Our longest stretch of sea days comes to a close.  When I was in the US Navy, my longest stretch of consecutive sea days was 93!  And many Navy veterans can easily beat that number.  

I hope that the days of poor internet will be fewer as we cruise closer to areas with better internet satellite coverage.  Updating my blog is time consuming with poor connections, as the simplest tasks can sometimes take minutes instead of seconds.  There are also occasional security issues as the servers involved are often in different time zones, and sometimes synchronization is a problem.  I am anticipating another spate of connectivity issues as we cross the date line, and our servers think we are on a different day.  It will all settle out in time.  

One of the most difficult things to do on any cruise, and particularly a World Cruise is to decide how to spend your time.  There are always many choices, and Grand Voyages are chock full of activities from 7 am until 11 pm.  It’s easy to get into a routine, and that’s OK.  

Playing Texas Hold’em tournaments is one of my favorite activities on any cruise and especially world cruises.  The casino no longer has live dealers, which is both good and bad.  Live dealers using real cards is more fun than playing on a giant “Poker Pro” table.  However, live dealers, want to wrap the games up in 45 minutes, so they start with about $1500 in tournament chips and raise the blinds every 10 minutes.  On the other hand, at a Poker Pro Table, no dealers are involved, so the Casino doesn’t really care how long the games last.  On this cruise, the players start with $5000 in tournament chips and raise the blinds every 15 minutes.  This makes for longer games – almost 2 hours.  By playing 2 games a day, that’s almost 4 hours.  So for the most part, I will be playing one game a day.  

We have a core group of about 12-15 players and we usually get 8 to play at any particular time.  We all get along great and no one is taking anything too seriously so it’s a lot of fun.  If you ever had a desire to learn Texas Hold’em, a cruise ship tournament is one of the best places to get experience.  The games are friendly and people are eager to help.  The buy-in is usually $60 and that is the limit of your potential loss.  The winners will usually split $400.  

As you cruise more often on the same cruise line, you will come to know more and more people from previous cruises.  This is another fun activity as you will spend time throughout the day catching up with old acquaintances and making new friends.  

Chris Pendleton was on the Mainstage this evening.  The first 1/2 hour of her show was stand-up comedy, while for the last 15 minutes she played the fiddle.  Elliot Finkel who joined her onstage to play the Celtic tune Bygone Days.  The show was great and we enjoyed it more than the first.

We will be in Nuku Hiva tomorrow, 18 Jan 2023