Wanderung 33

Saturday October 14

Since our biorhythms were still re-adjusting, we awakened before dawn and decided to walk on deck for exercise during the relative coolness of the early morning and then have breakfast. We chose the Promenade Deck for our walk because that was a lot lower than the jogging track on the topmost "Exercise Deck", which tends to move about more. Also, the promenade is also a lot broader and each circuit is much longer, making the walk more pleasant in our view.

So we started our walk about 6:13 and ended up a little over an hour later, watching the sunrise develop on the port side horizon. The promenade on the Explorer of the Seas is a complete circuit, unlike some ships, but you have to climb up one flight of stairs at the apex of the bow area and then climb back down the stairs on the other side as you return to the mid ships area. That actually added some interest to the walk, and also allowed us to gauge how tired we were getting because climbing that set of stairs gradually became harder, and harder, and harder!

At the end of an hour we were hot and sweaty and willing to call it quits, but put in some extra steps getting lost finding our cabin again. But this time we were awake enough to carefully examine a map of the ship`s staterooms and finally figure out WHY we kept getting lost: unlike every other ship we have been on, the Explorer of the Seas had both Port and Starboard outside balcony cabins numbered with EVEN numbers! Huh? It turns out that RCI in their infinite wisdom had decided to use the ODD cabin numbers for all the interior cabins that had Windows opening onto the huge central atrium that is the hallmark of this ship. So our usual rule of thumb about first checking to see if we were on the odd or even numbered cabin side of the ship and then shifting as appropriate, just didn't work on this ship.

Lesson learned, we headed off for breakfast, where we both enjoyed omelets. The Windjammer buffet area is, naturally, HUGE on this ship, and so big that they had a separate "Fried Eggs" chef from the "Omelet" chef! After breakfast we just wandered around the ship, trying to locate all the important parts, such as the ice rink down on Deck 3 ,in our heads for future reference. We also stopped in at Customer Service and asked about the amenities that we usually get at the beginning of a cruise, and that ultimately netted us a bottle of water, a can of Coca-Cola, and a bottle of wine.

Back in the cabin, I settled in for a serious bout of sewing as the band securing my eyeglasses in back was falling apart.

After sewing the cloth on my band back together, we wandered out again to watch people try the Flow Rider, a water ride at the stern of the ship that mimics surfing a wave at the beach. Our fellow passengers were a "source of innocent merriment" as the Mikado once put it in a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta. In particular the neophytes, as they tried to "catch a wave" surfing, but would then ultimately wipe out, at which point they were swept up and over the falls into a cushioned catch basin. Some participants were, however, really experienced surfers, and they put on quite a show for us onlookers.

After lunch, we just relaxed in our cabin or out on the balcony for the afternoon. We prefer the balcony, but it will get too hot if the sun is on it, so then we retreat to the air conditioned interior of our cabin! Dinner with Don and Linda, Shannon and Denise, Norm and Sylvia, and Gretchen was fun, especially as some of the folks have a wicked sense of humor. This was a Formal Night, for which I had gone through the trouble of buying a new soft cotton suit coat that was comfortable enough that I could wear it on the plane or in general as an outer layer for warmth, and yet I hoped it looked good enough that it would pass muster for the required "Formal Attire" on the ship`s Formal Nights.

As it turned out, I needn't have bothered! Although Don was wearing a tuxedo and I was wearing a suit and tie, Shannon was wearing a suit without a tie and Norm just wore a nice shirt, and the maitre`d let us all in without a problem!! Well, jeez, why didn't Royal Caribbean let me know that AHEAD of time so that I could have saved my time and effort finding that sport coat and saved the packing space for the suit pants and ties for some more generally useful clothing? Argh! Oh well, at least I think we looked reasonably presentable.

To top off the evening, we met the Captain to see what he looked like, and then retired for the night around 9 p.m. (We are gradually getting back to normal as the first night we conked out at 8 p.m., the second night at 8:30 p.m., and now we were up all the way to 9 p.m.!)

Sunday October 15

Sleeping over 9 hours, we awoke to a foggy, rainy, gray dawn. But the rain let up as we took our morning walk on the promenade deck, which was almost a shame as it was already (still?) quite warm on deck and I would have welcomed some cooling rain. We discovered that by walking on the promenade deck we were sheltered from above during the walk except for the U-turn around the open bow area, and the two side bulges on the ship where the dining room kind of curves out a bit and the walkway narrows to a 2-person width that is open to the sky above.

