Day Seven - 28 December - second Sea Day bound for Milford Sound

Weather - Some cloudy periods with rain predicted (no sign of this), sunny 11° C, but when the sun was out it felt much warmer.

We had another sleep in.  Have to make the most of these sea days for a lie in as port days are early rises so we can see the land coming into port.   Breakfast up in Horizon Court.  The staff are great, reserved a table for us and helped carry the food to the table.  Should have accepted the help earlier, as the staff are eager to help, and it stops the other passengers looking at you as if you have no place being in the Buffet area.

We spent the morning in the lower Atrium area, chatting to other CCer’s and watching the Martini Demonstration (well not really, but so close to it we had no choice!), and I started on this ’Blog’.  Trying to remember what happened on what day was interesting as the days seem to blend into one another although it has only been six days!!!  

Cruise Critic Luncheon - photos courtesy of 'KiwiPete'

Mike, Judith, Jeanette, Julia & Bob



From left - Lillia, Margaret, Peter L. Kristi, Jason, Inga, Norma - Kiwi Pete taking photos




From left, Lillian, Tracy, Maitre'd Rue & Kim




From left, David, Barry Brian, Cindy, Don & Ann




Liz, Dave Julie and Shane

I had organized a Cruise Critic Luncheon for about 40 in the Santa Fe Dining Room.  Most people participated in the Secret Santa parcel exchange.   It turned out we had the restaurant to ourselves, except for one woman who had slipped in on the end of our group.  She even complained to the waiter that she had not been given a ticket for the parcel exchange!   Near the end the 5 who had been on the Ultimate Ship Tour turned up - the 2.5 hr tour took 3.5hrs!!  They had a ball, but missed the exchange, but still got lunch.   It was funny having about 8 staff hovering around us.   Kiwi Pete and my Pete conducted the Secret Santa, with KiwiPete getting a large blue tie with “Mr Perfect” on it, which his family said was so apt, as they often call him that.     Everyone enjoyed the luncheon and appreciated the little bit of effort KiwiPete and I had made in arranging our gatherings.   KiwiPete reckoned this trip had the best bunch of CCer’s he had been involved with.   So that was nice to hear, as the group has seemed to gel really well and mixed without any apparent clashes.  We have Kiwi’s, Aussies, American’s and Canadians, from a wide range of parts of each country.

After lunch we retired to the cabin to read and catch some sun on the balcony.  Our balcony on Caribe is the larger of the balconies, being half covered and half open, which affords some privacy.  While others are either fully covered, or fully open, we had the best of both worlds.   It was so lovely to have some quiet time on our own.

We decided it was time we attend another show in the Princess Theatre.   The show was an Australian singer Jackie Love singing Broadway songs.   Although she was a lovely singer the song choices were a little strange - didn’t appear to be Cabaret really.   Still we did enjoy it.  To be honest not a lot of the shows have really appealed except the Elton John/ Billy Joel show.    Roger Carr in the Crooners Lounge is very popular, and it is hard to get seating in that area, as those chairs available seem to be taken by ‘regulars’, which is a pity.

As the Crooners Lounge was full we went to the Explorers Lounge where Julie and Dave were.   The 10.30 event was passenger participation - “Newly Wedded and the not so newly wed”.  It turned out to be quite funny.   We finally had our first really late night retiring at midnight (new time, as we had to put our watches forward another hour to be back into the NZ time zone).