geoherb

The internet was totally down last night with an error message popping up. The days will be a little mixed up consequently. They held the British pub lunch in the Coral Dining Room yesterday from noon until 1:30. I was surprised to see the dining room open on a port day. They also had afternoon tea. The Coral Dining Room will be open today as well for lunch and tea. The pub lunch menu was split pea soup, ploughman's lunch, fish and chips, bangers and mash, chicken curry, Scotch egg, bread pudding, trifle, and jam roly poly. I had the chicken curry and jam roly poly. The four other people at my table had the fish and chips. Two of them also had the soup. I had the chicken curry and jam roly poly. The chicken curry was very good. The jam roly poly was a bit dry. I ate about a quarter of it with the custard and left the rest. The longest wait for a tender to leave the ship that I heard from someone was three and a half hours. I heard waits of up to two hours to come back to the ship. I hope to be on the first or second tender over to Qaquortoq and plan to come back to the ship before the lines start getting bad. Last night’s menu in the dining room was not very appealing to me. The main courses included octopus steak, turkey pie with sweet potato crust, guinea hen, beef fajitas, and an Asian noodle dish with beef and a star anise flavored broth for the second pasta option. I ordered the salmon from the always available side of the menu. The scallop ceviche appetizer tasted very good. Three of the people at my table ordered the turkey pie. None of them said it was good, and all of them left a good bit of it. The dish did not match the menu description of being in a wine-cream sauce. It was a spicy tomato sauce instead. One man ordered the octopus and said it was good. The woman beside me ordered the chicken breast and said it was very tender. They had a reprise of the Yes-No gameshow after dinner. I had fun watching it. Rhys and Gareth were the inquisitors. Gareth had a streak of getting everyone out. Rhys had a streak going of not getting anyone out. One woman earned redemption by lasting the whole three minutes last night. She was out in 7 seconds the first time. The fastest failure last night was 22 seconds. That contestant came back at the end and got to pick who she wanted to play against between Gareth and Rhys and whether she wanted to ask the questions and try to knock them out or go again with one of them asking her questions. She chose to play against Gareth and ask him questions. He managed to make it a little past the first quadrant on the clock. I enjoyed Caroline Miller’s “Diva” show in the theater. There were plenty of seats available for it at the second show. This is a new show that she’s been doing for about a month on this ship. Her divas included Nina Simone, Celine Dion, Musetta from La Boheme, Dolly Parton, Beyonce, and Carly Rae Jepsen. I was expecting Whitney Houston, Aretha Franklin, Barbra Streisand, Diana Ross, and Cher. It was still an enjoyable show. The Princess “Orchestra” and a backing track accompanied her. August 25: I ate a quick breakfast at the International Café and prepared to leave. There was about a 5-minute wait for those of us in the Explorers Lounge. I was number 24. Everyone got to go. The first tender out had just people on excursions. I was on the second one. The tender ride is about 30 minutes, including loading and unloading. The little pier in Qaqortoq has room for two tenders at a time. That made things go much quicker. They also had additional tenders in the water compared to in Nanortalik. I saw five at one time. I’m not sure if the sixth one was used or not. The weather in Qaquortoq was nice this morning. Someone mentioned a brief shower came through this afternoon. I hiked halfway around the Great Lake. It was boggy in spots, very rocky in others, and fine about half the time. I passed one of the Princess excursion groups. They had a Danish guide who spoke English very well. It was nice to know that they were behind me in case I needed help. But at the crossing for one of the creeks, I decided to explore the trail that went up to a large waterfall. I turned around when I slipped on a rock, deciding it wasn’t worth it. I scraped my forearm a bit. I need to find a map to see if that trail did lead back to town or went farther into the wilderness. Since I was one of the earliest on the trail, it was like the nature spots on CBS Sunday Morning—nothing but the sounds of nature after I passed the excursion group. There are no trees growing around the lake, so it is an unusual landscape of rocks, the