Formal night?

Day 3  Friday, March 15, 2019   At Sea

One of the many events today was this Captain's Champagne Waterfall. It was Formal Night, but we ended up not participating because the dinner menu was nothing special enough to warrant our getting all dressed up. I had asked Al Skyler what Formal Night meant, and he said it usually meant lobster or a filet mignon in the dining room. We saw the posted menu early in the day, and it looked typical, so we remained in our casual clothes and ate in the buffet. We hoped that the second Formal Night at the end of the cruise would have lobster.

Another Fitness Room early, nice uncrowded buffet breakfast, and then Dave Upton's presentation on Tauranga. We changed U.S. dollars for Australian money (no service fee!), picked up some free jewelry for Rylee, and changed our excursion for Tauranga since we'd be doing it on our land tour later.

The three pictures above were taken in the Hollywood Conservatory forward on level 17. It was so nice to have a lounge in a quiet adults-only area where you could watch the sea ahead. Just back of this area was a swimming pool, bar, and many private lounges along the windows. The Escape had nothing like this, although other Norwegian ships at least had forward lounges.

 

It rained quite a bit this day, so we didn't do much outside. We did like how on either side of the pool on level 16 were glass-floor walkways extending out the side of the ship. When you looked down...

...there was the ocean below you!

For lunch, we tried the Noodle Bar out on this pool deck (out of the rain). Janet loved that when an Asian woman bumped into me in the line, I told her to "say excuse me". In the afternoon we attended the Auckland presentation.

The Italian captain was a good speaker, in the lead-up to the waterfall. Then the fellow poured a few bottles onto the top glass and it cascaded down in all its glory. What happened over the next 45 minutes cracked us up, because a long line of passengers went up there, one by one or couple by couple, to get their photos as they poured a few splashes of champagne onto the pyramid. The staff fellow had to stand with them and hold the bottle to make sure there were no accidents, and remind them to smile for the camera. It was all pretty funny.

The theater show was a repeat of the Freddy Mercury guy from night one, so we skipped it. At some point that day, we learned of the tragedy in Christchurch, although we didn't learn many details until later.

We went to bed knowing that we needed to wake up early to get to view the entrance to spectacular Milford Sound.