Day 02 - Thu 11Apr2024 - At Sea to Picton, NZ - Day 1

 There was a lot of motion to the ocean overnight but I slept pretty well except for the frequent bio breaks resulting from so much fluid intake during the day.  There was a 9am Bible study, but I was slow getting ready so I skipped it.  Angela did go ahead and attend and really liked it.  Our friends, Doug and Linda, were there as well.  There was not much going on of interest to us for the rest of the morning, so we hung out in the Bistro area until we participated in an "Urban myths" trivia session in the aft Vista Lounge.  We did pretty well, but didn't didn't win. Eventually I snagged a burger and fries at the Burger and Lobster bar before attending the 1pm Maori presentation in the Princess Theater by a a Maori Ariki Huata and his sister, Ellison.  It was quite good and featured a short film describing his rite of passage of his extensive facial tattooing and the reasons behind it.

Susan Beard then presented an enrichment lecture on the history of New Zealand. This was followed by a dance class in the Piazza led by the Maori brother & sister that Angela participated in.







For dinner, we once again ate in the Lido buffet where I enjoyed a crab salad and a significant quantity of cold mussels which were quite good. The evening's entertainment was Australian Glenn Starr, a vocalist who sang an assortment of hits from the 50's and 60's.  He was pretty good.  The YES/NO game show followed and Angela was eliminated in two seconds.  Fortunately the next player was eliminated in one second and received the nickname "One Second John".  At the end of the show he was invited back up and see if he could get Olivia, the cruise director, to fail.  He was successful and won a bottle of sparkly but still kept his nickname.


As we were getting ready to leave, our other friends Jo Anne and Gary found us for the first time this cruise and we ended up in the Vista lounge for an hour catching up and rejuvenating our friendship.  We then enjoyed the comedy of Andre King who was once again quite funny. We also documented our meeting with a foot picture like we did 12 years ago when we first cruised together on a Panama Canal cruise.

And so ended our first day at sea.  Our clocks were advanced once more by an hour to put us on New Zealand time, so we didn't get to bed until 1am adjusted time.  Let's see if I can make it up for the 9am Bible study. . . 

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