Catching Up on a Slow Sea Day

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Yesterday we got our laundry back. First, we got back the laundry we’d put out two days earlier; which, then had Sharon concerned since she was missing her second pair of jeans. Later we also got the load that we’d put out before that (which included Sharon’s missing jeans); so, it does appear that the extra washing imposed on the laundry for all the linens being cleaned is delaying this service. Our first load was already going to be late, so they saw to it that the second was delivered on time; or, so it seems. I had to use my favorite Trivia T-Shirt as an undershirt in the morning, the one that says, “I don’t need Google, My wife knows everything!” So, it was nice to have regular clothes again.

There is no mass this morning and Sharon will attend the Vigil Mass at 5PM. We headed to the Lido for breakfast, and I asked for two eggs over medium and added sausage and potato cakes to that. Sharon settled for a potato cake, toast and a large chocolate croissant.

9AM seemed a bit early to be going to a lecture titled “Worlds in our Solar Backyard and Beyond”, and Stuart Sutherland alluded to as much starting is lecture with a stretch and a yawn. He said, “You might wonder why in the world a paleontologist would be talking about alien life; but, it really isn’t that big of a jump.” He was referring to a Martian rock that had been discovered in Antarctic. He said, they’re really not that hard to find down there. You just look around down there and see all that white, and every once in a while, you’ll spot something black, and dang if it isn’t a Martian rock, part of a galactic collision that caused part of Mars to find its way to Earth! The particular rock he was referring to appeared to have what looked to be the fossilized remains of some one-celled organisms. His talk mentioned Huygens and his contribution to understanding the universe. The Drake Equation was to estimate the odds of forth to estimate the number of active, communicative extraterrestrial in the Milky Way Galaxy. The Huygens telescope has helped to quantify the number of stars in the Milky Way. Other numbers are coming into focus; but many need estimates that can cause results to vary widely. Answers seem to range from 1 to 1,000 and Stuart’s guess was that it was about 104.

We did our Sudoku Challenge back in the room and order is being returned to the universe. Sharon was complaining when I put on the TV and the programming was repeating shows that were on earlier. I like having them on in the background; but, Sharon picks up on any repeated gibberish and has no accommodation for that. To combat the TV, she started playing her iTunes on the laptop… loudly. She’d been on the computer all morning transferring pictures from her phone to the laptop, and updating her accounts, which for some reason need to be balanced every single day. She finished with the laptop, and then said that she was going to find someplace quiet with her tablet (i.e. without having to hear the 3^rd repeat of the news shows I was listening too), and off she went. She left her phone and rings behind; but, at least she had her room key with her. I finally got a chance to work on the blog. It seems like it’s been two days and that was about how many postings we’re behind.

It was nearing lunch time so I started looking for Sharon on the Promenade deck, checked on the Lido Pool Area on my way to the Crow’s Nest, then back down to check the Dive-In and pool-area again, walked through the Lido and finally decided to order myself a NY Pizza, my Wall Street with mushrooms and Kalamatas Olives. I had put Sharon’s rings in the safe before I left the cabin and thought about taking Sharon’s phone with me (that would have really gotten her worried). I texted her to see where she was using the HAL Chat App, not have much confidence that she’d reply with her phone back in the cabin. Little did I know that Sharon had gotten back to the cabin, and fortunately, she was able to find her rings in the safe, and she did get my message and said that she was at the Dive-In. I texted back that I’d be there as soon as I got my pizza. I found her, and she said, “It sure took you a long time to get your pizza.” She was already finished with most of her burger. It’s starting the third week of our cruise, and my self-imposed diet allows me to have one pizza and one soda per week. We head back to the cabin by way of the casino. Sharon stops off to visit with the stampeding Buffalos and is rewarded with an additional $10 of “Free” play, thanks to her get 1000 points on her card. I’m beginning to understand how it is we got the Casino Rate on this cruise. I stopped by the Fun-21 table and I had it all to myself. I noticed that the high roller lady couldn’t stay away from the $15 minimum table; which, she again had all to herself. She’s sitting there, cool as a cucumber playing with stacks of green and black chips in a world of her own. Personally, I can’t understand why the $6 minimum table is invariably packed with multiple players despite offering a meager 6:5 payout for blackjack. At least she is getting an honest-game of blackjack and being rewarded for the higher minimum bet with 3:2 payouts on blackjack. Fun-21 also has 3:2 payouts for blackjack, PLUS 3:2 payouts for 7-7-7, 6-7-8 and 21’s of five-cards (or more) PLUS the player gets paid for ALL 21’s (even if the dealer has 21). The game also allows BOTH early and late surrender. Surrender is where the player gives up half the bet on the first two cards of a hand. They even offer “Double Regret” where if you don’t like the card you get when you double down; well, you can surrender your original bet. I’m thinking, if you’re going to give up if you don’t like the card that you get, maybe you shouldn’t be doubling in the first place. I’m just saying. The one thing that I’ve seen players do a lot on previous days is double down with eight or nine against dealer with a 5 or 6 and inexplicably even with 4 and 7! This is not Regular Blackjack because the eight decks that are in play have had all of the Kings removed! This means the dealer that will typically bust about one-fourth of the time is now busting much, much less! A better choice would be to hit these low-point hands and hopefully make 10 or 11. Fun-21 allows you to double down at any time; so, now if you get this improvement all the better! I saw my stack of red chips dwindle in half before I started getting some better cards and worked myself back to even. I left the table with a few extra chips in my pocket.