mountains, the lake, and the low-growing plants. After turning around, I ended up back at the crossing with the excursion group. The guide was telling them that the hike on the other side was more strenuous than what they had already done and was also longer than turning around. I decided to join several people in turning around there. I ended up hiking most of it with a nice couple from Arizona. She’s an avid birder, but she said she needed to look up some of the birds since they were not familiar to her. I stopped at one of the grocery stores to see what it was like. Expensive is the word. Of course almost everything has to be imported. The one price I remember was a medium size box of Rice Krispies for the equivalent of around $6. I enjoyed seeing the rock carvings around the town. I wish I had downloaded a map of the locations and pictures of them to see more. I skipped walking up to the modern church building. It looked like a lot of stairs to get there, but there was a road as well. After my 9-mile hike, I did not want to make the climb from either side. The line to get back on the tender was pretty long. But with so many tenders working, it moved fairly fast. They had set up the tent nearby with cookies and hot chocolate. I waited about 40 minutes for a tender. One man fainted while waiting. The ship’s doctor and some staff members were there quickly. He came to, and they helped him to a wheelchair. By the time our tender got back to the ship, he was able to walk off. I spoke to one of his friends who said that he was doing well, although the medical center had not given him a definitive cause for what happened. Once again, the Coral Dining Room was open for lunch and afternoon tea today. I went directly to the dining room for lunch. I had an appetizer size portion of taglarini with meatballs and the spanakopita. The pasta with meatballs was very good. The spanakopita was not done. I ate the filling and the tips of the triangles. (They make it in little triangles like a pastry.) I skipped dessert. I had a lazy afternoon, watching The Duke in my cabin (and sleeping through part of it). I enjoyed it. Anything with Helen Mirren is usually good. I woke up in time for trivia. We ended up missing two, but one team had a perfect score. At least it was not the team made up of players from the past several cruises. Tonight’s specials at the event in Club Fusion were guacamole with chips and chicken lollipops again along with all the usual suspects. I had a light snack since I did not eat much at lunch. Tonight’s dinner menu was better than last night’s. I had a caprese salad (but missing the basil) and flounder with baby Alaskan shrimp. Both were good. The quality of the tomatoes surprised me. The flounder came with one little floret of broccoli and three potato wedges. I asked the waiter for more broccoli, and he brought me a small plate of it. Princess is still skimping on serving green vegetables with the main dishes. I had the coconut mousse for dessert. It tasted like a Mounds bar. The ventriloquist performed two shows in the theater. I skipped going. I watched the Hollywood You Challenge. They drew two contestants per team to play with a member of the cruise director’s staff, making up two teams. They had several different segments. The funniest was watching each team take a turn at acting out a scene from a specific movie. I participated in a similar game on the Regal several years ago except that we had to freeze in a pose for our movies in that segment instead of acting. I was going to go to bed, but I ran into two of my 4:00 trivia teammates and stayed for the Top 5 of Everything game show. Gareth showed the top 5 of various things in the world with one missing. We had to fill in the missing item. We had a really bad start, missing the first six questions. We did better later on getting 9 out of 14 right. That was way behind the teams that tied with 13 right. My cabin steward has left me a couple of half-page survey forms from the hotel general manager. Both times I mentioned the missing canapés. I received a voicemail yesterday afternoon saying that room service would be delivering chocolates instead of canapés. I have read about people getting them on other cruises. I did not see them on the first or second formal nights. On the CB last December, there was a new canapé menu that had delicious new choices: cured salmon with cucumber, beef crostini, sesame tuna tataki, and tomato and mozzarella on ciabatta. On the Regal in February, they automatically delivered cream puffs each formal night. They weren’t very good, but at least they made an effort.