After breakfast we relaxed on the balcony a bit until the morning fog burned off and the sun peeked through enough to heat us up, which ultimately drive us back inside. I was feeling sticky after all that exercise and heat and humidity, so I took a quick shower and used the opportunity with the soap and hot water to wash out some of my clothes. Most cruise ships have a retractable line in the shower that is designed to be used as a clothesline to hang wet clothing and let it dry out. I'm experimenting with doing laundry that way because, if it is successful, I could pack even fewer clothes than I do now as long as they were synthetic fabrics that could be washed and drip-dried successfully.

We idled away the rest of the day on our iPads , playing games, reading books, solving crossword puzzles, and such like. After another convivial dinner, we walked on deck a bit before returning to our cabin, and possibly that helped me to stay awake until 10 p.m., when we turned in for the night.

Monday October 16

We awakened to a beautiful sunrise, the type where you have a light layer of thin clouds, and for a few golden moments the sun illuminates the underside of the clouds with a deep pinkish-red. If the angle of the rising sun is just right, the entire layer of clouds turns that deep pinkish-red, and the sky is a wonder to behold.

Cheered by that, we donned our lightweight exercise clothes and headed down to the promenade deck for about 50 minutes of walking, which turned out to be 7 complete circuits around the promenade deck. The sun continued to rise as we walked, of course, but it was nowhere nearly as pretty as it had been earlier, and when it rose above some of the clouds on the horizon and shined directly on us, it once again started to get hot. But that was only on the eastward side of the ship, and the side still in shadow remained pleasantly cool. So alternating walking on the "hot side" and "cold side" of the Promenade, we completed our laps and headed off to breakfast in the Windjammer.

I ate a rather English breakfast of eggs on toast with stewed tomato and English bacon, augmented with some fruit and a hard roll . Then we returned to the cabin and I put in some time sewing a swatch of white yarn to my camera case with the goal of making it more visible. Normally I have my camera hanging from a belt loop, so I don't tend to lose it. But when I do detach it, I have found that the dark blue cover blends in perfectly with most dark backgrounds, so I have sewed white patches on the front and back so that I am more likely to see my camera when it is just lying around in a hotel room.

Our morning schedule was a lecture on British rock groups of the 1960s, a destination lecture on Lautoka, Fiji, and a cha-cha-cha dance lesson. The lecture on British rock groups turned out to be more of a series of film clips, each with a brief introduction that detailed the group`s origin, most popular songs, and ultimate fate. However, the introduction was simply read verbatim from the podium with no eye contact with the audience and very little expression. The film clips of each group`s most famous song were very interesting, but 90 percent of them were way over-amplified! I had neglected to bring our earplugs, and as a result we had to sit there with our fingers stuffed into our ears for most of the hour, which decreased our enjoyment considerably. It turned out, however, that you can modulate the finger-stuffed-in-the-ear method more than you can a normal earplug, so we relaxed the pressure for some of the moderately over-amplified numbers and stuffed them firmly in for the highly over-amplified ones. Ah well.

The port lecture on Lakota, Fiji, was quite well organized and she showed the relevant town maps to help us decide whether we would walk into town on our own or not. Since the distance from the ship to the center of Lakota was only 1.4 kilometers, or a little under a mile, we decided that we would try to get off the ship as early as possible when it was (relatively) cool and essay the walk into town. We particularly wanted to visit the city market to meet the local vendors and see what kinds of arts and crafts would be available. Then if we still felt energetic, we would walk the extra mile or so southwards to get to a small arboretum. We`ll see how that works out.

The cha cha cha dance lesson was fun although it was rather crowded up on the stage in the theater in the bow of the Explorer of the Seas. It was good to practice the basic step, New Yorker, underarm turn, and the "wisp" move which we had heard described as the Los Angeles move in a previous lesson. We had both a male and female instructor, which was good, and we had fun dancing together again even though we had to cope with an extremely limited "dance floor" with a drop-off on one side.

That took us up to luncheon, and as the weather was fine outside and our balcony was in the shade that afternoon, we spent the entire afternoon out there doing puzzles together or working on our iPads , which was very relaxing.

During dinner that evening the wait staff did their group rendition of "O Solo Mio" and received a standing ovation for their work, which was appropriate. Rey, our waiter, also did some more magic tricks for us, and we were all impressed by the fact that he was coming up with new tricks or jokes every evening. As usual, we retired to our cabin after dinner and went to bed around 9 o`clock.