It was Smart Casual for this final Sea Day before Rotterdam. There have been just two gala nights on this leg of the cruise, and I think I heard that we will be having three more on the return to Boston. We sat at a table with one other couple, the lady had some trouble being seated due to being confined to her scooter. And there were two women by themselves who also joined us. I ordered the jumbo shrimp cocktail with spicy cocktail sauce. I asked for additional horseradish on the side. I also got the Sunset Salad. When Sharon asked me what my entrée was I told her that I’d ordered the Duxelles Stuffed Chicken Breast, Sharon frowned and said, “Didn’t you hear the steward tell her that he wouldn’t recommend the chicken?” “No Dear, I didn’t hear that,” I was thinking; but, I said, “Oh great”. I was considering the “Fresh Norwegian Fish” choice again; but, was wondering if three days from that Norwegian Fish Market might not be pushing the freshness part of that fish. The popular choice was the English Roast beef. Sharon’s assessment of it, that it was a little tough for her was certainly more generous than the lady sitting across from me, “This is terrible.” She also took one look at her Rhubarb Crisp dessert and decided that she didn’t want that either, and eyeing Sharon’s blackout cake asked, “Is that good?” She had the steward take the crisp away and bring her the cake instead. I gave the Pina Colada Cake a try, and I liked it more than I thought I might. Sharon’s chocolate cake did look pretty, and the blueberries in the whipped cream wouldn’t have put me off. They guy next to me was obviously a tech geek and he and his wife take many cruises on many different lines and were comparing HAL and Norwegian and Celebrity and others. He was really complaining about the “Unlimited” WIFI on HAL and how you can only get it for 31 days. I told him, “It says 31 days; but, it’s good for the whole cruise.” He insisted that it wasn’t and that we’d need to buy another week when our 31 days were up. And to show how smart he was, “I waited until the eighth day to sign up for Internet; and, I got the full streaming Internet.” I said, “We only got the surfing Internet (mid-level) for 31-days, but it’s good for the whole cruise.” He begged to differ. Then I told him that every day it told us that we had 31 days left, and then after a week our number of days left started counting down my one each day. I heard an irritated “Hmmph.” It’s probably good that I didn’t point out to him that the price for upgrading to the streaming internet went up from $70 during the first week to $100. I just love it when penny-pinching know it all’s shoot themselves in the foot. Our internet was just about covered by the stock ownership credit that we get for owning Carnival Stock. I guess you should take those early cruise promotions when you have them! He pulled out his phone and showed the app that seemed to report the quality of the ping response to various servers around the world. I’m thinking, “Okay, I guess that’s one reason to pay for the streaming internet, so you can check the ping responses.” His point was that Royal Carribean’s WIFI is so much better.

I headed over to the Showroom and saved a spot for us. Tonight we saw “Dance”, a HAL production featuring the Rotterdam entertainers: four singers and six dancers. The show started with a rousing song and dance number with all ten cast members. The second act was a sad slow follow-up dance number by one sole female dancer, supposedly doing something of Indian or Southeast Asian culture but with no musical accompaniment… it was sort of like watching a mime and all I could think was “Why am I watching this?” It stopped, and I thought that part was over; but, no… now there was a second female dancer and they continued in an encore with them matching each other step-for-step. At least now there was music accompanying their movement; but, you know, I was still asking that nagging question. The music stopped, and again there was applause, and for one brief moment I had that uncomfortable thought, “Oh no, there are two more female dancers.” But it moved on and the music and dancing was much more entertaining (for me). I really liked the “I Could Have Danced All Night” number. I miss the day in HAL shows when you got plenty of the classics like “Impossible Dream” or songs from “Phantom of the Opera”. The show ended with an encore of the opening number.

I sat down at the Fun-21 and the pit-boss asked the dealer at one of the other table games to shuffle the cards at my table, and so he came over. I wondered, “Is he the knock out dealer?” And the way things started, he certainly seemed to be. But then the high roller lady came in and it was time to open the $15 Blackjack table as well. And my dealer was transferred to that table to shuffle the cards there. Maybe he is the knockout dealer. I wasn’t sorry to see him leave my table, and things did improve. I noticed that other the other table the high roller was still playing with stacks of green and black chips. I asked my dealer where she’d gotten on the ship… she said, “Rotterdam”. She has 4 more months on her contract and will be getting off just after they arrive in the Caribbean. She’d just learned this game Fun-21. She said, “Thank-you for letting me practice with you. My boss told me, they don’t play this much on this side of the Atlantic, but they play it a lot on the New England cruises.” She said, “I have to remember to ask if anyone wants to surrender when an ace is up and then if anyone wants insurance.” We played a while and a very confident male player started dealing very fast. I managed to win four hands in a row, which left me making an $11 bet, the way I play. I got a blackjack. And then I saw this overconfident dealer flinch. I knew he didn’t know how to pay my bet. His hand hesitated, he fumbled with the red chips. The problem is, the payoff for $10 is $15, or three red chips. But how to pay off the dollar. The seasoned dealer will pay the bet with three red chips and one $2.50 chip, open his hand showing the payoff, and take the $1 chip from the original bet. Then he did something completely unexpected, he payed off the bet as if I’d bet $16 instead of $11. He paid Four red chips and Four blue chips (singles). I should have just accepted his generous overpayment. Instead, I rejected his payout with an openhand palm down to show that he should stop and check. I said, “You need to use a two-and-one-half dollar chip,” to pay this correctly. He called the pit boss over, and it soon got sorted out. I started to win steadily after that, and the rapid pace confidence of the dealer was gone, and for me the pace was much easier to control. I was up about $100 for the day, when I decided to call it a night. I noticed the high roller talking to the pit boss, saying, “It’s been a terrible day.” She was reduced to playing with stacks of red and green chips.

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