High Fun on the High Seas (North Sea Adventure)

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Day 3 – Hi Fun on the High Seas (North Sea Adventure)

After mass I met Sharon by the Half Moon and we went to the Dining Room for breakfast. I ordered some Swiss muesli and the veggie frittata with a potato cake and some sausage. Sharon had French Toast with a double order of hash browns.

After we spotted the Sudoku sheets in the Explorations Lounge on the first day, which are impossibly miniscule, added as an afterthought to the Cross Word Puzzle sheet, and it’s just the Easy Puzzle, we are probably going to skip this ritual. We’ll have a somewhat leisurely day today, not having Bingo until 10AM.

I got us a spot in the Queen’s Lounge for Bingo. I showed up way early. Sharon was out and about again. She bought today’s punch-cards. The first game was the 4 Corners and I actually got to stand to no avail; but, at least it was more than an “Up-and-Down”. The Assistant Cruise Director seems to prefer to save the regular Bingo for the second Game, which actually makes sense. And the ACD seems to have an assistant (and one not dressed in crew garb). She was assisting last night at trivia as well. “I doubt she’s a trainee”, Sharon’s suspicious mind wondered. And she says that you can see the gears of my mother’s brain turn as she figures things out. The third game was the B-and-O game; but, this ACD isn’t into all of the normal bingo banter. For example, he didn’t require you to call out “I have BO” instead of Bingo. And he only called the numbers once, and sometimes twice. Things moved right along, but there wasn’t a lot of extra chat; unless you count the instructions that were also given in Dutch. Sharon suspects that the Dutch don’t play much Bingo because they really needed a lot of detailed novice instruction. There was a family of about 10 to 12 sitting in front of us. Sharon seemed to start well on the Blackout Game; but, then the lady that one the 4-corners game one the blackout as well!

We arrived in the Crow’s Nest in plenty of time; but, it seemed over-crowded on this Sea Day, and not with people planning to play Trivia. We hadn’t brought our phones with us; or else we could have checked online for the proper venue. I went back to the cabin, and it is good that I did because we needed to go back down to Deck 2 to the Billboard Onboard lounge. In chatting with our teammates, who had went to the right place first, we discovered that two had been school teachers and one a college professor. I was right, we have teamed up with some of those “Retired Schoolteachers.” Heck with finding an Aussie Couple and a British Couple to team up with, retired schoolteachers are so much better! Sharon liked the second question of trivia today, “What runs from forward to aft on the port side of the ship; but, from aft to forward on the starboard side of a ship?” Think about that for a bit, and the answer will come to you; or, keep reading and the answer will come to you. Our partner who recruited and interviewed us for the team wrote down the answer defiantly proclaiming, “We’re not going to miss THAT question again. So Sharon and I didn’t have to think too long about this obvious answer. We thought about this next question for a bit before we collectively came up with the answer: “What Men At Work hit introduced Vegemite to the world?” Most of us nixed “YMCA” but came together on “Down Under”. We struggled with “According to the 2000 census, what is the most common Hispanic name in the US?” We went with “Gonzalez”. Well, it does start with a “G”! Did you guess Garcia? We couldn’t come up with what countries nuclear reactor was able to detect “The Event” in Chernobyl. Some suggested US. We went with France; but, it was actually a bit closer: “Sweden”. Our school teacher teammates were able to come up with what type of wood bowling pins are made out of (not the synthetic ones). It is “Maple”. And one of them even came up with what is the capital city in Canada’s Saskatchewan Province. Would you have guessed Regina? The bonus question for 3-points (1-point for each country) was to list the countries that the Atlas mountain range passes through. One of them knew that this included Morocco. I knew that the country next door was Algeria; because, I never let Sharon that I’ve been to Africa, and that’s where I once spent 3-hours on a tour from Spain. And now Sharon must contend with her sister Erin being on safari in Africa right now, and she’s seen the elephants! That’s another thing on Sharon’s Bucket List. For the third country we went with the suggestion Libya; alas, Tunisia is sort of in between. We wound up with 13 points; and, it was good enough to win. And the cruise director’s Northern Europe pins are the “good ones” that appear to be made of brass rather than plastic! She liked our team name “We Don’t Need Google!” And that what runs which-way question, the answer is “The Ship’s Name”.