The CD is Kristoff Greyling. The ED is Madison Adams.

I had an enjoyable morning in Nanortalik. I was on the first tender over at 7:30. There's a tourism office down the road to the left from the tender dock. The museum and church are that direction also. The tourism office was open, but I was too early for the museum. It has several original buildings, so I was able to read the signs on them. I continued up the road toward one of the mountains. I could see people walking up it, so I continued after the road gave out. It was a pretty strenuous hike. I made it three-quarters of the way up the mountain. I was hiking with a widower I met at a meal earlier in the cruise who sat across from me on the tender. We got to a point where a couple of people had decided to stop and rest. There was a great view of the town and ship at that point. The trail got tougher past that point. I decided to go on, and they turned around. I could see a family from my ship ahead of me. I ended up turning around before catching up with them. There were lots of rocks, boggy areas, and holes to watch out for when hiking. I also saw lots of pretty wildflowers blooming. There are no trees. I came back to town on an easier route after coming down from the mountain. I took a lot of photos of the icebergs in the harbor on the tender ride back to the ship. I ended up spending about 3 hours in Nanortalik, walking a total of 6 miles. The clouds were coming down lower, so I'm glad I hiked while there was still a good view from the top. By the time I rode the tender back to the ship, I couldn't see the top of the mountain. Lots of people were waiting for tenders when I returned to the ship. I picked up a snack at the International Cafe and talked with one couple who were waiting. I gave them the map I had picked up at the tourism office. During our conversation, the husband mentioned going on the Island's world cruise next year. I've met several others on this trip going on that cruise. That's when I noticed their Elite medallions. I asked them why they were waiting down in the Piazza instead of Explorers. The husband said that a crew member told them there wasn't a difference in the wait. They were in group Y, and the tender that had just left was group N. They went upstairs after I told them the wait wasn't as bad there. It will be interesting to find out how long it was for some folks. I'm planning on getting on one of the first tenders again tomorrow in Qaqortoq.

It's a good thing that I love sea days. Someone said the ship missed Nuuk in 2017 and 2018 as well. I haven't looked it up, but I'm sure someone posted about it at the time. The dining room was not at all crowded last night as I thought it would be for the second formal night. Most men were wearing a jacket and tie, some were wearing jackets without ties, some were wearing ties with dress shirts but no jackets, and a few were wearing dress shirts without ties or jackets. I only saw one in a casual shirt in the Palm Dining Room while I was there. The menu had lots of tasty options. I had an appetizer size portion of gnocchi with mushroom cream sauce and then the lobster tail with Louisiana style crab cakes and the chateaubriand. The waiter brought me the whole shebang with the lobster tail and crab cakes and the beef at the same time. I moved the lobster tail meat and crab cakes to the same plate with the beef and let the waiter take away the extra plate. Two couples at my table had both as well, although they split the beef. The table was pretty crowded with plates for a short time. One woman ordered the kingklip. She said it tasted very good. She also had the mocha bar, which she said was delicious. I’m not a fan of coffee. I had the peach daiquiri sorbet. Caroline Miller’s show before dinner was great. She has tweaked it a bit since I saw her perform it last December. She still bills it as “Judy, Julie, and Me” and features lots of songs by Judy Garland and Julie Andrews. In December she included Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Call Me Maybe” and a song from Into the Woods in a tribute to Stephen Sondheim, who died a couple of weeks before my cruise. Last night’s show ended with a new humorous song she said was written for Kristin Chenoweth. After dinner, I went to see ventriloquist Phil Hughes in the theater. Lots of people were laughing at his jokes. I stayed for 90 percent of the allotted time, but left toward the end. He was doing a bit where he had three people on stage to be his puppet. I’ve seen better ventriloquists, but perhaps it was that I was just tired. I fell asleep before 11. I am planning to eat in the buffet this morning for breakfast and then go down to the Crown Grill to wait for tendering to begin.

I did not have a reservation the first night. That night there was just one show at 9:30. On subsequent nights, they've had two shows: 7:30 and 9:30. I have been making dinner reservations most nights for 6:20. That gets me out in time for the 8:30 game shows in Explorers Lounge and then the 9:30 show. But tonight I went to Caroline Miller's 6:30 show in Explorers Lounge and then to dinner at 7:20. I still made it to the 9:30 show, ventriloquist Phil Hughes. They did not have a game show in Explorers tonight.

