Sadly, a bad day for Janet with her developing asthma and painful cough. She slept in until 11:45, at which time she stayed in bed while I brought her coffee and tea. Poor thing stayed in bed much of the day. And it was Formal Night, and this time, lobster WAS on the menu.
With Janet still sleeping, at 9:00 I attended a presentation in the theater about the Majestic Princess, which concluded with the short tour in the kitchens. The 1st Officer discussed info about the ship, but also the training one must endure to be an officer or captain of a Princess cruise ship.
Notes I took:
a) 3800 passengers were on our ship. Every cabin was taken. But when the Chinese add children to the rooms for the cruises out of Shanghai, the max capacity is 4450. (Four to a room!)
b) Ship's cost was $830 million U.S.
c) It's 1.5 times heavier than the Titanic
d) If they try to come to a full stop, it takes 5.3 minutes and 1.1 miles
e) The five tenders hold 242 ea, the 11 lifeboats hold 305 ea, and 2 MES hold 632 ea. (MPS is marine evacuation system, a lifesaving device consisting of an inflatable slide or escape chute where a passenger can evacuate straight into waiting life rafts). The tenders and lifeboats combine for 4565 capacity, and the grand total is 5829.
f) "The most important pieces of equipment on this ship are the coffee makers."
g) The GPS can place the ship (or anything) within 2 cm of accuracy.
h) To be captain, they have to see if you can handle being away for long periods of time, so the training requires you go off for a year's assignment first, then later an assignment for 2 yrs.
We then walked to the back of the ship to see some of the massive kitchens behind the 6th level restaurants. But my photos are mostly of the carved vegetable creations!
When this tour was over, Janet was still asleep so I went to breakfast alone. She was still asleep after that, so I did the Fitness Rm. Back from that, she was finally awake (11:45). We got two loads of clothes into the laundry, which was only a short distance from us on 10. Never on Norwegian did we have laundromats.
Finally Janet and I went up so she could get some food. Breakfast for her, lunch for me. Afterward, we put clothes in the drier, and hung out in the room until they were all done. After folding everything and putting it all away, Janet stayed while I attended the finals of "Voice of the Ocean", the guest singing contest. I could stand it only for about three of them before returning to the room to keep Janet company.
By 5:00, it was time to consider "The Lobster Dinner." I felt so bad that Janet felt too lousy to eat anything, and just wanted to stay in bed. But she insisted I go alone. I pulled out the suit, shirt, tie, and dress shoes I had brought only for this purpose, and got all gussied up (first time on a cruise ship).
I thoroughly enjoyed the lobster, jumbo prawns appetizer, and fancy dessert, but the Aussie couple I was with was a bit different. They were Trump fans, the only ones we ever encountered in our travels. And, she was anti-tipping (to the ship staff) and anti-immigrants. A "good" thing about them was they knew Mark Renshaw's parents (he's a longtime pro cyclist). I just tried to change the subject with a gentle disagreement when they got political.
When I got back to the room, Janet felt better enough to want some food, but didn't want to venture out. So, I brought her back a bowl of soup from the Noodle Bar. Gladly, she felt a bit better, but still not well enough to see the much-promoted grand finale theater show called "Encore." Luckily, they were going to perform it again the next afternoon. We could hope to see it then (we did, and we sure were glad because it was fantastic).
When it was 8:45 and knowing the dining room closed in 15 more minutes, and with me still wearing most of my dress clothes, I started joking about going for another lobster dinner. Janet kept encouraging me to do it, so of course I gave in. Heck, it had been more than three hours since the last one!
Sure enough, two full lobster dinners for me that night! Might as well make it worthwhile for having to bring those dress clothes and get all fancied up. The dinner was VERY enjoyable because of the Aussie couple I sat with this time. They were progressive, charming, interesting, accomplished, gracious -- from Canberra. Again, I also had the jumbo prawns and a fancy dessert. Yum!
We ended the day with some watermelon for Janet, plus she took her morning shower and we hit the hay. One more cruise day to go on this part of our long vacation.
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