Australian Cruise: On Board – Days 7 and 8

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Written: Saturday, 15th October

Day 7 – Friday

We’ve now got two days at sea, arriving in Darwin on Sunday. We’ve got no plans for today apart from seeing the conclusion of the glass-blowing demo that started last night.

After breakfast in the Blu Restaurant, it was up onto the Solstice Deck for a comfy lounger and a bit of sun-bathing. We could feel the tropical temperature even at 9.30am and it’s good that the Solstice has so many shaded areas to retreat to!

Geographically speaking, today was significant, as we rounded the tip of Australia – exactly halfway through our Cruise.

Then it was off to see part-two of the glass-blowing demonstration – and the girls again, didn’t disappoint, creating a kangaroo (obviously!) and a decorative piece during their one-and-a-half-hour session.

There’s more tomorrow – and we’re hooked!

To finish of our day, we ate in one of the speciality restaurants. Tonight it was Silk Harvest, a Chinese/Vietnamese/Thai affair. It was a great atmosphere with some truly superb food (I really felt I couldn’t eat another thing, by the time we left!). The only part that took the edge off things was that they tried to sell us a bottle of wine at ‘half-price’ for £30 – the exact same wine costs £5 at ASDA. We expect a mark-up on ships, but this was just extortionate! 

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Day 8 – Saturday

The clocks went back 30 minutes last night (weird!), but we still managed to get to the Gym for 7am – and it looked like the rest of the passengers had the same idea. It took me a while to find an empty running-track, but I was soon into my familiar routine of a brisk 25-30 minute walk.

Then it was off to the greenhouse Deck to find the perfect spot for a combo of sun and shade – cue the ‘Mission Impossible’ theme as because of the incredible heat, certain areas couldn’t be used at all for sunbathing. This reduced the available spaces by quite a margin, but we were lucky and managed to find a spot.

    
‘Scorchio’ doesn’t even begin to describe it, with the wooden deck so hot, you couldn’t put your bare feet on it!

After around two hours, we’d had our ration of Vitamin D for today, and after a shower, headed for the Café for a quick bite.

…and then it as off to our fave event of this Cruise – the glass-blowing event.

As in previous events, the girls had us all spellbound demonstrating their skills – as well as coping with the extreme heat of working in front of the Ovens!

This is turning into our favourite event on-board and we’re almost certainly going to return for their show, the day-after-tomorrow: ‘The Science of Glass-blowing’.

Dress-code-wise, It’s about as formal as it gets tonight with Celebrity’s indecipherable ‘Elegant Chic’ night. For some, that will almost certainly mean they’ll need to iron their baseball cap!

UPDATE: Actually, most people took it very seriously tonight and I actually saw a few in bow-ties!

We enjoyed another great meal in the Blu Restaurant and afterward decided to see the Show in the Theatre. We don’t have a particularly good record of enjoying Shows on cruise ships. For us, they’re always too predictable, too cheesey, too noisy or just stuck in the 70s/80s. Tonight came with some higher expectations as it was the Ship’s theatre group’s – Broken Strings – final performance because their contracts had come to and end. So, take it away Broken Strings with a “a heartwarming story that celebrates the power of friendship, laughter and music.

Err… record maintained!

Darwin tomorrow, with similar temperatures to today predicted – Oh joy! Now I know how that glass feels!