My second batch of laundry came back last night. That was a 36-hour turnaround instead of 72. I’m happy. I realized this afternoon that if we were on a 7-day cruise, I would have been packing to go home. The time has gone by quickly. It doesn’t feel like I’ve been on the ship for a week. We tied with two other teams in the afternoon trivia. The host was asking a tie-breaker question, but he accidently showed the answer. He ended up giving everyone on the winning teams prizes—the drawstring bag. It’s good. My old one had broken in Halifax. Now I’ll have a good one to use in Nanortalik and Qaqortoq. I went back to the evening cocktail event in Club Fusion. Last night’s specials were smoked salmon and butterflied fried shrimp. I sampled the shrimp. I get enough smoked salmon at breakfast. Dinner last night was good. I had a salad; an appetizer size portion of the shrimp with black bean sauce, vegetables, and Asian egg noodles; and the sirloin steak Diane. Everything was good. My steak was cooked perfectly. The man beside me received one that was not medium-rare as ordered, but he managed to eat it and refused the waiter’s offer to bring another one. Mike Mentz gave a good second show. He performed more original songs but still a few covers. I spoke to Caroline Miller, the guest soprano, after the show. She’s performing three nights in a row: Bravo tonight, the show she did in December tomorrow night (in Explorers Lounge), and a new show in the theater on Wednesday night. She mentioned that she may perform in a fourth show later in the cruise—part of a show with guest performers. Monday, August 22: Lots of people I’ve spoken with were disappointed in skipping Nuuk. We have not had the rough seas the captain mentioned yesterday. Perhaps he kept the ship far enough south to avoid them. I joined the singles and solos group for lunch. Not as many people as the organizer anticipated showed up. She had reserved us two tables for eight, and only six of us showed up. We had three at each table. She released the other spots, and two couples and a single gentleman joined my table. I participated in the bean bag toss and watched another 60 Second Frenzy in the piazza this morning. We thought trivia was hard. It was another case where one team had so many more right that it was suspect. I think the cruise director’s staff members need to make sure they’re not repeating trivias from recent cruises. My team is leading the cruise long progressive trivia. We’re now a half point ahead of the team we were tied with yesterday. But we already know that we missed three questions on today’s quiz. Maybe the teams behind us faltered as well. One of my teammates gave me a hint about a cruising duck she had found and rehidden. I found it and rehid it. I’ll hide the third duck ornament I brought tomorrow morning.

The captain just announced that we are skipping Nuuk tomorrow. The ship will head on a more southerly course toward Nanortalik for Wednesday. That will give us five sea days in a row.

Sunday, August 21: A nice breakfast in the dining room this morning, but Princess cooks don’t know how to cook grits and tried to pass off city ham as country ham. Service was a bit slow as usual. There are three Catholic priests on this cruise. They held Mass in the Explorers Lounge at 9 this morning. There was an interdenominational church service at 8:30. I did not go to either, but I was walking past several times during the Catholic Mass. It was too chilly for me to walk outside, and they had a large portion of the port side closed. Morning trivia was tough but fair. Our team had 15 out of 20. I think the winning team had 17. I ate lunch in the buffet. It was nice to see so many vegetables offered. I also had a taste of ravioli in tomato sauce and sliced tri-tip to go with broccoli, zucchini with peppers, and curried okra. Everything was tasty. I finished off with a raspberry cheesecake from the International Café. My team did well in the cruise long progressive trivia. We were tied for first after yesterday’s quiz. We missed two. I’m kicking myself for one of the ones we missed. They moved the golf chipping contest in the cruise long mini Olympics to a putting contest inside. Bongs had three cups taped to the floor in front of the Crown Grill. The closest one was worth 5 points, the middle one 10 points, and the far one 15 points. Most people went for the far one. I got one point for hitting the edge of the cup on one my three tries. One man sank two 15-pointers. I stopped by the 60 Second Frenzy (formerly Minute to Win It). The contest today was moving coffee beans from a central dish to a saucer using chopsticks, one at a time. They did it in groups of four people competing simultaneously. It took 10 to win a coaster. I managed to get 13, leading my group. I heard several others scoring more in later rounds. I asked at Vines about a Stammtisch. The guy said they had had one yesterday. He took down my cabin number and said he would call if he got several more to sign up.

