Fiji Island Cruise - February 27 - March 9, 2014

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Friday, March 7, 2014



Today is the second of three sea days on our way back to Australia. Today we wanted to explore a few new areas that we have not seen since boarding the ship.



We ate breakfast in the dining room this morning. Each day we have gone to the dining room for breakfast, they put Cindy and I at a table for 10 people. Today, all our table mates were from Australia. This is exciting because we get meet new people. Breakfast was pretty much the same as prior days, Todd ate Eggs Benedict and Cindy had an open face veggie omelet. Cindy and I both ate fruit flavored yogurt with granola.



After breakfast, we headed to the High notes bar to work on the Internet to start using up our minutes. Cindy and I were able to post photos and my blog as well check email. While Cindy was working on the Internet, Todd returned to the room and made each of us a screw driver. Good stuff. Very productive this morning.



Cindy and I wanted to attend the morning trivia in Cleopatra’s lounge. We were late so were not able to participate or even find a seat. We answered a lot of the questions, however just could not compete. One positive thing that came out of not finding a seat if we were first in line to purchase Bingo tickets for the game.



Once the trivia was complete, part of the lounge emptied out and we were able to locate a seat close to the front. We had to wait 45 minutes before Bingo started, however at least we were able to find a place to sit. Bingo started 11:15am. We had four cards in the bundle, five sections for each of the four cards. It only cost $32.00. Although we did not win, we were close a few times. One thing that Cindy and I noticed was the cash prizes were much higher than what we had experienced on Princess.



Following Bingo, it was time for lunch. Prior to making it to lunch, we stopped at a store on the Royal Promenade. I bought a white polo that had the Royal Caribbean logo on the front side. The shirt was half price.



We decided to eat lunch in the Windjammer instead of the dining room. The food is so so, however enjoyed what they had to offer.



Following lunch, Cindy and I wanted to try our skills at playing putt putt golf on level 12, outdoors, at the back of the ship. I attached a few photos to the blog; the course was challenging to say the least. In the end, yours truly one by 5 strokes, however when we get to the real golf, I always lose to Cindy.



Following Todd’s victorious putt putt golf win, we headed to the adult only pool for swimming and relaxing. We ended up spending 3 hours at the pool, lying in a shaded area. I believe of the three hours at the pool, we took that long of a nap. Pretty funny. We are relaxing at another level.



Tonight is our 2^nd and last formal night. Cindy and I got dressed up in our formal wear and then headed to the champagne bar at 5:00pm. Today’s drink is Brisbane Punch. The cruise describes this drink as “a crisp and delicious twist of Smirnoff vodka, triple sec, sweet and sour and cranberry juice shaken together and topped with Sprit. It was very frustrating waiting for our drink, people kept sneaking in line and the bartender apparently only looked one in the bar. I finally said something. She felt really bad and only charged me for one drink instead of two. Since this was the last formal night and they were not taking photos anymore, Cindy and I went to several locations around the ship and had photos taken.



At 5:45pm, we were in the dining room ready for a great dinner with our table mates. Tonight Cindy and I ate a cold berry soup and a NY Strip. Both were very good. We have learned on the ship when you order meat, it needs to be ordered medium rare. For dessert, good lord too much food, Cindy ate orange mouse and I ate Kahlua Cake. During dinner I passed out a copy of each of our email and home addresses to everyone at our diner table. The guest relations desk was kind enough to make copies of the sheet everyone filled out last evening. Before dinner was complete, we had a waiter take a group photo. We also had our waiter pose with us. Our table again had some excellent discussions. It is really neat interacting with our table mates.



At 7:45pm, we joined the Trivia game in the Schooner Lounge. The trivia tonight was sports trivia. It covered US and International sports. Our team did fairly well this time around, however some of the questions were super hard.



The evening entertainment was a singer/impressionist/comedian, Jonathon Clark. He was entertaining and kept the crowd laughing. Found out during the performance that he is married to the singer from the other night. He was much better than his wife.



To cap off the evening, we went to the Battle of the Sexes game in the Cleopatra’s Needle. The host picked 6 women and 6 men to participate in this activity. There were six challenges. The first one was each group was given numbered cards, numbers one through 6. The host gave a number (using the 1-6 numbers) and each group had to stand in the correct order based on what the host said. The guys total stunk in this challenge. Women won this challenge. The second challenge was each team had to form a human circle holding hands. The object of this challenge was to see how many people could find in the circle. The women won this challenge too. The 3^rd challenge was creating a human line holding hands. It started in the lounge and went out to the Royal Promenade. Good grief, the women won again. The forth challenge was a human clothes line. People had to hang pieces of clothes on the person designated from each group. The stuff what people were putting on the human hanger was incredible. Bra’s, underwear, shoes, shirts, ties, etc. That was really funny. Women won this one too. Finally, the last challenge was a balloon relay. One person had to blow up a balloon, tie it off, and then carry it between your legs. Once you reach a team mate at the other side, you needed to put it in either the front, both sides of the body, or the back. The person then need to pop the balloon using your stomach, not fingers allowed. This was seriously funny. Some of the moves to get the balloons to pop I will not write about. In between the challenges, the host would ask the men and women to cheer. The loudest cheer would earn points.



In the end, the women won by a landslide.



Following this game, Cindy and I retired for the evening. Tomorrow is our last sea day before we arrive back in Sydney Sunday morning. Stay tuned for my blog entry on Saturday.

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