It was Gala Night, and I’m glad I ordered those two dress shirts from Amazon before leaving on vacation. The fit much more comfortably. I enjoyed my escargot. And everyone got the watermelon gazpacho with the chef’s compliments. And my artichoke and carrot soup was good as well. I ordered the stuffed shells, as did our two dinner companions, a mother and daughter who often cruise together. Sharon had the Surf and Turf. I was somewhat disappointed to get two grilled shrimp as the surf part of her meal; although they were quite good. They’re just not lobster which you’d get in Alaska or New England. And our chocolate soufflés seemed a bit dry, and we had to wait some time before they brought the chocolate sauce (which they desperately needed).

I got rid of the coat and tie before going up to see the show titled “One World” put on by the ship’s dancers and singers. It was quite good; although, there was just one female singer leaving me to wonder if the second is under the weather. The nearly surround screen makes a great backdrop to the stage, and the show began by the lead female singer descending on a flowery swing from above. The set showing an African sunset with a lion lurking to the left and then some elephants heading towards the watering hole from the right was quite riveting as the music captured our imagination with their rendition of “Kilimanjaro”. I nudged Sharon, “See, you don’t need to go on safari in Africa to see elephants.” I don’t think she was buying it.

We’d gotten our same spot from the previous evening. We looked around for that team on the first night that had come over to us and asked, “Are you guess here to play trivia?” When we confirmed her suspicion, she then announce quite defiantly, “Well, we’re here to TAKE YOU DOWN.” We weren’t sure if she maybe had had a bit too much to drink already, or if she was one of those who take team trivia a bit too seriously. We hadn’t seen her (or her team) that afternoon at trivia, and evidently she’s still in hiding. Hers wasn’t even the team that had tied us the night before. I came up with “What anniversary is the Crystal Anniversary.” We’ve had diamond and silver in the past; but, somehow I knew 15 for crystal. Sharon was able to provide the first name and one of our teammates came up with the last name for the actress that starred opposite Patrick Swayze in “Dirty Dancing”: Jennifer Grey. And Sharon was on her game with the religious question: “Where did Moses receive the 10 commandments?” Truth be told, we all knew that one. Then came the Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs question. “How many of the 7-Dwarfs had beards. The teachers didn’t seem sure, so I turned my paper over and tried to write “6” upside down so our Team Scribe could see. No, we don’t let Sharon be the scribe. Somehow it came out “8”, and my team let me know they weren’t happy with that answer. Sharon remembered “How many ghosts come to visit Scrooge in Charles Dickens’ ‘A Christmas Carol’?” There were four! And the bonus question was, “Name the musical group that once was known as ‘The Quarrymen’.” It was of course, “The Beatles”. When all was said and done, we had a perfect score! No Tie, no Tiebreaker Question, and the best part is these school teachers are going on the first 7-day cruise to Norway, and the follow-on 14-day cruise to the Baltic. And I was worried about coming up against retired schoolteachers on our Northern Europe cruise, while I should have been trying to figure out how to get on their team. Well at least they like our team name.

We headed to the casino and Sharon decided to play, even though she’d already managed to lose her limit for the day. She’s borrowing against tomorrow… and if she wins! OMG. Las Vegas may have turned my wife into a degenerate gambler. But if she wins! The dealer was waiting for me and the table was empty. We started out again with another really brutal shoe, just like the night before. Things improved some with the second shoe and I think I might have recouped my losses, and then some. I was able to take advantage of a number of the special Fun-21 rules. Mostly, all player 21’s win! But I got the bonus 3:2 payout for having 6-7-8 (for 21) and also for a 5-card 21! This table is a $6 table. They really want you to bet $5 on blackjack, and $1 on the side bet that you’re first two cards will add up to 20. But it’s better odds just to bet the whole $6 on blackjack. And at this table they pay blackjack 3:2. At the regular blackjack tables the blackjack payout is only 6:5. Another player asked if he could join, and a few hands later I decided to leave, with a nice profit. Sharon had left earlier complaining that Bob had not been good to her and something about skipping the slots for the next day or two.

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