Friday, November 29, 2019; At Sea, Oman to Sri Lanka Day 1
Our clocks were moved forward another hour last night. After struggling all cruise long to avoid getting a respiratory virus that spread from the Chinese passengers to the Australians, Ben has come down with it despite wearing a protective mask in the theater when someone was hacking within a couple of rows, or on the excursion buses. Janet’s immune system has always been better at avoiding the respiratory viruses than Ben’s. So Ben is clearing his throat constantly and sipping honey lemon tea out of his thermos mug. Hopefully this will clear by the time we hit Singapore.
We were able to snag some Australians (Ron and Carolyn) to join us for Trivia in the morning along with Bob and Mary. We managed to score 16/20, while the winners managed 18. They asked what Beetles album had Yellow Submarine and Eleanor Rigby on it and we answered “Yellow Submarine” which is technically correct, but “Yellow Submarine” was a compilation album released in 1999. Those two songs originally came out in 1966 on Revolver, and that was the answer they were looking for.
We went to the shore excursion office to see if we could book our excursions for our next cruise segment- the 10 day round trip out of Singapore to Penang, Malaysia, Phuket, Thailand, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and Bali, Indonesia. When we had booked our excursion for the current Rome-Singapore segment, the booking window for the Singapore round trip excursions had not yet opened, and then we were on our Viking River Cruise and extensions. The desk said they won’t open those excursions for booking until December 7, but if we submit a list of desired excursions, the manager assured us he would slip us in as soon as the bookings opened. So we went to the Internet cafe and browsed the excursions on the Princess web page, which we could view without using our internet minutes. By the time we had finished with that, it was time for a quick lunch at the burger bar by the pool and then off to our second Progressive trivia of the trip.
The two people from Tulsa, who had joined us on the very first progressive trivia, didn’t show up today. Fortunately, Bob, had second thoughts about not doing the progressive, and given a choice between watching Mary crochet or joining us for trivia, he dropped in today. We found out that our first score of 23 put us in the lead with 2 teams just one point behind us. The host, Matt, is increasing the gambling stakes on his bonus question, which is worth 4 points today. We didn’t score nearly as well today, getting only 13/24 possible. WE did have an issue with one of his questions which was what is bathophobia the fear of. His answer was stairs, but that is bathmophobia. He refused to accept the correct answer for the purposes of this trivia. One question was “What as the first commercially successful Australian Talkie movie?” Really?
Ben hit the fitness center for some guilt reduction while Janet surfed the TV and napped. We missed winning the 4PM trivia by one point with 19/20. We got the hardest question right (what was Great Britain before it Great Britain- hint- it’s not Brittania), but missed one that we knew, but which our new Aussie team mates were certain they had heard on another trivia quiz and knew their answer was the one the trivia host was looking for. They insisted it was Norway, being some sort of trick question involving all the fjords, but the answer did turn out to be Canada.
We were pleasantly surprised to find the broiled New England lobster on the menu again. Apparently, the chef had enough left over to put it on the menu, even though it was not a formal night, and they put two tails on each of our plates without hesitation when we asked. They also had a good Key Lime pie.
The Sapphire Princess production team was doing “Born to be Wild” again, so we opted to check out a new offering Called Cervila’s Tango Revue. It was in the Explorer’s lounge, a small venue with a tiny stage and small dance floor. They had some technical difficulties getting the show to start because their video files didn’t play on the back drop screen, but they eventually worked it out and put on a fantastic show of Tango dancing. We grabbed the last seats up front, and it’s was a sizzling hot evening of Tango dances. They really needed to be in a bigger venue with an elevated stage because only the people in front could appreciate the fantastic foot work and kicks that were going on. It brought back memories of Argentina, and a desire to go back there again.
After the Tango Revue, the Cruise staff put on a gameshow where the dance floor was divided up into halves and participants just had to stand on either the A or B side based on questions and responses by Dr. Ruth in various magazine articles. An example would be “At the end of a first date, you should A) say Thank You, or B) give your date a passionate kiss. If you stood on A, you got to stay, but if you stood on B, you had to sit down. Most of the early questions were pretty conventional but they did end up paring it down to just one man and one woman after about 7 rounds of questions, at which point, both were declared winners. They each got a bag of prizes and bottle of wine.
Weather on the Indian Ocean has turned a bit humid and misty with a temperature of 80 degrees at 10PM. Tomorrow is yet another day at sea.