Tuesday, October 17

Getting to bed early has the singular advantage of letting us get a good night`s sleep and still get up early the next day for our morning walk on the promenade deck, which is important to accomplish in the relative coolness of the morning. Today we were dressed and out on the promenade deck by 5:50 a.m., which was shortly before sunrise. We walked 8 laps, which took us a little over an hour. As is typical in the tropics, the sun rose very quickly above the horizon about 1/3 if the way into our walk. We were very near the Equator, and I was once again impressed with how quickly the sun soars above the horizon at this latitude--truly it was just in the span of a minute or two! There were very few clouds, however, so it was pretty much a plain vanilla type of "sunrise at sea in the tropics".

The lack of clouds also let the sun heat up the sunward side of the ship rather quickly during the latter part of our walk. So we again had a "hot" side and "cooler" side of the ship as we circled around the Promenade deck. But had we chosen to walk on the jogging track up on deck 14, we would have been in the sun for the entire circuit, so we both agreed that having a shady side to cool off a bit was much superior.

We went directly from exercise to breakfast just after the Windjammer opened at 7 a.m., which is rather later than breakfast times on other ships. Similarly, on the Explorer of the Seas the Windjammer did not open for luncheon until 12:00 noon, which is again later than most other ships start serving lunch. As a result, the time slots available for breakfast and lunch meals is noticeably less than on other ships.

The excitement for breakfast was, however, that we crossed the Equator during our meal! Not only that, but we had a great view out over the stern when the Captain made the announcement , so we could clearly see the line in the water marking the Equator and feel that little bump as we crossed it. Our ship changed course a bit more to the West just after crossing the Equator, and we could clearly see the bend of the ship`s wake from our vantage point in the stern. I suspect that had something to do with the reversal of the Coriolis Force in the Southern Hemisphere that we would have encountered just after crossing the Equator, but I'm not sure about that.

We had another full morning in the theater, with another Rock and Roll class at 10, a lecture about the shore excursions available in the next ports of Lakota and Suava at 9, and a second cha-cha-cha lesson at 11. The port lecture was, of course, a sales pitch for the Royal Caribbean shore excursions, but we did find one Eco-Trek in the jungle that looked interesting. Unfortunately, when we checked for availability, the morning trip was sold out, leaving us only the afternoon trip as an option. Upon careful consideration of the likely 100% humidity and 90+ temperature at that time of day, which we would have to cope with for 3.5 hours, we decided against it.

After our usual relaxing afternoon on the balcony and convivial dinner time, during which Don came up with the unusual interpretation that at the battle of Hastings in 1066, King Harold of the Saxons was killed by "friendly fire" from an archer on the Saxon side. Given the Saxons were fighting in a shield wall where Harold was in the rear, and the Saxons did not have any archers to the best of my knowledge, I thought that possibility much less likely than a Norman archer firing the fatal arrow.

After dinner we stayed awake for the evening entertainment, "The Lively Strings". That turned out to be a husband and wife team where the wife was the violinist and the husband the pianist and bass guitarist, as needed. They were backed up by the ship`s orchestra, which gave a nice, fuller sound, but they were also highly amplified, which was not so nice. I had, however, remembered to bring our earplugs, so we both put those in and reduced the over 100 Db sound level back down to a reasonable 80 Db or so, which allowed us to enjoy the music. I found I was so tired, though, that I sat there like the proverbial lump on a log with my eyes closed, just listening to the music, which was a truly eclectic mix of instrumental versions of Rock and Roll numbers, with "Danny Boy" and one short classical piece thrown in for variety, I guess. I had been hoping for 'Mostly Mozart' stuff, but it is probably just as well that they chose boisterous, noisy Rock and Roll numbers as that kept me from falling asleep, which would have surely happened with quiet, lyrical, soothing classical music. But when we returned to our cabin and turned in for the night, I was asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow, I'm sure.

Wednesday October 18

We lost another hour during the night due to crossing a time zone, and as a result it was easy to awaken early and be walking down on the Promenade Deck by 5:45. We are both trying to condition ourselves to walking in the tropical heat so that we can wander around in some of the tropical ports, and we have gradually increased the laps. Today we reached 9 laps, which took us about an hour and 10 minutes all together. But we finally found out how long the ship is by asking a security guard, who had a nice sheet with all kinds of facts and figures about the Explorer of The Seas. Our ship turned out to be 1020 feet Length Over All, so we estimated that a complete circuit would be a little over 2100 feet (as we cross the width at both the bow and stern), so we figured about 2/5 of a mile per circuit as a mile is 5,280 feet. So we walked about 3.6 miles, which should put us in good shape for walking from the dock to the center of Latoka, which was about 1.4 miles according to the port discussion we attended.

