Wednesday, November 1, 2017; Disappointment off Vietnam

Wednesday, November 1, 2017

We woke up and got together our things to go ashore in Vietnam, and just before we headed out the door for breakfast, the captain came on the speakers in our rooms (never a good thing when announcements come through into the staterooms) and announced that the Port of Chan May was closed and the local Pilot had refused to come out to meet the ship, so it was impossible for the ship to dock in Chan May.  That canceled our port of call, and the ship turned around, and is now headed straight for Hong Kong.  The captain was hoping that we might be able to find an early berth in the harbor, but no promises.  There was palpable disappointment throughout the ship both on the part of passengers and also the crew, who were now looking at a busy day with a ship full of surley passengers.  

They had a morning trivia at 10:00AM.  Judy was waiting, but Rick and Joanna didn’t show.  The world’s series was playing live on the Movies under the Stars screen, so we suspected that was where they were.  We were joined by Paul, from Houston, and a couple, Richard and Janice from Yorkshire, England.  We ended up winning that trivia and got string bags, but we ended up giving our bags away to other people.  

Ben spent much of the morning scrounging up parts and beginning the design and assembly of his Scrap Heap boat racer.  The main flotation will come from a pair of 2 liter water bottles, while the chassis is manufactured from Budweiser aluminum bottles, cut open into aluminum sheets.  The racer must hold a six pack of cans and make a lap around the pool.  There are prizes for the most original design, and fastest lap.  

We had lunch and afternoon tea, followed by afternoon trivia.  We did get back together with our usual Trivia team, but finished with a mediocre score of 13/20.  But we did learn that New Zealand is an Island Nation that has declared itself to be a nuclear-free zone.  

We did get a $100 per person refundable stateroom credit to compensate for missing another port of call.  There was a sizable group of passengers that was quite unhappy with that.  They had scheduled a meeting with someone from the hotel management staff in a small lounge area to discuss the situation.  Someone was collecting a list of cabin numbers of people interested in additional compensation.  We thought we might be able to ask for some free internet time since we were now going to be at sea a full seven days without landing at a port.  We left for dinner after writing our cabin number on the list, but during dinner, the captain came on the PA to announce that a mob had formed at the passenger services desk and was becoming unruly and disruptive.  He demanded that the mob disperse and threatened to disembark any unruly passengers at Hong Kong with no compensation.  Boy were we sorry at that point that our cabin number was on that list, because the captain made it a point to say he had cabin numbers of the trouble makers and that he would not tolerate insolence on his ship.  We’ll have to go down to the passenger services desk tomorrow to plead our case that we were not involved in any disruptive behaviors, and hopefully we won’t end up kicked off the ship in Hong Kong.  That would really make for a miserable cruise.

Dinner featured a surf and turf that was quite good.  They also had a rhubarb Napoleon for dessert, which was also good.  

We caught the early show in the Princess Theatre which featured a piano player/singer specializing in New Orleans music. It was a pretty good show, although Janet didn’t really care for the piano man, or jazz.  

The evening trivia quiz on famous faces.  Since our usual partners have the late dinner seating, we paired up with RIchard and Janice from Yorkshire, and Tom and Janette from Georgia again.  We came in second place to a team with a perfect score, missing out on another bottle of champagne.  

We turn our clocks forward an hour tonight.  The captain says we may end up in Hong Kong before Midnight, but we won’t be able to go ashore until the next day because of customs and immigration requirements.