Thanks. It has been very enjoyable so far. The food has been great even if the service has been a bit slow at times. After waiting for five and a half hours for the shuttle from LaGuardia, waiting 15 minutes to be seated in the dining room doesn't seem that bad. The app is working for me pretty well. My tablemates at dinner said they were still having problems with theirs. One woman said she even bought a new phone so they wouldn't try to blame it on the age of her phone like they did on a previous cruise. I like being able to see the menus without having to go down to the dining rooms. The journey view of activities is also helpful. I've been bookmarking the ones I want to go to and can then look at just those on the timeline. It makes it a lot easier to see. I will go to the show tonight--a repeat performance by Mike Mentz, the singer-songwriter. He'll be performing new songs. I've managed to post here on Cruise Critic with difficulty. Sometimes it takes trying five or six times to get something posted. Facebook is working but not well. I see two or three posts, but I can send and receive messages. I can't get to my email or my hometown newspaper.

Saturday, August 20: Today’s schedule has lots of activities. Somehow, though, they have managed to schedule the cruise-long mini Olympics competition so that it conflicts with the cruise-long progressive trivia. The bean bag toss conflicts with the morning trivia. Pianist/singer John Bressler is back with shows at 7:30 and 9:30 in the theater. I guess I’ll be going to bed early tonight. Seeing him once was enough even if they do advertise it will be a brand new show. We do lose another hour tonight. The morning trivia was tough but fair. Our team tied with two other teams. Bongs had a representative from each team go up for the tie-breaker question. Oddly, it was naming a country and not a number. One guy got it. That’s OK. I would have given away my coaster if we had received them. I walked around the outside Promenade Deck. It was breezy. The noon announcer said 35 knot winds and 48 degrees. I ordered room service for lunch: Caesar salad, chicken fingers (from the children’s menu) to top the salad, fruit cup, and key lime pie. The room service steward brought it about 45 minutes after I ordered, but it was a popular time. Everything was good except for the chicken fingers being a little overcooked. I watched Still Here while waiting for and eating lunch. It was a good movie. My team slipped a little in the cruise long progressive trivia. We are in third place now, two points out of first. We did better than I thought—16 out of 20. Nicholas was back for the 4:00 trivia. This time he picked out a quiz with better questions. My team had 16 out of 21 points. Two teams tied with 18 points. I stayed and talked to two of my teammates for around an hour after trivia. I had time to stop by the Wheelhouse to see friends and then head to change for dinner. The line for dinner was long. I waited about 15 minutes before being told to wait aside. A couple of minutes later, a head waiter told me to go sit at a table that a waiter was still working on setting up. I waited there about 10 minutes before two couples joined me. The waiter had finished setting the table a couple of minutes before they got there. Service picked up from there. I ordered an appetizer size portion of the seafood bowl and the prime rib, rare. Everyone else at the table had the prime rib and various appetizers. My food was excellent. It was the best prime rib I’ve had on a ship in a very long time. Three of the four others enjoyed theirs as well. One woman said hers was tough. I think she ordered it medium. I skipped going to the show.

