔

· What is the birth name of Bette Davis – Ruth Davis ✘

· What is the name given to the mixed drink that comprises of Orange Juice

and Vodka – Screwdriver ✔

61

· Arabesque, Pike, Bridge, Relevé and Possé are all terms from which sport

– Gymnastics ✔

· What is the name of the band started by Jim Morrison – The Doors ✔

· What was the name given to the 2008 Beijing track and field stadium -

Birds Nest ✔

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

the same month – Blue Moon ✔

[BrusselsGirl07]

Have just spent the evening reading your very funny cruise blog! Read the funny bits out to my husband while giggling at the same time. Well done! makes me look forward to my Christmas cruise on the Rhapsody.