After a well-deserved breakfast, we returned to the cabin to rest before going back to the theater for our next dance lesson.

Later that morning we had our first Rock and Roll dance lesson, and thank goodness Joy and Immanuel taught us the East Coast Swing version. That version simply goes step left, step right, then rock step backwards. In contrast, the West Coast Swing version substitutes triple steps for the first left and right steps, and those triple steps are very hard for us to do quickly if the music has a fast beat. I was a bit surprised how popular ballroom dance was among the ship`s passengers; in fact it was so popular that Joy and Immanuel had to split the class into two sections and have only half the class on stage at any one time. When we were not onstage, we and many of the other folks in our half of the class just found flat spaces in the aisles and keep on practicing, although I found it noticeably harder to make dance moves on a carpet!

After a quick lunch we returned to the theater for a port discussion on Suva, the Capital of Fiji and our next port of call after Lautoka. The take-home lesson on Suva was to watch out for taxicab scams and a different kind of bloodsucker, the mosquito. Suva is host to swarms of very hungry mosquitos due to the fact that the British build Suva on swampland and it apparently rains every single day of the year and never freezes, of course, and thus mosquitoes have a natural habitat, so to speak. The good news was that the ship would moor at a dock just next to the downtown area of Suva, so walking into town should not be a problem.

Just before supper, we had a reception for the "Top Tier" members of Royal Caribbean cruises, which simply means those who have cruised a lot on RCI ships. The reception was held down in the ice rink arena amidships , and it was just a shame that the retractable dance floor over the ice rink had broken, because the reception first featured a singer with a trio who sang some nice, slow dance tunes.

She was followed by a female and male ice skaters, who each performed very impressive solo routines. Flora, the girl skater, did the ice-skating version of "Life is a Cabaret" from the movie Cabaret. Christopher, the guy skater, did an ice-skate version of "Singing in The Rain" from the movie of the same name, and his performance really evoked the original Gene Kelly dance number.

The Captain gave a nice speech welcoming us and expressing his appreciation for our patronage and telling us about the 6 new mega cruise ships that RCI was having built over the next 6 years. That was interesting although we really prefer smaller ships to the bigger ones upon which Royal Caribbean is gambling, as each of those ships will cost 1.6 Billion Dollars! But the really surprising speech was from the hotel manager, who truly waxed eloquent about the crew and how hard they work to make the journey pleasant for us; I mean, the guy should have been a preacher or something with that oratory skill!

Dinner was fun as usual, and we even managed to stay up and see one of the big production shows put on by the ship`s singers and dancers. The were really very good as the dancers were perfectly synchronized, and the 4 main singers had voices that blended and harmonized very well together. Each singer was also given a solo performance, and the big African American guy just knocked his solo out of the ballpark. What a set of pipes that guy had! The performance itself was a loosely linked pastiche of songs characteristic of the major US cities like New York, Chicago, San Francisco, and Las Vegas, so there was no plot as such but rather a very nice collection of tunes and dance routines that you could loosely ascribe to each city. After the performance, we just relaxed by reading a little in our cabin and turned in for the night.

Thursday October 19

Cloudy and rainy this morning, so we abbreviated our walk on deck down to about 55 minutes as we were being pelted by rain on the exposed sections of the Promenade Deck. Still, the rain had a nice cooling effect and it was a pleasant change to NOT get overheated by the sun as had happened on previous days.

After breakfast we attended a port lecture on Mystery Island, which turned out to be a South Seas equivalent of a cruise line island in the Caribbean. That means it is an otherwise uninhabited bit of an island surrounded by nice beaches and coral reefs that the cruise line uses for the passengers to take a "beach day". So we plan to snorkel off the beach when we arrive there in a few day`s time.

The Rock and Roll lecture featured Country and Western classics. Although not our favorite genre of music, we stayed to listen to the presentation to get a better idea of the history of Country and Western music, which turned out to overlap more with Rock and Roll than I had thought, at least according to our presenter. I was also surprised that almost none of the songs he chose had the strong nasal twang in the singer`s voice, which puts me off a bit. I recognized some of the C&W stars like Johnny Cash, but many of the others were new to me and were quite creditable singers. The themes of the songs were very gut-level themes like love, loss, and relationship problems that are not as strongly emphasized in other genres, and that was interesting.

The morning dance lesson was also East Coast Swing, which is danced to Rock and Roll tunes usually, and that was a lot of fun for us. We do hope , however, that they can fix the floor over the ice rink and shift the dance lessons there as the stage is too small to accommodate the number of passengers who want to participate.

(International Date Line: Skip October 20)