The internet is so bad that I may give up on keeping a live thread. I wrote these notes in a Word document and am breaking them up into segments. A purser told me that access to the internet would be intermittent as we approached Greenland. It’s certainly not the “best internet at sea” promised. I tried to upload a screenshot of one speed test that gave me 0.01 Mbps download and 0.00 upload speeds, but even a 45 kb file was too much right now. I had several days where a speed test gave me an error message. I see a refund coming. I will wait to ask for it after I see how many days will be affected. The problems started on August 17. I did not have any major problems on August 15, 16, or 18. Friday, August 19: I just went to the most ridiculous trivia ever. I think the host borrowed the questions from someone who does Australian cruises. The questions included who invented the bionic ear, what is the longest river in the Northern Territory, what is the largest non-salt lake in Australia, what year was decimal currency introduced (and the answer matched Australia's conversion and not the U.K.'s), what Olivia Newton John's stores were named, and what woman won a record 16 world squash championships. People were booing him after the first three questions. He finally started giving extra points for some answers, and the winning team claimed to have 19 points out of a possible 27. He then toyed around with the answers, repeating wrong ones as if they were right, when he should have just pulled the bandage off quickly. If I see he's hosting another trivia, I may skip it. In better news, I ended up tied for second place in the cruise-long trivia after the first round. I joined a mother-daughter pair for the second round, keeping my team name and points. I was hoping they'd fill in my holes, but they did not come up with the Disney answer I needed. We probably missed five or six out of 20 and will fall in the standings. But it's just for fun. Dinner last night had great service. I sat at a table for six with two couples and one of the couple’s friends. The three originally were from California and met on a cruise. I can’t remember if the couple or the friends has since moved to another state. The other couple lives in Florida. I think six is the perfect number for conversation and service. Our waiter was great as well. I had the coconut shrimp. It did not live up to its menu description of including some greens with it. I would have ordered a salad instead if I had known ahead of time. I had an appetizer portion of the ravioli in a walnut cream sauce. It was delicious and almost makes up for not having the spinach ravioli on embarkation day at lunch. My macadamia nut encrusted mahi-mahi was a little bland. The assistant waiter brought me a few slices of lemon. The lemon juice made it taste a little better. I had a fruit plate for dessert. None of the desserts on the menu tempted me. After dinner, I went to the Generation Frustrations game show. The Explorers Lounge was packed. CD Kristoff divided the people into five sections to represent the five generations. I was on Team Generation X. It started off with giving the definition of slang words. Kristoff was giving 7 points for a correct answer and 4 points for some close answers. All the teams were competing head to head in that competition, with a secretary writing down the answers. The second segment consisted of pictures of cartoon characters. Each team got three screenshots to ID the cartoon. Those were worth 75 points each with 15 points extra if someone on the team could sing the theme song. Other teams could steal if no one on a team knew the answer. The third segment had photos of various objects and one sound to ID. Those were open up for all teams, with each team have a unique “buzzer” sound. But it was chaos. The fourth segment was back to having each individual team get three things to guess. That time it was songs. We had to name the title of the song and the singer or band. Those answers were worth 1,000 points apiece. My team had some great players. We were able to steal the points several times when other teams did not know the answer. I have no idea how the competition turned out because I left for the production show. The theater was packed. I found a seat beside a friend. There were a few single seats available throughout the theater. The show was Born to Be Wild. It’s the one with the big pink Cadillac. The depleted cast managed to get through it with just one female lead singer, two male lead singers, three male dancers, and five female dancers. It’s a show with way too much lip syncing. I know I will enjoy the other two production shows more.

The schedule was full of activities that I wanted to go to. My team finally won a trivia this morning with 19 out of 20. Second place had 18. We were given coasters, but the host traded in three of them for the notepad books. He said there were just four of them left on the ship, so now there's just one. I was hoping for a drawstring bag. The one I brought with me from a previous cruise broke. Next up was technicolor music trivia. It was one where people just shouted out the answer of songs and artists that had a color in their name as Kristoff played a snippet. I then went up for the margarita demonstration by the pool. I kept waiting for someone to show up for it, but no one did. A couple were asking the bartender. He told them it had been canceled. I tried the "North Carolina BBQ" sandwich. It was OK, but not like anything I've seen in North Carolina other than what they sometimes tried to pass off as barbecue in a school cafeteria. I had some broccoli, a taste of lasagna, and fruit from the World Market to finish off my meal. Next up was bocce ball. It's part of the cruise-long Olympics. Four contestants played. The player with the ball closest to the little white ball got 15 points, next closest got 10, and third closest got 5. I ended up second and third closest in my tries.

