Day 65 March 10^th – At Sea

Two sea days on in front of us before we arrive in Phu My, Vietnam where we will start our first overland adventure to Angkor Wat in Cambodia.  We went to Angkor Wat on the 2016 world cruise and we enjoyed it so much we decided to make a second visit.  The ship sent out a questionnaire about our travel plans in Vietnam to determine if we needed an individual visa or if the group visa would be sufficient.  The cost for the individual visa was $75 and was cheaper than what the visa services were charging and even cheaper than if we mailed our passport to the Vietnam embassy in Washington DC.

There are some exceptions, most notably the Australian ETA, but as a general rule, allowing the ship to get your visas if they are able to is usually the best bet.

Meet and Greet

There was another cruise critic meet and greet today – the third one of the cruise.  Jerry and Kathy organized another slot pull and some other folks started to set up a cabin crawl.

Kathi leading the meet and greet

Afternoon on the ship

Not a good day for me in the Casino – played 3 Hold’em tournaments and lost them all.

Judy continues with her drawing class where Ben talked about the values of tone that can be found in the shadows of an object.

Today’s craft project was constructing a Chinese Good Fortune Bracelet.  Judy got four extra beads to make the bracelet big enough to fit her wrist.

Captain’s Dinner

Tonight, was our turn for the Captain’s Dinner in the Pinnacle Grill.  We arrived at 6:30 and posed for a picture with Captain Jonathan.  Everyone who is on the full world cruise gets invited to one dinner.  Notification of our dinner was sent out during the first week of the cruise.  They will consider rescheduling if you are off the ship for an overland excursion and for no other reason.  There is always some gift distributed during dinner and you will received this gift even if you can’t make the dinner.  They don’t send out reminders, so you must make sure you remember your date on your own.

Each table of 6 -7 people will have a single officer has a host.  We were seated with 2 other couples along with Ed, the Chief Electrical Officer.  The Captain hosts a table for 6 near the front door.  The people sitting at his table didn’t have any special status that we could determine, so it’s not clear how tables are assigned.

Here is the menu – there aren’t any choices unless you let them know ahead of time that you were allergic to something they planned on serving.

2018 GRAND WORLD VOYAGE CAPTAIN’S DINNER

• SMOKED DUCK
• CREAM OF CORN
• SEARED TUNA *
• BEEF AND SHRIMP *

Desert

• SNICKERS BAR

Wine

• BERINGER PINOT GRIGIO, CALIFORNIA
• TAPENA TEMPRANILLO, SPAIN

The food was delicious and the service outstanding.  We had an enjoyable time learning more about Ed’s duties aboard the Amsterdam as well as more about our tablemates.

Our dinner gift was a very nice tulip vase.

After dinner we stopped by the main dining room to visit with our friends at Table 303 and enjoy some coffee and tea when they brought desert.

Emergency at Sea

While everyone was enjoying desert, the First Stage Emergency Alarm sounded at 9:22 PM.  We knew this wasn’t a drill, and shortly afterwards there was an announcement that there was a report of smoke in the incinerator.  The Captain came on the public-address system shortly thereafter and announced that everyone was responding per their training and there was nothing to be concerned about now.  The captain made several follow up announcements keeping us informed about the status before his final announcement at 9:47 that the situation was under control and no further action would be necessary.

Queen’s Lounge

We went to the Queen’s lounge a few minutes before 10 PM to catch the show with concert pianist Tomono Kawamura.  She put on a marvelous show and played an original composition she wrote when she was 12 which she performed for the Prime Minister of Israel.

Flooding

Our cabin is on Deck 6 and when were heading back to our cabin, we passed through the casino and learned that our deck was flooded, and we may have difficulty getting to our cabin.  I scurried up to Deck 6 and was relieved to learn that the flooding was limited to cabins on the port side and since we are on the starboard side we were unaffected.  We talked to some guests in the port side cabins later and they said that the water came from the center core of the ship and their cabins were not seriously affected.  They did pull up the carpet and replaced it the next day.