Day 57, Super Tuesday at Sea

Day 57, Super Tuesday at Sea

COFFEE CHAT

The Maori Cultural Ambassadors, Lucky, Pali, Destiny Rose, and Brady, were the guests at Coffee Chat this morning.  While all are from New Zealand, they have different backgrounds and bring a variety of different experiences to their work.

WASHING THE BALCONY

Every few days they wash off the balcony decks outside our cabin. The day before we will receive a notice informing us that they will be out there with hoses so as not to alarm us when we see someone appear on our deck.

SUPER TUESDAY VOTE BY FAX

Today is the Sunday before Super Tuesday, which is the big Primary Election Day in the United States.  As a California resident, we discovered we could get our ballots sent to us via email. How this works is they emailed us a code which we inserted into a website and then we filled out our ballots. We then saved the completed ballot as a PDF file and were required to fax it back to San Diego County elections. I used to have a fax by email service but since I rarely used it I discontinued the service a while ago. I tried to establish another account but due to the poor Internet I was unable to logon.

Since we are in New Zealand tomorrow I figured I could go to an office supply store and pay to have them send a fax to San Diego. But first I decided to ask Guest Services if the ship had the ability to fax information for guests. Much to my pleasant surprise, not only did the ship have a fax by email account set up, the service was complementary for passengers. I took our ballots to Guest Services and while I waited they scanned the ballots and faxed them to San Diego Voter Services. The next day I received an email from San Diego Voters confirming receipt of our ballots. So if you need fax services aboard ship, check with Guest Services, and they should be able to help you out at no charge.

MAORI SERENADE

During dinner this evening we heard a group singing what appeared to be some local Maori music. I scurried over to the railing and there were the Maori Cultural Ambassadors singing on Deck 4. It was a nice tune, but I did not catch the name.

MAIN STAGE

Tonight’s entertainment was a split bill between Juggler Steven Ragartz and the talented multi-instrument musician Jim Hodson. Steven was first and performed an amazing pantomime depicting a circus hand waking up and getting ready for the day’s work. If someone described this to me I would never imagine that this would be remotely interesting, but due to Steven’s incredible talent you cannot take your eyes off the stage. He is an amazing performer, if you see him listed on your cruise, be sure to catch his show.  He followed up by balancing 5 boxes on his chin and juggling three bricks.

Jim Hodson was a second half of the split bill. He performed a variety of tunes including:

• Pipeline
• Walk Don’t Run
• Canon in D

He performed an amazing rendition of Pure Imagination on the mini trombone.

After the show Jim greeted passengers by the Starboard entrance on Deck 4, which is becoming more more rare recently. Judy and Jim mugged for the camera.