My cabin steward brought back my first laundry order last night. I sent out more this morning. I'm glad it did not take three full days to come back, but I have enough clothes in case it takes up to six days. The loyalty and events manager mentioned that there are around 830 Elite passengers on the ship--that would make us one-third of the total. I'm hoping she'll announce the complete breakdown next week at the Captain's Circle party. They are holding four of them over two nights. They're also having two Grapevine wine tastings on back-to-back days.

Last night was enjoyable. I went to the cocktail party for the first time. They're holding it in the Club Fusion due to the large number of Platinum and Elite passengers on board. I asked the loyalty and events manager if they had a list of the specials. She said she only finds out the night before. Last night's special offerings were guacamole and chips and chicken lollipops. Tomorrow night is steak tartare. Below is a photo of the drink specials offered every night. I had the Mayan mule. It was good. I had dinner in the Palm Dining Room for the last time. I finally went through the app and made reservations for the rest of the cruise in the Island Dining Room. I could get 6:00 or 6:20 for every night. I was at a table for 10 but only 9 of us there. That makes service a bit slower, but we finished in time for me to make it to the 8:30 trivia without skipping dessert. I had an appetizer size portion of orecchiete with seafood, the vegetarian korma, and diver scallops. My dessert with a fruit plate with a scoop of mango sorbet added. I enjoyed nearly everything. After dinner, I joined two women who had waited with me at the airport for trivia: passengers vs. cruise staff. It was fun. My regular trivia teammate and her cousin joined us a quarter of the way through. We had a good time, although I was outvoted twice with correct answers. On the other hand, I did push for a wrong answer when someone else had the right one. Kristoff gave teams with our answer half a point, because he said the answer had just changed recently. Trivia took a little over an hour. I got to the theater after the performer had taken the stage, but he was still talking. Dan Delgado was billed as an instrumentalist in the Patter. The app let us know that he was a trumpeter and singer. He performed with the Princess orchestra. I enjoyed his playing and singing, but he talked a bit much between the songs. I overheard one man tell his wife that it was the performance he's seen on a ship in a long time. Tonight's show is Born to Be Wild. It feels strange to have the first production show on the fifth night, but weather happens.

It was a lovely day in Sydney. The forecast had called for rain, but I only saw a very brief shower around 11:30. I walked through the little downtown area. They were holding a crafts fair at the Royal Canadian Legion. I did not buy anything. There's a nice gallery of locally made crafts on Charlotte Street. I went to the small Sydney museum that's in an old bank building. It has few interesting exhibits on the history of the town. I walked to the end of Charlotte Street and around the lake at Wentworth Park. It's a nice area but nothing like the Halifax Public Garden. I walked back along the waterfront and up to Eltuek Arts Centre. On the way, I saw Island Folk Cider House. It did not open until noon, and I was there at 11:30. So I headed back to the port. That's when the brief shower passed through. I enjoyed seeing the tables set up by local craftspeople in the building at the port and talking to a few of them, but I did not see anything I wanted to buy. The rain stopped quickly and the sun came out a bit, so I decided to walk back up the hill to the cider house. I enjoyed a flight of four. All of them were tasty. It's hard for me to pick a favorite, but I'd probably enjoy a pint of the lemon the most. Along the way, I stopped back at St. George's Anglican Church. When I walked by there the first time, a walking tour was there. I heard a bit of the costumed guide's spiel and then kept walking. This time, I had an opportunity to go inside without a crowd. There was a nice volunteer telling a couple about some of the church's history. I listened in. When the couple left, I had a nice conversation with her for a few minutes. Here's a photo of my flight of ciders as well as the big fiddle at the pier.

