Blogs from Atlantis, Atlantic, Oceans and Seas - page 10

Geo: 21.1726, 94.8615Myanmar is a country with many puppys and pagodas. We are travelling in a group, four bikers from Jindabyne and us. We have a driver, a government assigned minder and our Tour Guide who is Burmese but speaks English just like Forest Gump. He is hilarious, very knowledgeable and a heck of a nice guy. We are staying in hotels pre booked for us, we follow the support minibus, our guide gives us tips like take sunscreen and flyspray and don't have to put in too much of anything really.The country is very beautiful and a pleasant change to what we experienced in India.... read more

Geo: 24.0384, -122.999143/1000 internet minutes left. I was able to get a few more blogs off today so I'm catching up now. After a late breakfast, it's about 11am and we check out the Lido poolside. There's a rumor that the ship's Signature Shops are having a sale. No way! Save 50-75%? Let's go! I think we're getting towards the end and they need to dump inventory, however, this ship is going to Peru and back (30 days), the through Panama Canal (16 days) before starting a World Voyage (over 100 days) so there will be more opportunities for them, not us. I take a few shots of Karen checking out the wares and notice another area set up with food and "Chinese" cooks and attendants. It's a Mongolian Stir Fry. The guests pick out the ... read more

Geo: 8.50713, -132.205We sleep in a little since we lost an hour of sleep with the time change. After breakfast, we're on our way to the room when a kitchen aid asks us if we want to go on a kitchen tour. OK. We enter through the same doors that our waiters exit from with our food when eating in the dining room. The equipment is basically the same as one would have in their home except that there are many and each one is huge in comparison. Our guide points out freezers that hold pallets of food, bread ovens stacked one on top of another and food prep areas where 8 workers can assemble deserts at once. 96 people work in the galley and 122 more service staff out in the dining room. The staff ... read more

Geo: 1.66089, -133.095Not a lot going on today. That's good. We don't even go to breakfast until almost 9am. Then at 10, they have the King Neptune Ceremony out at the pool area. This is a fun activity taken from a mariner's tradition that pokes fun at crew members passing over the equator for the first time. Lots of pomp and circumstance takes place with King Neptune, pirates, lifeguards and officers of the ship. Victims must first kiss this fish statue, then covered with some kind of goop and finally thrown in the pool. About 20 crew went through this, then many more crew members ended up in the pool. After the ceremony, the pool was drained and cleaned. Note: At 8:58am we crossed over the equator from the Southern to the Northern Hemisphere on our ... read more

Geo: 34.765, 32.411In yesterday's daily ship bulletin, The Herald, there was an announcement that the Cowboys game would be carried on the ship's satellite TV. They listed it at 9:15 p.m. Sunday, but they miscalculated the time difference. It was the later afternoon game which would have started at 2:15 at home, but a nine-hour time difference here meant it started at 11:15. Phil stayed up for the whole disappointing game.(This program requires a city to be named in the location field. We weren't really in Cyprus, but it seems to be the closest location I can find that the program will accept. We simply sailed nearby.)... read more