Another much-needed day at sea began with an 8am alarm — no, I’m not sure why either. The weather forecast promised yet another beautiful day sailing up the coast of Vietnam, which felt wholly unnecessary given how pleasant the last several had been.
As we were up a little later than usual, we found a table inside for breakfast, which was quieter than normal. After that we ventured outside, where Karen immediately deemed our chosen table “less than acceptable” as it was not precisely half in the sun and half in the shade. Her exacting requirements must be maintained.
I got on with blogging and dealing with a few emails while Karen continued reading her book. I attempted to start one by Sara Pascoe but couldn’t get into it and eventually abandoned it without guilt.
Karen then read the last few blog entries and declared that I had captured the days “brilliantly”, which in our house is the equivalent of winning the Booker Prize. She did suggest, however, that for an at-sea day the post could simply read:
“Got up. Ate. Drank. Went to bed.”
By late morning it was too hot outside for Karen, so we retreated upstairs to the Crow’s Nest, which was the busiest we’d ever seen it — clearly everyone else had reached the same conclusion. Karen queued for drinks while I gambled on where best to loiter and was rewarded with two loungers by the window. There’s something deeply satisfying about lounging with a drink while the world glides past.
Eventually — and by eventually I mean at least 15 minutes since our last meal — we headed back to the Lido buffet for lunch. We picked at a few things and then returned outside to sit by the pool. As it was now after midday, it felt entirely appropriate to have some cooling, refreshing cocktails and bubbles. Karen finally watched the final of The Traitors, which got that o=finally out of the way.
At 4pm we had arranged to join Lois and Superman fand their friends for the Team Trivia quiz. The lounge was absolutely rammed with teams, but Lois being Lois somehow organised seating for us. Before it started looking around at the other teams, I felt quietly smug — this would be a doddle, surely. How wrong I was.
There were 16 questions, ranging from “What is the national animal of Greece?” to “What was the name of the first Empress of France?” I even managed to get the IT question wrong — What does USB stand for? (Apparently the B stands for Bus.) Thanks to some generous marking we scored 12. The winners got all 16 correct, though Lois was adamant they were cheating and using their phones.
Lois and their American friends then invited us to join them for dinner at 5.45pm, which meant Karen had to rush getting ready as it was a “dressy” night — not helped by us wanting a quick look around the shops to see how to spend our use-it-or-lose-it onboard credit.
We arrived five minutes late but had a good laugh over the gala dinner. I had the beef tenderloin with crab cake, which was marvellous and entirely justified the effort of changing clothes.
Just before 7.30pm we headed to the World Stage to see the cast perform It’s a Swing Thing. I really enjoyed it — well-known songs like Dancing Queen reimagined as swing jazz classics.
After the show we bumped into Lois and Chris again and decided to grab seats and drinks with them in the piano bar. They had a few different cocktails on the menu and, after trying a Fantastica, Karen joined me in drinking El Diablos, which were extremely drinkable. Now I’m not saying Lois and Chris are a bad influence, but I did seem to consume at least four of these in a relatively short space of time.
The piano player was taking requests and it didn’t take long for the four of us to almost drown him out with our enthusiastic accompaniment. Lois and Chris even attempted to get some dancing going.
As it was gala evening, the ship had also decreed it was Chocolate Night, and at 9.45pm waiters paraded through the lounges en masse with freshly made chocolate treats served on large spoons. Somehow we ended up with more than a dozen of these on our small table.
Lois tried to persuade us to move our bay cruise to the same time as theirs the next day, but I wasn’t able to — which at least means we have another lie-in even if not their company.
Despite everything, we were not asked to leave the bar for being disruptive, even when Lois pointed out a couple she had learned had the most American names imaginable: Chuck and Tammy. There cannot be many passengers left that she hasn’t introduced herself to, asked where they’re from, and memorised entirely — which remains astonishing.
We talked for a while about their relationship. For now Lois calls herself Chris’s paramour as he hasn’t yet told his family, though suspects they’ve already worked it out. With one living in Sydney and the other in Brisbane, and neither keen to relocate, they have no idea what the future holds. For now, they’re just enjoying themselves — which feels like the right approach.
I only realised I’d perhaps had a cocktail or two too many when walking back to our cupboard and noticed my wobbling wasn’t due to the ship’s movement. Back inside, we discovered a surprising amount of post and gifts from the ship waiting for us, which took some time to go through before I lay down and fell asleep to the gentle motion of the ship.
Another day at sea where Karen was absolutely right: we got up, ate, drank, and went to bed.
But it was all rather nice.
