Mar 13 – Cruising to Colombo

Despite the late departure from Thaliwa [Yangon], the captain has assured us [reassured us?] that we will arrive in Colombo Sunday at the scheduled time.  He has the proverbial pedal to the metal and said that everyone on the bridge had their hats on backwards as if they were racing.  British humor can be a bit dry.

We had another Cruise Critic meeting today.  The Hotel Manager, Henk, joined us at the beginning to reiterate the contents of a letter which had been delivered to our staterooms about the norovirus outbreak.  While it is abating and some services resumed, it is not over.  The self-service laundry is open for business again, but the library is not.  The Lido buffet will not resume its self-service aspects for a few more days and the MDR servers are still handling everything so that the tables are practically bare; salt, pepper, butter and bread are now served to us rather than at our fingertips.  These are small inconveniences we are willing to make to avoid more gastro-intestinal distress.

The CC meeting itself was a success if judged strictly by the numbers.  There were many more members in attendance than we had expected and the conversations were lively throughout the Crow’s Nest.  D had scrounged Grand Dollars from Gene, the CD, and gave them out.  Not everyone asked for them and Gene said to use the remaining dollars at the next meeting. 

We did not do as well as we would have liked at Team Trivia today, but we have five more sessions before this segment is over and prizes awarded.  Pub Trivia was better – we were first even though we only scored 10 points out of a possible eighteen.  It was brutal today.  We theorized that the questions [and answers] have gotten harder because they want to drive us to drink.

Formal night tonight was called The White Ball, but we had nothing white and did not care.  MA was able to have escargot again and we each had the seafood special consisting of a small lobster tail, one lonely shrimp and one scallop. Our waiter Kadek has gotten into the habit of bringing extra spinach whenever it is on the menu and tonight was no exception.  Pretty soon D will be able to do his Popeye imitation.  [A recent trivia question taught us that Popeye used to gobble garlic before the cartoonists switched to spinach.  Who would have guessed?]

TOMORROW – More of the same

Mar 14 – More Sea Time

There is nothing much to distinguish today from the other sea days. 

In addition to Team and Pub Trivia, we attended Barbara’s presentation on Kochi, India.  We will be on Ken’s tour there, so most of what Barbara said is moot since the itinerary is set. 

Marianne and Marcel Villaneuve from Ottawa ate with us tonight.  We play afternoon trivia with her and she is a Cruise Critic member.  One or the other of them has had medical issues since we sailed, but she said they are now healthy.  Yesterday she asked if the open invitation were still open and, obviously, it was. 

The pianist we liked last week was back for an encore performance tonight; we were not disappointed and were glad that we stayed up.

Tomorrow will be an early day because we have a tour scheduled.

TOMORROW – Colombo, Sri Lanka