The previous post was today's Patter. Here's tomorrow's Patter.

I'm sorry your excursion did not go well. It sounds horrible to be stuck beside the road in a bus.

They still have those cabins set aside for quarantine. It goes from the front of the ship through the 500s.

Dinner last night was very good. I shared a table with a couple who keep kosher and another man. It was interesting to hearing their experiences with dining. They have to order their main courses the night before from a list the head waiter provided them of what the ship has available. It was a couple of dozen or so various options. Last night, they had stuffed cabbage, filled with beef, served with mashed potatoes and green beans. Their meals came wrapped up in plastic in a TV dinner plastic tray. They ordered salads and fruit off the regular menu. I had the shrimp and scallop appetizer, the beef satay appetizer, and the red snapper served with bok choy and rice. After dinner I went to a game show called You Be the Judge. Gareth divided the audience into seven different “juries” to decide cases. He presented eight different cases that happened, from a woman who was upset about her nose job to a man who wanted to adopt his wife as his daughter. We had to decide as a team whether the court ruled for or against the plaintiff. It was fun. Last night’s show was a singer-songwriter named Mike Mentz. He performed with the Princess Orchestra. I enjoyed his show a lot. He was a very good singer and entertainer. I started having problems with the internet after the show. I play the daily free tournament on Bridge Base Online. During the week, it’s eight hands of bridge. On board 7, I lost my connection. I managed to reconnect to finish the board, but it wouldn’t give me board 8. I checked the speed of the internet. It was downloading at 0.80 Mbps and uploading at 0.34 Mbps. A few minutes later, after not being able to get to Cruise Critic or Facebook, I tried another speed test and could not get it to come up either. I called passenger services to ask if the internet was down for the whole ship. She said the internet manager had not told them that and recommended restarting my phone to see if that would correct the problem. I restarted my laptop and still did not have a connection. It was time to go to sleep, so I gave up. I woke up at 7 and it would not connect at all then. I will have cell phone connection today in Sydney, but I don’t want to be away from home without a means of communicating until we get back to Canada in 10 days. I stopped by the Internet Cafe after breakfast. I signed in on one of the computers there to check to see how it was working. It gave me speeds of 2.75 Mbps download and 17.27 Mbps upload. A woman was complaining to the internet manager that she was not able to get a connection either. I think he must have done something to reset it, because I'm getting it again on my laptop as well, with speeds of 2.34 Mbps download and 2.84 Mbps upload.

They're not releasing numbers. I found out on my first cruise back a year ago that there was Covid on the ship only because one of my trivia teammates had gone on an excursion that had a passenger later test positive. Everyone on the excursion bus received a letter and got tested. I'm not sure how they're treating close contacts these days.

Today, it was in the mid 60s. The rain made it feel colder. I wore shorts and was fine. I brought along two pairs of shorts, one pair of jeans, and two pairs of dress pants.

I finished up my time on shore at Salty's, a restaurant on the waterfront. I sat at one of the tall tables in the bar area. I had already picked out what I was going to order: the seafood platter with half a chilled lobster, beer-battered haddock, crunchy shrimp, breaded scallops, potato salad, and slaw. The lobster and scallops were wonderful. The shrimp had a bit too much batter for my taste. The fish was good. It was an expensive lunch, but worth it to me since I had not gone on a formal shore excursion.

I enjoyed a tasting at J.D. Shore/Halifax Distillery. We met the owners on a cruise several years ago. It was great to catch up with one of them today. I got to taste several rums. My favorite was the rum cream, which is better than Baileys. The s'more rum cream was also very tasty. The tours and tastings take place at 1 and 3. I wouldn't have wanted to push doing the one at 3 and having to dash back to the ship for our 4:30 all-aboard time.

At noon, they fire a cannon from the Citadel. We toured it 20 years on our first cruise to Halifax. It was quite a hike up the hill to get a good view. Here's a photo of the changing of the guard after they fired the cannon.