Friday, March 23, 2018- Cruise Day 59; At Sea

Friday, March 23, 2018- Cruise Day 59; At Sea

It’s sunny, warm and muggy outside at 8:00AM.  We had breakfast in the dining room and then our 7th installment or second to last progressive trivia quiz.  The results were posted in the early afternoon, but there was a real doozy of a bad answer to a question.  The question was “What gas is produced in a hydrogen bomb explosion?”.  Anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of a fusion bomb would know that hydrogen is fused into helium, releasing a huge amount of energy, like in the sun.  Well, the quizmaster’s answer was “Neutrons are released, along with a lot of energy, which makes the atomic blast.  The hydrogen bomb is all about fusion.”  So Neutrons are the gas that is made by the process of fusion????  Ben still hasn’t forgiven them for messing up the Rainbow Apple logo as the MacIntosh logo, and not Apple Computer’s.  We are currently in a 2 way tie for 3rd place, two points off the lead.  We just hate to think another team got into the lead because they came up the wrong answers that the quizmaster happens to have down as his answers.  

Ben hit the fitness center for a bit before lunch and we watched the passenger Drum Circle and Pop Choir performances because some of our Trivia friends particpated in those activities.  They also did the egg drop and scrap heap regatta today, but we chose not to participate because it was an awful lot of work just to win another string bag or wine bottle stopper.  One of our suitcases is half full of trivia prizes, so we don’t need any more prizes.  

The afternoon trivia brought us a clear win.  We scored 24/25 points, at least 2 points higher than any other team, so we won some more Princess string bags, which Janet likes to donate the less fortunate.  We’ll also give some of our trivia loot to our room steward when we leave.  

Tonight was the last formal night, but the menu was uninspiring.  They did have the lobster on the menu, but the lobster they have been serving is impossible to get out of the shells without shredding it into pulled lobster, so we opted to start packing our formal wear and go casual to the buffet instead.  We caught the early Showtime presentation of “Encore”, featuring a guest soprano with the Island Princess band, strings, singers and dancers.  We recognized the guest soprano as one of the female lead singers who had been on the Diamond Princess Singers and Dancers.  So apparently, they get rotated around a bit, and get to be guest features on other ships to change things up.  They did a lot of opera songs, most of which were in Italian and German.  The guest soprano was able to hit some really high notes with a good performance.  Inexplicably, they also had a Neil Diamond song sung in Spanish, and an instrumental medley of James Bond/Peter Gunn/Mission Impossible music, and a vocal solo of “Writing’s on the Wall” from the most recent James Bond movie “Spectre”.  They got a standing ovation, and deserved it.  The production shows have all be top notch on this cruise.  

We returned to our room to do more packing, filling our two larger checked bags, weighing and adjusting them so that they were each under 50#.  We worked up a sweat doing that.  

We returned to the Explorer lounge to watch a second performance of the comedian Troy Thirdgill.  The Explorer lounge is a much smaller and more intimate venue, making the show like a comedy club night.  He was funny and we had a pretty late night since his show finished up after 11:15PM.  

It’s hard to believe tomorrow will be our last day at sea on this cruise, and everybody is a bit saddened by this realization.  We wrap up our progressive trivia tomorrow morning.  We’ll be happy to have finished near the top of the class, despite some really bad questions, because it’s all about having fun and keeping our minds active.